
The three princes of Serendip: Notes on a mysterious phenomenon - imartin2k
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323527/
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mlrhazi
> 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?

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kbenson
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)?

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efoto
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.”

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kbenson
> 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).

