Looking at the list of important papers in computer science one notices that the majority are authored by a single author. Those include classic papers of Turing, Shannon, Karp and Cook. Cook's solo paper started the most important question of computer science.
How can we explain this? What are the implications to the creative process in theoretical computer science?
I am aware of paradigm shifts and paradigm blindness. However, I doubt they fully explain this phenomena.
Here is the list that includes important papers in TCS which motivated my question.