Disruptive ideas don't happen on a big team

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Moments of great scientific disruption aren't necessarily glamorous.

A world-changing idea might spring up when someone is sitting in an office or scrawling notes, or maybe riffing with a colleague. (Those few colourful stories of Newton's apple and Archimedes' bathtub are probably apocryphal.)

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 27, 2019, with the headline Disruptive ideas don't happen on a big team. Subscribe