An interactive exhibit — Random the Book
History is full of discoveries and inventions we assume were either carefully engineered or happened by pure accident. The reality is almost always more complicated. For each of the following, place it on the spectrum between pure accident and fully planned — then find out what actually happened.
Here's how your instincts compared to the historical record. Notice any patterns in where you were most confident — and most wrong?
The planned/accidental distinction is almost always more complicated than it looks. Most "accidents" required enormous preparation to be recognised and acted upon — what Horace Walpole called sagacity. Most "plans" required unexpected inputs to succeed. Serendipity isn't the absence of planning; it's what happens when a prepared mind meets an unplanned event.