Online tools have the power to unite researchers, citizens, and
scientists, speed up the process of discovery, and expand
scientific capabilities across the globe. This “networked
science” could dramatically transform the way science is done.
By uniting thousands of minds, networked problem-solving has
already tackled varied problems—from finding elusive answers to
seemingly impossible math problems, as seen in the Polymath
Project, to classifying galaxies in the far corners of the
universe. In his book Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of
Networked Science, Michael Nielsen, an Open Society Foundations
grantee, uses these examples and more to show that by connecting
vast numbers of scientists and ordinary citizens through the
internet, scientific problem-solving becomes faster and more
efficient. For these collaborations to reach their full
potential, Nielsen argues that networked science must also be
open science—in which all details of what scientists do are
freely available as they happen. This includes d