Almost any mathematical concept has antecedents; it builds on, or is related to, previously known concepts. But are there concepts that owe little or nothing to previous work?


The only example I know is Cantor's theory of sets. Nothing like his concrete manipulations of actual infinite objects had been done before.



What are some mathematical concepts that were (pretty much) created from scratch and do not owe a debt to previous work?
Shannon's work on Information theory. Maybe the math wasn't new but the ideas (such as positing a qualitative metric of information and identifying its relevance to design of communication systems) definitely were.


