Serendipity

An unplanned fortunate discovery

Having and seeking a wide area of knowledge might increase chances of running across serendipitous discoveries.
E.g. There must have been serendipitous moments in the uncovering of the
Curry-Howards-Lambeck correspondence that links propositional logic, type theory, and category theory.
(And has as it turned out very big relevancy in purely functional programming).

Related

• Discovered rather than invented
• Paradigm (?)

External links

• Wikipedia: Serendipity

Having and seeking a wide area of knowledge

• Generalist – tendentially negative connotation
• Jack of all trades (but master of none)
  This can be turned around though:
  "Jack of all trades, and master of none, but better at all, than nigh everyone."

• Polymath – very positive connotation
• T-shaped_skills – also Pi-shaped skills – this seems like a case of shelving people to much