Updated: 16/06/2025 por Jennifer Delgado | Published: 09/08/2024
Some of humanity’s greatest discoveries have occurred through serendipity. August Kekulé, one of the creators of the Theory of Chemical Structure, discovered the structure of the benzene molecule precisely by chance. One day, while returning home by bus, he had a strange dream in which he saw atoms and molecules forming serpentine chains that twisted, one of them turned into a snake that bit its tail, forming a circle that rotated on itself. He thus understood that it was a cyclic compound. That’s serendipity.
The word comes from the story “The Three Princes of Serendip”, which tells the adventures of three princes who have a strange power that allowed them to make discoveries by accident. In fact, it is important not to confuse serendipity with insight since in the latter, although the solution comes suddenly, the person had spent days, weeks or even months engrossed in the problem, so the possible alternatives continued to be evaluated at the unconscious level.
On the contrary, serendipity refers to a discovery that occurs by chance, almost always while looking for something else. The usual thing is that it is an unexpected and positive discovery with a great impact on our lives. Discoveries such as X-rays, penicillin, Archimedes’ principle, Viagra, microwaves and even post-its emerged precisely thanks to serendipity.
Bindings off!
Another particularly interesting example focuses on the history of basketball. It was 1891 when a physical education teacher named James Naismith nailed two peach baskets to the walls of the gymnasium and asked the students to try to dunk the ball. This is how basketball emerged.
However, the problem is that once the ball was in the basket the game stopped because someone had to go up to get it out. If that uncomfortable problem was not resolved, it was likely that basketball would have its days numbered. However, no one could think of a solution. Until after many games and successful shots, the bottom of the basket gave way and fell away. Thus the ball slid and the game could be played without interruption.
Seen from our perspective it may seem like a truism. After all, you don’t have to be a genius to cut the bottom of a basket. However, at that time they were all victims of what is known as functional fixation. That is, they were so engrossed in one way of doing things that they did not even conceive that another was possible. This mental rigidity is also caused by our tendency to analyze problems as a whole, not from their components.
However, serendipity has the power to break those rigid patterns, giving us a glimpse of what lies beyond. Obviously, serendipity is not enough to make a discovery or undertake a change, it is just the first step. Then you need to go through a series of steps.
Serendipity in action
Serendipity involves, at its core, a funnel-shaped thought process. First of all, there is a stage marked by mystery that refers to a gap in knowledge, to a situation that appears chaotic and that on many occasions we had not even anticipated. In the basketball example it would be the fact that the ball always got stuck in the basket.
Next, the fortunate event takes place and we realize what a great advance it represents. In fact, probably all of us have had numerous serendipities throughout our lives but we have not known how to extract the juice from them. It is obvious that if we were not a chemist, August Kekulé’s dream would not have told us anything and if we had not been James Naismith, a broken basket would never have been anything more than that.
Then the third and final phase takes place, which involves the application of an algorithm itself, that is, the systematization of the solution. At this point we work on the solution and perfect it, putting our knowledge into practice.
What does all this tell us?
That serendipities are discoveries by chance but that it is necessary to have certain knowledge about a certain area to be able to take advantage of them because, otherwise, it is likely that they will go completely unnoticed. Chance exists but it is necessary to have the right tools to know how to interpret it and then be persistent enough to take advantage of it.
Reference:
Pérez Tamayo, R. (1974) Serendipia: ensayos sobre ciencia, medicina y otros sueños. México: Siglo XXI Editores.
