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| '''Serendipity''': to make discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things not in quest of. | '''Serendipity''': to make discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things not in quest of. | ||
| The word '''serendipity''' has come from an old ] ] and was coined by ] ], ], in a letter he wrote to his friend, Horace Mann, the English resident in Florence. | The word '''serendipity''' has come from an old ] {{fact}} ] and was coined by ] ], ], in a letter he wrote to his friend, Horace Mann, the English resident in Florence. | ||
| "I once read a silly fairy tale, called '']'': as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand ''serendipity''? One of the most remarkable instances of this ''accidental sagacity'' (for you must observe that ''no'' discovery of a thing you ''are'' looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table."<ref>as given by W.S. Lewis, ed., ''Horace Walpole's Correspondence'', Yale edition, in the book by Theodore G. Remer, Ed.: ''Serendipity and the Three Princes, from the Peregrinaggio of 1557, Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Theodore G. Remer, Preface by W.S. Lewis''. University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. LCC 65-10112</ref> | "I once read a silly fairy tale, called '']'': as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand ''serendipity''? One of the most remarkable instances of this ''accidental sagacity'' (for you must observe that ''no'' discovery of a thing you ''are'' looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table."<ref>as given by W.S. Lewis, ed., ''Horace Walpole's Correspondence'', Yale edition, in the book by Theodore G. Remer, Ed.: ''Serendipity and the Three Princes, from the Peregrinaggio of 1557, Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Theodore G. Remer, Preface by W.S. Lewis''. University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. LCC 65-10112</ref> | ||
Revision as of 00:11, 1 September 2006
For other uses, see Serendipity (disambiguation).Serendipity: to make discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things not in quest of.
The word serendipity has come from an old persian fairy tale and was coined by Horace Walpole 28 January, 1754, in a letter he wrote to his friend, Horace Mann, the English resident in Florence.
"I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table."
There are three interrelated debates regarding the meaning of the word serendipity:
- The first debate: are the events referred to by Walpole in his letter to Mann, good examples of serendipity, as defined by Walpole? Expanding on this debate, are any of the adventures of the Three Princes, good examples of Walpole's definition of serendipity?
- The second debate: if the examples of serendipity cited by Walpole are not good examples of serendipity, what should determine the meaning of the word serendipity, Walpole's precise definition, or a definition derived from the adventures of the Three Princes?
- The third debate: given the range of current definitions for the word serendipity, from Walpole's precise or strict definition to extremely loose definitions, what events should be cited as actual occurrences of serendipity?
History of the word
For more information about the story that inspired Horace Walpole to coin the word serendipity, see the entry The Three Princes of Serendip.
Examples of serendipity in science and technology
- Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, by Arno A. Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson. What they tought was an excess temperature in their antenna at Bell Labs amounted to the long-sought CMBR.
- Gelignite by Alfred Nobel
- Penicillin by Alexander Fleming. He failed to desinfect cultures of bacteria when leaving for his vacations, only to find them contaminated with Penicillium molds, which killed the bacteria.
- Polyethylene by Hans von Pechmann, who prepared it by accident in 1898 while heating diazomethane
- Post-it Notes by Spencer Silver and Arthur Fry. They tried to develop a new glue at 3M, but it would not dry. So they devised a new use for it.
- Psychedelic effects of LSD by Dr. Albert Hofmann. A chemist, he accidentally ingested a small amount of it upon investigating its properties, and had the first trip in history, while cycling to his home in Switzerland.
- Silly Putty by James Wright, on the way to solving another problem: finding a rubber substitute for the United States during World War II.
- Velcro by Georges de Mestral. The idea came to him after walking through a field and observing the hooks of burdock attached to his pants
- Radioactivity, by Henri Becquerel. While trying to investigate phosphorescent materials using photographic plates, he stumbled on uranium.
- Bioelectricity, by Luigi Galvani. He was dissecting a frog at a table where he had been conducting experiments with static electricity, Galvani's assistant touched an exposed sciatic nerve of the frog with a metal scalpel, which had picked up a charge, provoking a muscle contraction.
- X rays, by Wilhelm Roentgen. Interested in investigating cathodic ray tubes, he noted that some fluorescent papers in his lab were illuminated at a distance
- Electromagnetism, by Hans Christian Oersted. While he was setting up his materials for a lecture, he noticed a compass needle deflected from magnetic north when the electric current from the battery he was using was switched on and off.
- Neural control of blood vessels, by Claude Bernard
- Anaphylaxis, by Charles Richet
- J/Psi meson, by Samuel C.C. Ting and Burton Richter.
- Pulsars, by Antony Hewish and Jocelyn Bell Burnell. What they tought was a radio emission from intelligent sources in a far away galaxy, resulted in the discovery of a new type of rapidly rotating star.
- Vulcanization of rubber, by Charles Goodyear. A piece of rubber mixture with carbon and sulfur was accidentally left by him on a hot plate, producing hard rubber
- Chemical synthesis of urea, by Friedrich Woehler. He was attempting to produce ammonium cyanate by mixing potassium cyanate and ammonium chloride and got urea, the first organic chemical to be synthetised
- Pittacal, the first synthetic dyestuff, by Carl Ludwig Reichenbach. The dark blue dye appeared on wooden posts painted with creosote to drive away dogs who urinated on them.
