10 Incredible Cases of Inventions Being Created Simultaneously

It’s sometimes thought that the creation of world-changing inventions is like lightning never striking twice, with one brilliant mind being responsible. But much like lightning, which often doesstrike the same place twice, there have been many inventions that have been independently created by different people—with absolutely no knowledge of each other—at almost exactly the same time.

Although the abundance of parallel inventions throughout history may seem strange, it’s actually just a result of all of the right foundational ingredients being there and ready for mixing. Here are 10 important inventions that just so happened to be simultaneously created. 

1. Calculus
2. Chloroform
3. Hypodermic Syringe
4. Color Photography
5. Telephone
6. Light Bulb
7. Epinephrine
8. Jet Engine
9. Microchip
10. ATM

Calculus

At the turn of the 18th century, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz got into a heated argument about who invented calculus. Newton claimed that he first delved into the mathematics of change in 1666, but his findings weren’t published until 1736. Leibniz started working on calculus during the early 1670s and published his first article on the subject in 1684. Although accusations of plagiarism were thrown about, it’s now generally accepted that they each developed their ideas independently. The workings in their manuscripts even prove that they arrived at calculus in different ways: Newton came to it from the differentiation angle, while Leibniz started with integration.

Chloroform

Chloroform was independently synthesized not just twice in the same year, but thrice. In 1831, Samuel Guthrie from America, Eugène Soubeiran from France, and Justus von Liebig from Germany all created chloroform without any knowledge of each other’s research. Guthrie’s report on the compound was published first, with both Soubeiran and von Liebig’s papers not coming out until 1832 [PDF]. Although the chemical didn’t become popular as an anesthetic until Scottish obstetrician James Young Simpson started using it in 1847 (he didn’t know it was toxic), Guthrie had previously noted “its probable value as a medicine.”

Hypodermic Syringe

Although there are instances of earlier attempts to create medical syringes and needles, the first proper hypodermic syringes can be traced back to 1853. Scottish physician Alexander Wood wanted to find a way to treat localized pain, so he took a hollow needle, attached it to a glass syringe, and added a plunger. Not only did this device enable doctors to administer medicine beneath the skin, but the glass barrel meant that dosages could be very accurately measured.

That same year, French surgeon Charles Gabriel Pravaz coincidentally created a very similar device. His syringe was made of silver—rather than glass—and used a screw to inject medicine into the body. Although it achieved the same purpose, Wood’s more practical version is the one that took off; his device is credited as the first modern hypodermic syringe and is essentially the same design that’s used today (although they’re now usually made of plastic).  

Color Photography

On May 7, 1869, Louis Ducos du Hauron put forward his method for taking photographs in color—via the use of green, violet, and orange filters combined with negatives containing red, blue, and yellow pigments—at a presentation to the French Photography Society. In a bizarre coincidence, Charles Cros presented basically the same method to the same Photography Society that very same day. 

Ducos du Hauron and Cros had never met and had no idea the other was working on the same technique. Instead of being bitter, the two Frenchmen became friends; Cros let Ducos du Hauron take the color photography limelight. While Ducos du Hauron continued to improve his photography method, Cros switched his attention to sound recording (his theoretical paper on the subject was published three months before Thomas Edison created his phonograph).

Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell is widely recognized as the inventor of the telephone, but on the day he submitted the patent for his idea—February 14, 1876—another inventor, Elisha Gray, just so happened to file a patent caveat for a very similar device. Gray accused Bell of stealing his idea, and the resulting controversy lasted for decades. In 2020, Dr. Benjamin Brown, an emeritus professor of physics at Marquette University, settled the debate in favor of Bell. By investigating each inventor’s letters and notes in the development of the telephone, Brown found that Bell’s initial idea predated Gray’s by a month.

Light Bulb

Thomas Edison is typically credited with having the bright idea that led to the first practical incandescent light bulb (the attempts of earlier scientists either burned out too quickly, were too costly to produce, or both). But Edison wasn’t the only one tinkering to improve the designs of previous inventors. Across the Atlantic Ocean in England, Joseph Swan was working on the same problem. While Edison’s bulb sparked into life in January 1879, Swan patented his design in 1878 and demonstrated it in February the following year.

“I had the mortification one fine morning of finding you on my track and in several particulars ahead of me—but now I think I have shot ahead of you,” Swan wrote in an 1880 letter (which was likely unsent) to Edison. Although he thought he was ahead, it was Edison who ultimately solved the issue of practicality by using a thin carbonized cotton filament to extend the light’s lifespan.

Epinephrine

In 1895, Napoleon Cybulski from Poland became the first person to identify the adrenaline, a.k.a. epinephrine, compound. Over the next few years, other scientists around the world studied and isolated adrenaline, but it wasn’t until 1904 that it was successfully synthesized in a lab—twice. Working independently, Friedrich Stolz from Germany and Henry Drysdale Dakin from England both managed to recreate the compound, making it far easier to produce epinephrine for medical use. 

Jet Engine

In 1928, 22-year-old RAF cadet Frank Whittle had the idea to use jet propulsion—rather than piston engines—to power airplanes. Although his idea was initially rejected, the RAF eventually decided to back Whittle, and in 1934 they sent him to the University of Cambridge to get a degree in engineering. With limited funds, Whittle dedicated the next few years of his life to creating a jet engine—something which became all the more pressing with the start of World War II in 1939. 

On May 15, 1941, Whittle’s prototype plane was finally successfully test flown. What he didn’t know was that almost two years earlier—on August 27, 1939—the Germans had already conducted a successful jet engine test flight thanks to designs of Hans von Ohain. While von Ohain didn’t have the same practical mechanical skills as Whittle, he had proper financing and a full team to execute his ideas.

“If you had been given the money you would have been six years ahead of us,” von Ohain told Whittle when they met years later. Both inventors happened to move to the U.S.—von Ohain in 1947 and Whittle in 1976—and despite fighting on opposite sides of the war, they became firm friends.

Microchip

During the late 1950s, Texas Instruments employee Jack Kilby came up with the idea for an integrated circuit, otherwise known as a microchip. TI filed for a patent in February 1959; just five months later engineer Robert Noyce submitted a patent for essentially the same product, but with a different manufacturing process. 

Both versions of the microchip were independently designed. While Kilby got there first, Noyce’s version was superior. His design was fully integrated (Kilby’s wasn’t), made of silicon rather than germanium, and was easier to mass produce. Both men are considered to be co-creators of the microchip, but only Kilby won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for the achievement because Noyce had died a decade earlier. 

ATM

The first two ATMs in the world were opened just nine days apart from each other. On June 27, 1967, an automated teller machine was opened at a Barclays Bank in London. The ATM was the idea of John Shepherd-Barron—the Managing Director of De La Rue, a banknote manufacturer—who was frustrated with not being able to withdraw cash when the banks shut over the weekend.

“It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK,” he recalled in 2007. “I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.” He took the idea to Barclays, who immediately seized on the proposal. The machine was fairly similar to modern ATMs, with users inserting a check and a PIN to withdraw their money. 

A little over a week after the reveal of the Barclays ATM, a similar machine—the Bankomat—happened to launch at Uppsala Sparbank in Sweden. Developed by Metior, the company had already used similar technology to allow people entry through locked doors and to pay at petrol pumps (called “the Tankomat”).

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