From the bestselling author of Imperfection, a theory of uncertainty as the very core of the scientific method--and the essence of its wonder. How many times have we looked for something and found something else? A partner, a job, an object? The same thing often happens to scientists: they design an experiment and discover the unexpected, which usually turns out to be very important. This fascinating phenomenon is called serendipity, which takes its name from the mythical Serendip, a place from which, according to a Persian fable, three princes set off to explore the world, making chance discoveries along the way. In
Serendipity, the award-winning author of
Imperfection Telmo Pievani returns to weave a compelling story about the unexpected in science and its fascinating role in our understanding of the world.
Going far beyond the usual examples of penicillin, X-rays, the microwave oven, and Christopher Columbus, Pievani shows that the most surprising stories of serendipity in the history of science reveal profound aspects of the logic of scientific discovery. In this book, he presents for the first time: an archaeology of the idea; a taxonomy of serendipitous discoveries; an "ecology of serendipity" (the surrounding conditions and factors that can promote it); and lastly, a theory of serendipity (why it occurs so frequently in so many sciences). From Zadig to Sherlock Holmes, Pievani shows that such great discoveries are not just the product of luck. Instead, serendipity comes from a mix of cunning, curiosity, sagacity, imagination, and accidents caught on the fly.
Serendipity illuminates how much we don't know and how much we don't even know we don't know. Above all, Pievani reminds us that the human brain is of a piece with the world it is investigating--a world so much bigger than our knowledge--and it has also evolved within that world, adapting as it has to.
來自暢銷書《不完美》的作者，提出了一種不確定性理論，作為科學方法的核心——以及其奇妙的本質。
我們有多少次在尋找某樣東西時卻發現了其他東西？伴侶、工作、物品？科學家們也經常遇到同樣的情況：他們設計了一個實驗，卻發現了意想不到的結果，而這通常是非常重要的。這一迷人的現象被稱為「意外發現」（serendipity），其名稱源自神話中的塞倫迪普（Serendip），根據波斯寓言，三位王子從這個地方出發探索世界，沿途進行偶然的發現。在《意外發現》中，獲獎作者Telmo Pievani再次編織出一個引人入勝的故事，講述科學中的意外及其在我們理解世界中的迷人角色。
Pievani遠遠超越了青黴素、X光、微波爐和克里斯托弗·哥倫布等常見例子，展示了科學史上最令人驚訝的意外發現故事揭示了科學發現邏輯的深刻面向。在這本書中，他首次提出：這一理念的考古學；意外發現的分類法；一種「意外發現的生態學」（促進其發生的周圍條件和因素）；以及最後，一種意外發現的理論（為何在如此多的科學中頻繁發生）。從《扎迪格》到《福爾摩斯》，Pievani展示了這些偉大發現並不僅僅是運氣的產物。相反，意外發現源於狡猾、好奇、智慧、想像力和偶然的碰撞。《意外發現》照亮了我們不知道的事物有多少，以及我們甚至不知道自己不知道的事物有多少。最重要的是，Pievani提醒我們，人類大腦與其所研究的世界是一體的——這個世界遠比我們的知識要大——而且它也在這個世界中進化，隨之適應。
Telmo Pievani is Full Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Padua, where he covers the first Italian chair of Philosophy of Biological Sciences. A leading evolutionist, science communicator, and columnist for Corriere della Sera, he is the author of The Unexpected Life, Creation without God, Imperfection (MIT Press), and other books.
