The word serendipity itself comes from Horace Walpole, who wrote that the main characters in “The Three Princes of Serendip” were “always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” We seem to have no trouble remembering the accident part of chance findings, but the second part is worth repeating: a successful discovery lies just not in the unexpectedness of what we find, but in our ability to make sense of it and connect it to what we already know.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Serendipity
The word serendipity itself comes from Horace Walpole, who wrote that the main characters in “The Three Princes of Serendip” were “always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” We seem to have no trouble remembering the accident part of chance findings, but the second part is worth repeating: a successful discovery lies just not in the unexpectedness of what we find, but in our ability to make sense of it and connect it to what we already know.
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