Serendipitous
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Serendipity is an unplanned fortunate discovery. Serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of product invention and scientific discovery.


Etymology

The first noted use of "serendipity" was by Horace Walpole on 28 January 1754. In a letter he wrote to his friend
Horace Mann Horace Mann (May 4, 1796August 2, 1859) was an American educational reformer, slavery abolitionist and Whig politician known for his commitment to promoting public education. In 1848, after public service as Secretary of the Massachusetts St ...
, Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made about a lost painting of Bianca Cappello by
Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...
by reference to a Persian fairy tale, ''
The Three Princes of Serendip ''The Three Princes of Serendip'' is the English version of the story ''Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo'' published by Michele Tramezzino in Venice in 1557. Tramezzino claimed to have heard the story from one Cristofor ...
''. The princes, he told his correspondent, were "always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of." The name comes from '' Serendip'', an old Persian name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), hence ''Sarandib'' by Arab traders. It is derived from the Sanskrit ''Siṃhaladvīpaḥ'' (Siṃhalaḥ, Sri Lanka + dvīpaḥ, island). The word has been exported into many other languages, with the general meaning of "unexpected discovery" or "fortunate chance".


Applications


Inventions

The term "serendipity" is often applied to inventions made by chance rather than intent. Andrew Smith, editor of ''The'' ''Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink'', has speculated that most everyday products had serendipitous roots, with many early ones related to animals. The origin of cheese, for example, possibly originated in the
nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
practice of storing milk in the stomach of a dead camel that was attached to the saddle of a live one, thereby mixing rennet from the stomach with the milk stored within. Other examples of serendipity in inventions include: * The
Post-It Note A Post-it Note (or sticky note) is a small piece of paper with a re-adherable strip of glue on its back, made for temporarily attaching notes to documents and other surfaces. A low-tack pressure-sensitive adhesive allows the notes to be easil ...
, which emerged after 3M scientist Spencer Silver produced a weak adhesive, and a colleague used it to keep bookmarks in place on a church hymnal. *
Silly Putty Silly Putty is a toy based on silicone polymers that have unusual physical properties. It bounces, but it breaks when given a sharp blow, and it can also flow like a liquid. It contains a viscoelastic liquid silicone, a type of non-Newtonian f ...
, which came from a failed attempt at synthetic rubber. * The use of sensors to prevent automobile air bags from killing children, which came from a chair developed by the
MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...
for a Penn and Teller magic show. * The
microwave oven A microwave oven (commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce ...
. Raytheon scientist Percy Spencer first patented the idea behind it after noticing that emissions from radar equipment had melted the candy in his pocket. * The
Velcro Velcro, officially known as Velcro IP Holdings LLC and trading as Velcro Companies, is a British privately held company, founded by Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral in the 1950s. It is the original manufacturer of hook-and-loop fast ...
hook-and-loop fastener. George de Mestral came up with the idea after a bird hunting trip when he viewed cockleburs stuck to his pants under a microscope and saw that each burr was covered with tiny hooks. * The Popsicle, whose origins go back to San Francisco where Frank Epperson, age 11, accidentally left a mix of water and soda powder outside to freeze overnight. * Polymer
teflon Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that has numerous applications. It is one of the best-known and widely applied PFAS. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemo ...
, which Roy J. Plunkett observed forming a white mass inside a pressure bottle during an effort to make a new CFCs refrigerant. *The antibiotic penicillin, which was discovered by
Sir Alexander Fleming Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish physician and microbiologist, best known for discovering the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance, which he named penicillin. His discovery in 1928 of what ...
after returning from a vacation to find that a Petri dish containing staphylococcus culture had been infected by a ''Penicillium'' mold, and no bacteria grew near it. *The effect on humans of the psychedelic lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was discovered by Swiss chemist
Albert Hofmann Albert Hofmann (11 January 1906 – 29 April 2008) was a Swiss chemist known for being the first to synthesize, ingest, and learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Hofmann's team also isolated, named and synthesi ...
in 1943, after unintentionally ingesting an unknown amount, possibly absorbing it through his skin.


Discoveries

Serendipity contributed to entomologist Shaun Winterton discovering '' Semachrysa jade'', a new species of lacewing, which he found not in its native Malaysia, but on the photo-sharing site
Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and profession ...
. Winterton's discovery was aided by Flickr's ability to present images that are personalized to a user's interests, thereby increasing the odds he would chance upon the photo. Computer scientist Jaime Teevan has argued that serendipitous discovery is promoted by such personalisation, writing that "people don't know what to do with random new information. Instead, we want information that is at the fringe of what we already know, because that is when we have the cognitive structures to make sense of the new ideas."


