Serendipity

Serendipity is a remarkable phenomenon which describes a most beneficial outcome achieved purely by chance. We will see that a significant number of scientific discoveries throughout history have been made by mistake; such that the intended result failed but the unintended consequence was so dramatic and useful to society that the researcher was then awarded a Nobel prize.

A well-known example is that of the work of Alexander Fleming who had the foresight to realise that the mouldy formation that appeared in a petri dish that he had forgotten to clean could be useful. At the time he was not studying antibiotics but he understood there was potential and penicillin has since saved millions of lives.

In this talk we will look at ten different Eureka moments in history and we can ask the question, do the people who made such discoveries deserve the recognition and reward given that they stumbled upon the outcomes?