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physicswizard t1_iwmcubu wrote

Reply to comment by TwoUglyFeet in Ask Anything Wednesday - Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science by AutoModerator

The advancement of science is very much an international effort nowadays. People from all over the world collaborate on scientific projects together if they have the knowledge and desire to do so. However, some countries can't contribute as much resources to certain efforts due to many reasons including funding (small, poor countries don't have the budget), lack of expertise (one country monopolizes a single field because all the experts congregate there, or there is a brain drain from less developed countries), politics (some USSR/USA scientists/engineers were forbidden to collaborate during the cold war for national security reasons).

So everyone contributes what they can typically, just some are limited in what they can do alone.

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TwoUglyFeet t1_iwmecq2 wrote

It is now, but I was wondering if other countries had their own scientific research that say, made the discovery of the atom or dna or formulated predictions of things that were discovered by European, American or Russian science agencies?

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mfb- t1_iwnzk3x wrote

There are cases where things were discovered in multiple places, but that's usually the result of multiple groups having success at around the same time - and the groups know about each other. One group discovering X and then several years another group discovering X independently is very rare as that would mean they didn't talk to each other for years or the second group doesn't know what's happening in their field. That does occur for nuclear weapons and other sensitive technology, but it's very unusual otherwise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries

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