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Serendipity: to make discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things not in quest of. The word serendipity was coined by Horace Walpole January 28 , 1754 , in a letter he wrote to his friend, Horace Mann, the English resident in Florence. "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''? One of the most remarkable instances of this ''accidental sagacity'' (for you must observe that ''no'' discovery of a thing you ''are'' looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table."as given by W.S. Lewis, ed., ''Horace Walpole's Correspondence'', Yale edition, in the book by Theodore G. Remer, Ed.: ''Serendipity and the Three Princes, from the Peregrinaggio of 1557, Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Theodore G. Remer, Preface by W.S. Lewis''. University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. LCC 65-10112 There are three interrelated debates regarding the meaning of the word ''serendipity'':
History of the word For more information about the story that inspired Horace Walpole to coin the word ''serendipity'', see the entry '' The Three Princes Of Serendip ''. Examples of Serendipity
Uses of Serendipity Serendipity is used as a Sociological method in Anselm L. Strauss ' and Barney G. Glaser 's Grounded Theory , building on ideas by sociologist Robert K. Merton , who in ''Social Theory and Social Structure'' ( 1949 ) claimed that serendipity was an Indian concept. Robert K. Merton also coauthored (with Elinor Barber ) '' The Travels And Adventures Of Serendipity '' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), which traces the origins and uses of the word "serendipity" since it was coined. The book is "a study in sociological semantics and the sociology of science", as the subtitle of the book declares. It further develops the idea of serendipity as scientific "method" (as juxtaposed with purposeful discovery by experiment or retrospective prophecy). Trivia Serendip is the old Arabic name for Sri Lanka . The episode in the story is a case of Abductive Reasoning (as used by Sherlock Holmes ), which later leads to unsought "serendipitous" rewards from the king. The word 'serendipity' has been voted as one of the ten English words that were Hardest To Translate in June 2004 by a British translation company. However, due to its sociological use, the word has been imported into many other languages ( Portuguese ''serendipicidade'' or ''serendipidade''; French ''sérendipicité'' or ''sérendipité''; Spanish ''serendipia''; Italian ''serendipità''; Dutch ''serendipiteit''). Related terms , New York, 1998. ISBN 0375402233 It derives from Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla), a cold, barren land with many features opposite to the lush Sri Lanka (Serendip). Bahramdipity is derived directly from Bahram Gur as characterized in the "Three Princes of Serendip". It describes the suppression of serendipitous discoveries or research results by powerful individuals(a) Sommer, Toby J. "'Bahramdipity' and Scientific Research", The Scientist, 1999, 13(3), 13. (b) Sommer, Toby J. "Bahramdipity and Nulltiple Scientific Discoveries," Science and Engineering Ethics, 2001, 7(1), 77-104. . Bibliography
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