Invention of the telephone
2023-07-26
If Alexander Graham Bell had not secured the patent for inventing the telephone, Elisha Gray would have gotten it because they both applied for the telephone patent on the same day (Feb 14, 1876).
That is via Noahpinion in his interview with Kevin Kelley. Kelley's point is that invention is an emergent property of society (what he calls the technium), rather than an individual act.