Can collaboration lead to scientific breakthroughs?

[geordief]

I am aware of instances where a breakthrough in science has been made more or less simultaneously and independently by different people (I think Calculus may have been an example).
But are there instances of the opposite effect (kind of) where a breakthrough was made as a result of a communication between 2 or more researchers.I don't really mean between researchers who are already working together (like Crick and Watson ,say) but between people who were working separately and maybe in different discipines and where the breakthrough turned out to be important?

 

[mathman]

Discovery of cosmic microwave background. Predicted by physicists at Princeton, discovered by engineers at Bell labs.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I am aware of instances where a breakthrough in science has been made more or less simultaneously and independently by different people (I think Calculus may have been an example).
But are there instances of the opposite effect (kind of) where a breakthrough was made as a result of a communication between 2 or more researchers.I don't really mean between researchers who are already working together (like Crick and Watson ,say) but between people who were working separately and maybe in different discipines and where the breakthrough turned out to be important?

Most technological breakthroughs occur when there is 'friendly competition' between groups- the laser is a canonical example. There were several groups working independently that kept track of each others work. High temperature superconductors is another example.

That said, most scientific progress now requires close collaboration between various groups- each contributes a specific part to the whole project. The days of a lone wolf making a landmark contribution are over.