Serendipity in Science: 50+ Years of Designed, and Sometimes Lucky, Science.

Abstract

Normal science is about assessing what is already known about a topic, about what needs to be known, and careful methods to collect the data required to answer the scientific question. It is the mainstay of scientific progress. But sometimes, luck or chance (eg, serendipity) plays a significant role in scientific process. We trace career experiences in our lives to show how serendipity, the gift that Mother Nature gives to science, has a nontrivial role in scientific progress and professional careers. This gift often encourages us to change the focus of experiments or to look for the answers to our questions in ways that were not immediately obvious.