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Once upon a time there was an oriental and exotic Kingdom called
Serendip, the memory of which blends with imagination. Our elder tell us
that it existed; that it was located in an island that many many years
later was called Ceylan, today known as Sri Lanka. The exotic names of
cities in that island, places like Trincomalee o Jaffna, can easily
make us believe that was the case. Or maybe Serendip was in Persia.
I will tell you a particularly curious tale from that old Kingdom. It
is the story of the Three Princes of Serendip, three priviledged
individuals not only gifted by their noble origin but also endowed with
a unique talent: the gift of casual discovery. These three characters
were able to find answers to questions or misteries they were not in
search of. Thanks to their natural sagacity they would solve unexpected
dilemmas.
This unique ability must have impresed so deeply an anonymous witness
that he decided to save it for history in the anonymous story entitled
“The Three Princes of Serendip”.
Many many people read this book for many many years. But when Mr.
Horace Walpole read it in the 18th century something changed.
Walpole must have also found sublime the gift of the three princes,
though quite difficult to describe, and invented to the effect an
expresive little word: “serendipity”.
Letters are a very valuable source of historical
information. And the letter that Mr Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann on
January 28, 1754 is one of those texts that make history. Not history
of wars or empires, spies or conspirations, but word history. In that
letter Horace Walpole wrote about his recent creation, about the word
serendipity and its expressive richness.
“. . . this discovery indeed is almost of that kind
which I call serendipity, a very expressive word, which as I have
nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavor to explain to you: you will
understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. 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?”
The word “serendipity” is found today in English
dictionaries- though only in those edited after 1974- and its meaning
fits perfectly well the accidental nature of many scientific
discoveries, made by chance, found without looking for them but possible
only through a sharp vision and sagacity, ready to see the unexpected
and never indulgent with the aparently unexplainable. The following are
just a few examples of many serendipitous discoveries and inventions
Archymedes' Principle
The legend says he discovered it while taking a bath. Archymedes must
have realized that his body was gradually weighing less as he was
getting into the bath, while spilling the same volume of water. He was
so thrilled that he ran naked out of the bath and into the streets
yelling "Eureka!" (I found it).
The case of he jumping frog's leg.
“I had dissected and prepared a frog in the usual way and
while I was attending to something else I laid it on a table on which
stood an electrical machine at some distance from its conductor and
separated from it by a considerable space. Now when one of the persons
present touched accidentally and lightly the inner crural nerves of the
frog with the point of a scalpel, all the muscles of the legs seemed to
contract again and again as if they were affected by powerful cramps.”
This is Galvani's own description of his first and
absolutely accidental observation of what he called "animal
electricity". Instead of forgetting the incident he didn't stop until he
could repeat it. Galvani's experiments set the basis for modern
neurophysiology. Nerves were not the fluid-filled channels that the mind
of Descartes had earlier imagined but electrical conductors.
The first electric battery
Was designed by Alessandro Volta and reported in 1800 based on the
serendipitous observations by Galvani. Volta wanted to demonstrate that
the generation of electricity in Galvani's experiments was originated by
the use of two different metals separated by an electrolytic solution.
Sticky "ma non tropo"
Not only some of the greatest scientific discoveries have serendipitous
roots. Many little (but very profitable) technological contributions
also fall within that category. The adhesive used in those very popular
self-sticking "Post it" notes for example. That glue was not what their
discoverers were looking for. In fact it was a lousy glue. Nevertheless,
a keen reevaluation took it out of the failures drawer and after a
certain period of optimization put it into the shrine of profitable
innovations.
Do you know more examples of serendipitous discoveries?
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