You’re looking for your keys, but find an old photo that makes you smile. You’re solving one problem and stumble upon another, more valuable solution. Or maybe, like Percy Spencer in 1945, you’re testing radar equipment and notice the chocolate in your pocket has melted—leading not to a ruined uniform, but the invention of the microwave oven.
These are moments of serendipity: happy accidents, fortunate finds. Unlike plain coincidence, serendipity carries benefit and often a spark of human insight. The accident becomes an opportunity. What matters is not just that something unexpected occurred—but that someone noticed, and saw the value in it.
Origins of a Curious Word
The word serendipity was coined in 1754 by British writer Horace Walpole, who had been charmed by a Persian tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes, from the old name for Sri Lanka, continually encountered useful discoveries by accident, thanks to their sharp observation. Walpole described them as “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”
That phrase—accidents and sagacity—captures the essence of serendipity. Chance delivers the material, but only a prepared or perceptive mind can transform it into something meaningful. This theme has played out again and again across science, art, and everyday life.
Science and the Prepared Mind
Serendipity has long been recognised as a driver of innovation. Alexander Fleming wasn’t looking for antibiotics when he noticed mould contaminating a Petri dish and killing bacteria. But he had the wisdom to pause, observe, and think: what is this?
From X-rays to Post-it Notes, from cosmic radiation to cornflakes, the annals of scientific progress are dotted with stories where chance collided with a ready mind. Louis Pasteur famously said, “In the fields of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind.” Serendipity is not randomness alone; it’s randomness met with readiness.
Modern research into innovation even asks how we might encourage serendipity. Some pharmaceutical companies now deliberately screen thousands of compounds for unintended effects, hoping that one will surprise them. Silicon Valley cafeterias are designed not just to feed engineers but to foster unexpected collisions of thought. We can’t control luck—but perhaps we can make room for it.
Serendipity and the Mind
Why do some people have more serendipitous experiences than others? Psychologists suggest it may come down to openness, attention, and cognitive flexibility. Richard Wiseman’s research into luck found that “lucky” people are often more curious and relaxed, more willing to deviate from a plan or linger on an anomaly.
Take Fleming again. A less inquisitive colleague might have tossed the spoiled dish and moved on. Instead, he saw a mystery worth pursuing. This capacity—to reframe a mistake as a possible breakthrough—is a core part of innovation psychology. Playfulness helps too: many inventors describe their work as a kind of serious play, in which they remain open to surprises.
There’s a paradox here. To find what you’re not looking for, you must stop looking too hard. Tunnel vision shuts out accidents. A wandering mind, by contrast, is more likely to catch an insight as it drifts by.
Philosophical Reflections
Serendipity sits in an intriguing place between chaos and design. It isn’t entirely random, nor is it planned. Philosophically, it suggests a kind of grace in the world—a natural, secular grace, not earned, but encountered.
Can serendipity be engineered? That question borders on contradiction. And yet we try. We create environments where chance might strike. We accept that discovery is often messy and nonlinear. In philosophy of science, this is known as the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification: ideas may come from accidents, but they still stand or fall by reason and evidence.
There’s no spooky force behind serendipity—unlike synchronicity, which points to meaningful acausality. Instead, serendipity fits within a probabilistic view of the world. Run enough experiments, explore broadly enough, and you’ll occasionally strike gold. The key is not to predict serendipity, but to be ready when it arrives.
In Culture and Daily Life
Culturally, serendipity has a romantic feel. It shows up in novels, films, and fairy tales. The idea that love or fortune might arrive uninvited—but perfectly timed—is deeply embedded in our stories. The 2001 film Serendipity captured this sentiment with two lovers tossed together by fate, then separated and reunited through a string of unlikely events.
Across languages and traditions, similar concepts appear. In Islamic culture, maktub—"it is written"—implies that some chance events are destined. In Chinese thought, yuanfen describes a kind of fated affinity. And in many cultures, rituals of luck—tossing coins in fountains, wearing charms—hint at a desire to invite fortune’s whimsy.
In practical life, we see serendipity in chance meetings that change careers, or stray articles that inspire new ideas. The internet offers both a danger and a promise: algorithms that over-curate can kill serendipity, but the unplanned rabbit hole can still yield gold. To browse a library shelf, or talk with someone outside your field, is to invite the unexpected.
Even business is learning this. Casual conversations at lunch tables spark product ideas. Some workplaces now design for serendipity—not in outcome, but in the chance of intersection.
A Microwave, a Chocolate Bar, and a Moment of Insight
Let’s return to that melted chocolate. In 1945, Percy Spencer wasn’t seeking to cook with radar. He was working on military technology. But when he noticed the candy bar melting in his pocket, he didn’t shrug it off. He asked questions. He experimented. And within a few years, millions of households had microwave ovens.
This story reminds us that not all progress comes from grand plans. Sometimes it’s the person willing to follow an odd lead—someone who doesn’t rush to dismiss the strange occurrence—who changes how we live.
A Final Thought
Serendipity is not just a scientific tool or a romantic notion. It is a quiet form of wisdom: a way of engaging with the world that welcomes the unexpected and trusts there may be value in the detour. It invites us to notice more, to hold our plans lightly, and to meet the unplanned with curiosity rather than resistance.
And so, like the princes of Serendip, we may travel far and find what we weren’t looking for—only to realise it was what we needed all along.
Footnotes
Horace Walpole coined the term serendipity in a 1754 letter after reading The Three Princes of Serendip, a Persian fairy tale about fortuitous discovery. The full letter can be found in The Letters of Horace Walpole, edited by Peter Cunningham (1857).
The phrase “chance favours the prepared mind” is widely attributed to Louis Pasteur, who used it to describe the role of observation in scientific discovery.
Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 when he noticed a mould (later identified as Penicillium notatum) killing bacteria on an accidentally contaminated Petri dish. He later wrote that this “fortunate accident” became one of the most important medical discoveries of the 20th century.
Percy Spencer’s invention of the microwave oven began with the observation that a chocolate bar in his pocket melted while working near a magnetron. Raytheon filed the first patent for a microwave cooking device in 1945.
Richard Wiseman’s studies on luck are summarised in his book The Luck Factor (2003), which presents research showing that “lucky” people tend to be more open, relaxed, and socially engaged.
The distinction between context of discovery and context of justification in science was formalised by Hans Reichenbach in Experience and Prediction (1938), and later expanded in the philosophy of science literature.
The tale The Three Princes of Serendip was translated into English in the 16th century by Michele Tramezzino and retold widely in European literary circles before inspiring Walpole.
The term “serendipitous discovery” appears in numerous Nobel Prize citations and scientific papers. A notable example includes the discovery of cosmic background radiation by Penzias and Wilson in 1964, which won them the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The concept of “serendipity algorithms” has emerged in digital design circles, particularly in recommendation systems aiming to introduce randomness to avoid filter bubbles. See: T. B. Swearingen and M. Shahin, Designing for Serendipity (Interaction Design Association, 2019).
Cultural equivalents of serendipity include the Arabic term maktub (“it is written”), the Chinese concept of yuanfen (fateful affinity), and Japanese terms like enishi, reflecting spiritual connection formed by chance encounters.
Research credit: Developed with support from ChatGPT Deep Research by OpenAI.
Starting Friday, 1st August 2025, I’ll begin sharing a series of major coincidence stories—each paired with a full interpretation using the frameworks introduced in Part 1: Understanding Coincidence.
If you’d like to learn more about Coincidences, the writing project behind these stories, start with the Preface and About.