Serendipity
I heard an episode of The Writers Almanac a few months ago that got me thinking about serendipity. I learned that lots of wonderful things have come about when researchers were looking for something else, including Silly Putty, penicillin, the principles of X-rays and chocolate chip cookies. Viagra was developed to treat hypertension and certain kinds of chest pain; it didn’t do such a good job at these things, but researchers found during the phase of clinical trials that it was good for something else.
“Accidental sagacity” was how serendipity was first described, when Horace Walpole (the 4th Earl of Orford, in case you didn’t know) coined the term after reading a fairy tale called The Three Princes of Serendip (Persian for Sri Lanka) about three royal boys who were always making accidental discoveries of things they weren’t looking for.
Accidental sagacity.
Between now and PopTech 2010 we’ll be exploring the theme of Brilliant Accidents, Necessary Failures, and Improbable Breakthroughs and we want your help. Have you come across any great quotes or examples of the role accidents, failures and serendipity play in success?
Send us what you find (hello@poptech.org), and we’ll post some of them!
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