Serendipity
From apm
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).
Contents
Related
Under-investigated niche areas
Finding and then looking in areas where (for whatever reasons) noone else has looked yet
- The pleasant => Low hanging fruit – some of them serendipitous
- The hardships => Lack of existing vocabulary, lack of existing communication channels for the uncovered new ideas, ...
Example areas known by the author:
- Atomically precise manufacturing aimed at gemstone metamaterial technology
- Future of coding research and development
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
- 2009-05-27 How to Learn About Everything (From Eric K. Drexlers metamodern blog – internetarchive)
