Serendipity is an unplanned fortunate discovery.
Serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of product invention and scientific discovery.
Serendipity is also seen as a potential design principle for online activities that would present a wide array of information and viewpoints, rather than just re-enforcing a user's opinion.
The first noted use of serendipity in the English language was by Horace Walpole on 28 January 1754.
In a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann, Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made about a lost painting of Bianca Cappello by Giorgio Vasari by reference to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes, he told his correspondent, were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of. The name comes from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), hence Sarandib by Arab traders. It is derived from the Sanskrit Siṃhaladvīpaḥ (Siṃhalaḥ, Sri Lanka + dvīpaḥ, island).
The word has been exported into many other languages, with the general meaning of unexpected discovery or fortunate chance.
More information: Useless Etymology
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717-2 March 1797), also known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician.
He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Casttle of Otranto (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes.
The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he became the 4th and last Earl of Orford on his nephew's death in 1791. His barony of Walpole descended to his first cousin once removed of the same name but Baron Walpole of Wolterton. Horatio Walpole the younger was later created a new Earl of Orford.
Walpole was born in London, the youngest son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and his wife Catherine. Like his father, he received early education in Bexley; in part under Edward Weston. He was also educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge.
Walpole's numerous letters are often used as a historical resource. In one, dating from 28 January 1754, he coined the word serendipity which he said was derived from a silly fairy tale he had read, The Three Princes of Serendip.
The oft-quoted epigram, This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel, is from a letter of Walpole's to Anne, Countess of Ossory, on 16 August 1776.
The original, fuller version appeared in a letter to Sir Horace Mann on 31 December 1769: I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel -a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
Download The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Ken Stott
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