Online activity

Serendipity is a design principle for online activity that would present viewpoints that diverge from those participants already hold. Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein argues that such an "architecture of serendipity" would promote a healthier democracy. Like a great city or university, "a well-functioning information market" provides exposure to new ideas, people, and ways of life. "Serendipity is crucial because it expands your horizons. You need that if you want to be free." The idea has potential application in the design of social media, information searches, and web browsing.


Related terms

Several uncommonly used terms have been derived from the concept and name of serendipity. William Boyd coined the term zemblanity in the late twentieth century to mean somewhat the opposite of serendipity: "making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries occurring by design". The derivation is speculative, but believed to be from Nova Zembla, a barren archipelago once the site of Russian nuclear testing. Bahramdipity is derived directly from
Bahram Gur Bahram V (also spelled Wahram V or Warahran V; pal, 𐭥𐭫𐭧𐭫𐭠𐭭), also known as Bahram Gor (New Persian: , "Bahram the onager") was the Sasanian King of Kings (''shahanshah'') from 420 to 438. The son of the incumbent Sasanian sha ...
as characterized in ''
The Three Princes of Serendip ''The Three Princes of Serendip'' is the English version of the story ''Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo'' published by Michele Tramezzino in Venice in 1557. Tramezzino claimed to have heard the story from one Cristofor ...
''. It describes the ''suppression'' of serendipitous discoveries or research results by powerful individuals. In addition, Solomon & Bronstein (2018) further distinguish between perceptual and realised pseudo-serendipity and nemorinity.Solomon, Yosef, & Bronstein, Jenny. "Information Serendipity, Pseudo-Serendipity, Zemblanity, Disruptive Discovery and Nemorinity: Revisiting Donizetti's and Romani's Opera Buffa L'elisir d'Amore"
''iConference Proceedings'', 2018, 1–4


See also

*
Browse Browsing is a kind of orienting strategy. It is supposed to identify something of relevance for the browsing organism. When used about human beings it is a metaphor taken from the animal kingdom. It is used, for example, about people browsing o ...
*
Coincidence A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...
*
Felix culpa ''Felix culpa'' is a Latin phrase that comes from the words ''felix,'' meaning "happy," "lucky," or "blessed" and ''culpa,'' meaning "fault" or "fall". In the Catholic tradition, the phrase is most often translated "happy fault", as in the Catholi ...
*
Insight Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intui ...
*
Lateral thinking Lateral thinking is a manner of solving problems using an indirect and creative approach via reasoning that is not immediately obvious. It involves ideas that may not be obtainable using only traditional step-by-step logic. The term was first u ...
*
Multiple discovery Multiple may refer to: Economics * Multiple finance, a method used to analyze stock prices *Multiples of the price-to-earnings ratio *Chain stores, are also referred to as 'Multiples' *Box office multiple, the ratio of a film's total gross to th ...
*
Role of chance in scientific discoveries The role of chance, or "luck", in science comprises all ways in which unexpected discoveries are made. Many domains, especially psychology, are concerned with the way science interacts with chance — particularly "serendipity" (accidents that, t ...
* '' Serendipaceratops'' *
Serendipity Sapphire Serendipity Sapphire is the world's largest star sapphire cluster. It weighs . It was found in Kahawatte in the Ratnapura District, Sri Lanka, in July 2021. Its worth is estimated to be up to US$100 million. The cluster is in length, in widt ...
*
Side effect In medicine, a side effect is an effect, whether therapeutic or adverse, that is secondary to the one intended; although the term is predominantly employed to describe adverse effects, it can also apply to beneficial, but unintended, consequence ...
*
Synchronicity Synchronicity (german: Synchronizität) is a concept first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl G. Jung "to describe circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection." In contemporary research, synchronicity e ...


References


Further reading

* (Manuscript written 1958). * * *Isabelle Rivoal and Noel B. Salazar (2013)
Contemporary ethnographic practice and the value of serendipity
''Social Anthropology,'' 21(2): 178–85.


External links


ACM Paper on Creating serendipitous encounters in a geographically distributed community

The Serendipity Equations


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BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
series by Simon Singh {{authority control Philosophy of science Synchronicity Scientific method Inventions Luck