The three princes of Serendip: Notes on a mysterious phenomenon | Hacker News Reader

The three princes of Serendip: Notes on a mysterious phenomenon

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

45 pointsimartin2k4 comments

> It was only later that other scientists, most notably Ernest Everett Just, an African-American who was one of the great biologists of the last century, recognized the extraordinary implication of Wilson’s “failure.”

Isn't it odd they felt the need to specify "African-American" part? or is it just me?

I noticed it and thought it somewhat odd as well.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal was Spanish, and apparently lived, died and had his career in Spain. Camillo Golgi was Italian, and apparently lived, died and had his career in Italy. Neither of them warrant any mention of their nationality, yet Just's status as a member of a minority group in the United States apparently does. Maybe an earlier draft had more on the topic, or maybe there's supposed to be some implicit understanding that he went through hardship that made his discovery less likely (although that's not quite the same theme as the rest of the paper)?

A nice one by Julius Comroe:

    “Serendipity is jumping into a haystack to search for a needle, and coming up with the farmer’s daughter.”

> Alexander Fleming, suffering from a particularly juicy cold, happened to sneeze into a Petri dish full of bacteria.

I'm not sure I've ever heard a cold described a "juicy" before. It certainly doesn't make it sound pleasant(and I doubt it was).

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