What Happens When Different Trajectories Converge?
from Section 3 - Bending the Arc
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2023
Lobbying, scientific elasticity, and serendipity can all lead to divergent research paths. But there is also an alternative method of changing the trajectory of discovery, which is the focus of Chapter 19: convergence. Conceptually, convergence can loosely be defined as the trajectories of different fields meeting at a common point or area. While very similar to the concept of interdisciplinarity, convergence is more structural and fundamental than the simple exchange of ideas denoted by interdisciplinarity. It doesn’t merely imply people from different backgrounds working together, but rather the effect of entire fields fusing - such as computing and biology combining to create computational biology - opening new avenues of thought and discovery. Chapter 19 is about how convergence can increase the rate of medical discovery, as well as how we can more systematically cultivate convergence in medical science.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.