ABSTRACT
Discoveries do not arise out of nothing. Each new theory or experimental result has its own background and recognizing the achievements of predecessors is a sign of scientific professionalism. On the other hand, discoveries do not take place ‘according to plan’. They are always unexpected. For example, Christopher Columbus was looking for a new route to India and discovered America. This discovery would not have taken place if all previous history of naval engineering, navigation, combined with the courage and tenacity of Columbus and his companions did not pave the way across the ocean. When the new continent was ‘discovered’, the Europeans met people who had come there thousands of years before Columbus and even managed to create the civilizations. Perhaps the stories of many scientific discoveries have something akin to the discovery of America: based on the experience of predecessors, the researcher hunts for the predicted outcome and unexpectedly finds something new… And then it turns out that he is not the first ‘on this continent’. The history of the discovery of self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) is not an exception.
