[stared]

I have serious doubts that these discoveries were truly independent.

Phase transitions and statistical mechanics have a long history in physics. Over time, physicists and applied mathematicians began applying these techniques to other domains under the banner of "complex systems" (see, for example, https://complexsystemstheory.net/murray-gell-mann/).

Rather than independent reinvention, it seems much more likely that these fields adopted existing physics machinery. It wouldn't be the first time authors claimed novelty for applied concepts; if they tried this within physics, they’d be eaten alive. However, in other fields, reviewers might accept these techniques as novel simply because they lack the background in statistical mechanics.

[asgraham]

I know for a fact [1] that the neuroscientific discoveries were not independent of physics: the people doing the developing were largely former physicists. They likely didn't cite anything because why would you cite phase transitions or criticality? You learn about them in class as a physicist. I strongly suspect the ecology results weren't independent either, but all the theoretical ecologists I know are relatively young (if mostly former physicists) so no first person accounts.

The part of this that could totally be true is that a clinical application somewhere along the way "independently" "reinvented" it. There's a hilarious collection of peer-reviewed journal articles out there inventing a "new" method of calculating the sizes of shapes and areas under the curve. The method involves adding up really small rectangles. (I think a top comment already mentioned the Tai article [2])

[1] source: my doctoral advisor was a really really old theoretical neuroscientist who trained as an electrical engineer and mathematician. If you want a more concrete example, the work of Bard Ermentrout on neural criticality starting in the 70's or 80's. He read a lot of physics textbooks.

[2] https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/12/06/0416250/medical-...

[energyscholar]

Good correction! Ermentrout is a fair example. You're right that a lot of neuroscience criticality work came from retrained physicists. The paper distinguishes between independent derivation and cross-trained import. The title for this post over-simplifies this. I made this change to try to increase engagement, since the full detailed title got zero engagement.

Where I'd push back: even after physicists brought the tools into neuroscience, the receiving field didn't connect it back to the parallel work in ecology or cardiology. Ermentrout's neural work and Goldberger's cardiac work used the same underlying math but didn't cross-cite. The silos reformed around the imported tools.

You're correct that "none of them knew" is too strong. Fair point. "Most of them didn't talk to each other even after import" is closer to what the citation data actually shows.

[zozbot234]

> because why would you cite phase transitions or criticality? You learn about them in class as a physicist

I'm not sure if you're being entirely serious with that remark, but clearly citing the earlier work would have bolstered their credibility: interdisciplinary research is a plus and hardly something to hide. If it's something that's taught in physics class, you can cite a common textbook.

[semi-extrinsic]

The disease of having 100 citations in each paper had not yet broken out when the papers in question were written. A good paper in 1994 probably had about 8 references, and certainly not any to common textbooks.

[saltcured]

I would read it as there being a different threshold for what is citation-worthy versus presumed background knowledge.

Imagine if every graphics paper had to cite every concept they use from arithmetic, trigonometry, and linear algebra textbooks...

[zozbot234]

This was citation worthy because it's new knowledge to the field. Even in a graphics paper, you can cite whatever basic techniques you're using if it's not clear that everyone will be familiar with them.

[energyscholar]

You're raising the right question, and the paper addresses it directly. The transfer wasn't as clean as "physicists applied their tools to other fields."

Some specific cases: Wissel (1984) derived critical slowing down for ecology independently and was ignored for 20 years. The actual import to ecology came via economist Buz Brock, not a physicist. Nolasco & Dahlen (1968) derived period-doubling for cardiac tissue before Feigenbaum's universality result. Jaeger (2001) derived the edge-of-chaos condition for recurrent neural networks without citing Bak, Kauffman, or Langton.

The complex systems movement you reference existed. The paper documents that it didn't actually solve the transfer problem. The cross-citation analysis shows the gaps persisted through the 2000s and 2010s.

You're right that some domains imported rather than reinvented. The paper maps where each transfer was independent, where it was imported, and where it was partial. That's the point — the pattern is messier and more interesting than either "all independent" or "all imported."

[stared]

Well, just because someone published does not mean that it was not (even implicitly) based. For example, there was a paper rediscovering trapezoid method of integration https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscover... A scientist may had been not aware of the method - yet, mathematics used for that is thought in high school.

Note that phase transitions are 100 years old or so. If someone genuinely does not know statistical mechanics, they still may know a lot of tools derived from it (a famous one - Shannon entropy).

I am not saying it is impossible to independently discover something (it happens all the time), but if discoveries are not (more or less) as the same time, likely there was some knowledge diffusion before.

[shermantanktop]

> You're raising the right question

> You're right that…

> That's the point —

[Kim_Bruning]

I looked through this users' submissions and comments.

I think this whole operation just completely violates HN rules.

[Kim_Bruning]

Ha! I actually phoned their number. At the very least they're a real human being (as far as I can tell). But they're doing this while on holiday, and they didn't realize you shouldn't use an LLM to answer people. Not the smartest move ever!

Lessons learned I suppose.

[doe88]

Trolling us is the real experiment? I suddenly feels angry losing my time reading this submission.

[ajkjk]

AI comment?

[jmcgough]

AI comment, AI article, AI research. This feels like someone asked their AI assistant to do all of this as some kind of experiment.

[Kim_Bruning]

Escaped Openclaw? Not using Opus for the HN conversation though. I'm spotting 'constitution' violations.

edit: (tried calling them. If there's a mac mini in the corner of their office doing this, that'd be an actually interesting story!)

[Kim_Bruning]

They called back. They're a real human.

[ajkjk]

Doesn't count for much, unfortunately

[svara]

I mean, introducing a technique from one field in another is innovative.

You don't get to claim you invented it, but a lot of progress happens by finding connections between things that are individually well known.

[smitty1e]

> You don't get to claim you invented it

Re-inventing the wheel is completely in order, so long as one makes the wheel more round.