Serendipity is derived from the English ‘serendipity’ and means something like discovering or inventing something that you were not looking for. Many discoveries and inventions have been made this way. Where does the term serendipity come from? Explanation of the concept of serendipity and some examples.
What is serendipity?
The concept of serendipity is described as a happy coincidence, a pleasant surprise, finding something that is useful but that was not specifically looked for, that was not expected. What is important in this understanding is seeing , recognizing what happens by chance; this means that the person who comes into contact with it must be shrewd enough to understand what is happening to him. Quite a few scientific discoveries have been made this way and the same applies to inventions.
Where does the word serendipity come from?
The word serendipity has been translated from English into Dutch serendipity, and the word has remained more or less the same in many other languages, it has proven to be a difficult concept to translate. The word serendipity was first used by the 18th century British writer and politician Horace Walpole, who wrote in a letter in 1754 about a fairy tale he had read. In this story, an anonymous Persian fairy tale entitled ,The Three Princes of Serendip,, the main characters make many discoveries through chance and sagacity. Serendip used to be a Persian name for Sri Lanka. However, what happens in this story is not now seen as a good example of what is understood by serendipity today.
Examples of serendipity
One of the first X-rays / Source: Wilhelm Röntgen, Old Moonraker, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
The discovery of X-rays
The German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) discovered the radiation named after him by chance. He was experimenting with a vacuum tube when he noticed that a plate he had treated with a chemical was glowing. That was also the case with a record that was in the drawer of his desk. A key, which had been on the desktop, was depicted on the plate. As he continued experimenting, he discovered that the bones of his own hand were depicted on the plates. It became clear to him that the unknown radiation could penetrate certain substances. He had not yet discovered how this radiation originated and called it X-rays. After he announced his discovery, the radiation was soon used for medical purposes. The radiation was later named after its discoverer, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for his discovery.
The invention of the tea bag
Source: André Karwath, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA-2.5)
A hundred years ago, (loose) tea was transported in tin cans. In 1904, New York wholesaler Thomas Sullivan thought the cans were becoming too expensive and decided to send his customers their tea in small silk bags. The intention was that customers would remove the tea from the bags before use. But they threw the tea with the bag still on it into the water. It was an unintentional move, but turned out to be a successful invention. The tea bag was later further developed by the German Adolf Rambold, who received a patent for it in 1929. The tea bag has made its way all over the world.
The discovery of penicillin
Sir Alexander Fleming, a British physician and microbiologist, was conducting research with bacteria in 1928 when one of the culture media became contaminated by a fungus. Bacteria no longer grew near the fungus, and that gave him the idea that the fungus must secrete a substance that was the cause of this. With difficulty he managed to isolate the substance from the fungus – of the genus Penicillium – and called it penicillin. It took several more years before Fleming, with the help of a group of other researchers, was ready to make penicillin available to treat infections. In 1940 the time had come. A first publication on the use of penicillin in humans followed in 1941. In 1945, the researchers, including Fleming, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine as a group for their groundbreaking work.
Post-it yellow
Bron: Michael 1972 , Wikimedia Commons
This is the name of the well-known yellow sticky notes. Post-it is the brand name of a 3M product, but in practice this name is used for all these types of leaves, even if they are from a different brand. It is an example of a brand name that has become a generic name. In 1970, a chemist employed by 3M, Spencer Silver, attempted to develop a strong adhesive in its research laboratory. That didn’t work out well; it came with an adhesive that would either stick to one side or the other of two pieces of paper stuck together when they were peeled off. The glue was considered a failure. Another company employee saw potential a few days later when he was struggling with loose bookmarks in his church book. The loose leaves kept falling out of his book, and then he came up with the idea of using his colleague’s recently failed glue. The bookmarks not only stayed securely on the pages of his book, he could also easily remove them while the paper remained intact. It was the birth of the Post-it note, which is now indispensable.
Serendipity, the movie
In 2001, an American romantic film entitled Serendipity was released, starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. As the title indicates, all kinds of complications intertwined in coincidences play a major role.