Is it possible for several scientists who have never met each other to contribute to the same scientific knowledge, theory, or law? Explain please? :)

Question

Is it possible for several scientists who have never met each other to contribute to the same scientific knowledge, theory, or law?  Explain please? :)

anonymous · Answer

Well Isaac Newton (who died in 1727) and Albert Einstein (who was born in 1879) both contributed substantially to the theory of gravity, so I'd say yes.

anonymous · Answer

how did they both contribute?

anonymous · Answer

Newton invented several essential mathematical and conceptual tools, including calculus, the idea of inertia, the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, and the force law for gravity that holds at low energies.  Einstein extended Newton to refine the idea of time, put mechanics on the same footings as electrodynamics, and come up with force laws for gravity that work also at high energy.  (Although not at the very highest energies, since that requires consistency with quantum mechanics.)

That's a very sketchy answer, because the contributions of both men are profound and wide-ranging, and it would take a solid book or at least a well-written lengthy essay to due justice to both.  Any research you undertaken into the contributions of Newton or Einstein, or the nature of gravity, will be well repaid.