“He looked at me and shouted in fear!
I had a tong and I was putting it in his ear!
Fret not, he had put in his ear; a Thermocol ball
Just removing that since ‘am a doctor you all!”
In the book called Algorithms to live by; The computer science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths tell about this amazing word! At first the word sounded so close to the word, STUPIDITY that I did not give much attention to it! But when they told about the amazing phenomenon the word represents, I was amazed!
At some time in my previous blogs I have covered these inventions; have a look at these and try to find out the common link between them!
The Post-It Note, which emerged after 3M scientist Spencer Silver produced a weak adhesive, and a colleague used it to keep bookmarks in place on a church hymnal!
Silly Putty, which came from a failed attempt at synthetic rubber!
The microwave oven. Raytheon scientist Percy Spencer first patented the idea behind it after noticing that emissions from radar equipment had melted the candy in his pocket! I had written an extensive blog on this some time back!
The polymer teflon, which Roy J. Plunkett observed forming a white mass inside a pressure bottle during an effort to make a new CFCs refrigerant! and finally one of the most famous example of this phenomenon; the discovery of Penicillin!
Alexander Fleming returned from a vacation to find that a Petri dish containing staphylococcus culture had been infected by a Penicillium mold, and no bacteria grew near it!
You may have got it by now! These are examples of amazing discovery which happened accidently and there are in fact so many examples of this! So much so that the it is the word I mentioned above!
The word has been exported into many other languages, with the general meaning of “unexpected discovery” or “fortunate chance”.
The first noted use of “this word” was by Horace Walpole on 28 January 1754.
In a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann, Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made about a lost painting of Bianca Cappello by Giorgio Vasari!
Horace was actually referring to a Persian tale of three princes who were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of!
The name comes from Serendip, an old Persian name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), hence Sarandib by Arab traders! But it is still not done! The name is actually derived from Sanskrit! It is a combination of the word for Sinhalese and island and called
Siṃhaladvīpaḥ (Siṃhalaḥ, Sinhalese + dvīpaḥ, island).
So did you get the final word?
Well, the Sanskrit origin Sinhalese inspired Persian language Horace named word for amazing accidental discoveries is SERENDIPITY!
Now Sanskrit reminds me of Sanskriti and a true connoisseur of art Shri Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna! Being a singer of his caliber though is not Serendipity but hard work and dedication!
Now go for a serene deep rest aka sleep!
Shubh ratri!
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