- The role of pancreas in glucose metabolism, by Oskar Minkowski. Dogs that had had their pancreas removed for an unrelated physiological investigation, urinated profusely and the urine attracted flies, indicating its high glucose content
- Mauve, ther first aniline dye, by William Henry Perkin. Then eighteen, was attempting to create artificial quinine. An unexpected residue caught his eye, which turned out to be the first aniline dye—specifically, mauveine, sometimes called aniline purple.
- Racemization, by Louis Pasteur
- Teflon, by Roy J. Plunkett, who was trying to develop a new gas for refrigeration and got a slick substance instead, which was used first for lubrication of machine parts
- 5-fluorouracil's therapeutic action on actinic keratosis
- Minoxidil's action on baldness, originally it was an oral agent for treating hypertension. It was observed that bald patients treated with it grew hair too.
- Viagra (sildenafil citrate), an anti-impotence drug. It was initially studied for use in hypertension and angina pectoris. Phase I clinical trials under the direction of Ian Osterloh suggested that the drug had little effect on angina, but that it could induce marked penile erections.
- Retin-A anti-wrinkle action. It was a vitamin A derivative first used for treating acne. The accidental result in some older people was a reduction of wrinkles on the face
- The libido-enhancing effect of l-dopa, a drug used for treating Parkinson's disease. Older patients in a sanatorium had their long-lost interest in sex suddenly revived.
Other examples of serendipity
Stories of accidental discovery in exploration abound, of course, because the aim of exploration is to find new things and places. The principle of serendipity applies here, however, when the explorer had an aim in mind and found another unexpectedly. Some classical cases were:
- The first European to set foot on North America was Leif Ericsson, who was trying to escape from a storm
- The discovery of an entirely new continent by Christopher Columbus, who was actually looking for a new way to India
- South America was also discovered by accident, first by Spaniard Vicente Pinzon, who was only exploring the West Indies previously discovered by him and Columbus, and stumbled upon Northeast of Brazil, in the region now known as Cabo de Santo Agostinho, in the state of Pernambuco. He also discovered the Amazon and Oiapoque rivers; and Pedro Álvares Cabral, a Portuguese admiral, who was sailing with his fleet to India via the South African route discovered by Magellan and was deviated to the coast of Brazil.
Uses of Serendipity
Serendipity is used as a sociological method in Anselm L. Strauss' and Barney G. Glaser's Grounded Theory, building on ideas by sociologist Robert K. Merton, who in Social Theory and Social Structure (1949) referred to the "serendipity pattern" as the fairly common experience of observing an unanticipated, anomalous and strategic datum which becomes the occasion for developing a new theory or for extending an existing theory. Robert K. Merton also coauthored (with Elinor Barber) The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), which traces the origins and uses of the word "serendipity" since it was coined. The book is "a study in sociological semantics and the sociology of science", as the subtitle of the book declares. It further develops the idea of serendipity as scientific "method" (as juxtaposed with purposeful discovery by experiment or retrospective prophecy).
Trivia
Serendip is the old Arabic name for Sri Lanka.
The episode in the story is a case of abductive reasoning (as used by Sherlock Holmes), which later leads to unsought "serendipitous" rewards from the king.
The word 'serendipity' has been voted as one of the ten English words that were hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company. However, due to its sociological use, the word has been imported into many other languages (Portuguese serendipicidade or serendipidade; French sérendipicité or sérendipité but also heureux hasard, fortunate chance; Spanish serendipia; Italian serendipità; Dutch serendipiteit).
Related terms
William Boyd coined the term zemblanity to mean somewhat the opposite of serendipity: "making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries occurring by design". It derives from Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla), a cold, barren land with many features opposite to the lush Sri Lanka (Serendip).
Bahramdipity is derived directly from Bahram Gur as characterized in the "Three Princes of Serendip". It describes the suppression of serendipitous discoveries or research results by powerful individuals.
Bibliography
- Theodore G. Remer, Ed.: Serendipity and the Three Princes, from the Peregrinaggio of 1557, Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Theodore G. Remer, Preface by W.S. Lewis. University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. LCC 65-10112
- Robert K. Merton, Elinor Barber: The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science. Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-691-11754-3. (Manuscript written 1958).
- Patrick J. Hannan: Serendipity, Luck and Wisdom in Research. iUniverse, 2006. ISBN 0-595-36551-5
- Royston M. Roberts: Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science. Wiley, 1989. ISBN 0-471-60203-5
- Pek Van Andel: "Anatomy of the unsought finding : serendipity: origin, history, domains, traditions, appearances, patterns and programmability." British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1994, 45(2), 631-648.
References
- as given by W.S. Lewis, ed., Horace Walpole's Correspondence, Yale edition, in the book by Theodore G. Remer, Ed.: Serendipity and the Three Princes, from the Peregrinaggio of 1557, Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Theodore G. Remer, Preface by W.S. Lewis. University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. LCC 65-10112
- Boyd, William. Armadillo, Chapter 12, Knopf, New York, 1998. ISBN 0-375-40223-3
- (a) Sommer, Toby J. "'Bahramdipity' and Scientific Research", The Scientist, 1999, 13(3), 13.
(b) Sommer, Toby J. "Bahramdipity and Nulltiple Scientific Discoveries," Science and Engineering Ethics, 2001, 7(1), 77-104.
See also
External links
- Polymers & Serendipity: Case Studies -- rayon, nylon, and more examples in chemistry
- Max - A software agent built to induce serendipity.
- The Three Princes of Serendip – one version of the story.
- Serendip - a website continually evolving using the principles of serendipity
- Serendipity Blog - an open source blogging script
- Serendipity and the Internet from Bill Thompson at the BBC