Read

Is Serendipity the Mother of Invention?

Once upon a time, in the ancient seaport of Syracuse, there lived a wealthy king named Hieron. The king had commissioned the local goldsmith to fashion a crown of pure gold. Because he didn't trust the goldsmith, the king asked his friend Archimedes to determine whether the crown was made of pure gold or not. Archimedes, who was a famous mathematician, knew that if he could measure the volume of the crown, he would know its composition. Unfortunately, Archimedes had not yet discovered how to measure the volume of irregular solids.

One day, Archimedes went to the local baths. As he got in the tub, water spilled over the edges and all over the floor. But the mess didn't bother Archimedes who immediately shouted "Eureka!" (I have found it!), jumped out of the bath, and started running naked through the streets of Syracuse. Why, you might ask? Because he had seen a way to calculate the volume of an irregular solid. When this bathing beauty slipped in the tub, he realized that the volume of the displaced water was exactly equal to the volume of the part of his body he had immersed. If, in the same way, he immersed the gold crown in water, he would be able to calculate its volume by measuring the amount of water it displaced. Archimedes did just that. After determining the precise volume of the crown, he made a piece of pure gold of equal volume (he knew this because it displaced the same amount of water). When he weighed the pure gold against the crown, they did not weigh the same, proving that the crown was adulterated. Archimedes presented his findings to the king (unfortunately for the goldsmith, who was beheaded).

Some believe that Archimedes experienced what Horace Walpole would later term "serendipity." Serendipity is the act or instance of making a fortunate discovery by accident. Many well-known inventions are attributed to serendipity. However, how much of a role does serendipity truly play in the process of invention? For legal purposes, the definition of invention includes words such as "new," "useful," and "unexpected" and "non-obvious." But is "unexpected" necessarily "serendipitous?" Can inventions truly occur by sheer accident?

The accomplished scientist Louis Pasteur once said, "In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind." One could argue that a "prepared mind" does not leave room for serendipity in that it is not pure chance that leads to discovery. The case of Archimedes exemplifies Pasteur's quote in that his mind was ripe for the discovery he made. The supposedly serendipitous event occurred at the same time that Archimedes was searching for a solution to a specific problem. True, he accidentally came across the solution, but his mind was prepared for it.

When asked about the role of serendipity in invention, Henry Petrow, a retired chemist and inventor, was quite critical of the notion. He believes that a certain amount of mental preparation necessarily precedes invention. He calls it the Edisonian approach, i.e., trial and error. "The closest most inventions come to serendipity is the 'Edisonian' approach. Edison knew what he wanted to do—to make a filament that would give off bright light but which would be able to withstand the high temperatures necessary to produce the light. He tried hundreds of different approaches and found something that worked, namely tungsten. It was a hoped-for result, and he found what he wanted" In talking about his own inventions, Petrow emphasizes the term hoped-for result. In general, he believes that 99 percent of inventions achieve a desired result.

So what's all the fuss about serendipity then? Well, you might be surprised by the number of products that were supposedly "accidentally" created. Now, we can't always know what is going on in the inventors' heads at the time of discovery—were their minds prepared to come across the unexpected solution? Perhaps, yes. Perhaps, no. Either way, some of the inventions attributed to serendipity are: penicillin, Velcro, silly putty, WD-40, potato chips, blue jeans, the microwave oven, Post-it notes, celluloid, and cataract surgery.

Ironically, the cynical Petrow himself may have experienced what could be called true serendipity when working on an invention of his own. As he was trying to develop a platinum catalyst for a fuel cell, he came up with a particle size that, by chance, was the ideal particle size for a superior catalyst for an entirely different use in an entirely different kind of system: cleaning up auto exhaust. Today, that catalyst is used in the majority of automobile exhaust systems.

So the cynics agree. Maybe serendipity is an important part of invention after all.

Forming Adjectives from Nouns

There are many ways to change nouns into adjectives. Can you recall the adjectives used in the article that are related to the nouns in italics? Write them in the blanks provided.


1		An invention that involves serendipity is .


2		A person who has a lot of wealth is .


3		If someone is a cynic, he or she is .


4		A person who is a critic is .


5		Something related to the law is .

2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies.