>Is accidentally stumbling across the unknown a key part of science? It has been for me so I never want to stop. I did get lucky as a teenager but I had studi

>Is accidentally stumbling across the unknown a key part of science? It has been for me so I never want to stop. I did get lucky as a teenager but I had studied a lot before that, so I am biased having an early start. >“chance only favors the mind which is prepared.” Also the hands. So many of the unexpected findings are not because of the exact direction of the experimentation, but a result of incessant experimentation itself, for which it can be accepted from the beginning that over 99% will not be useful other than compounding your own ability to experiment. Within the limitations of your resources naturally. Heck, you can work for years and improve your ability 10X over a decade and still not have a breakthrough in a well-targeted effort. But the more you do experiment, the more you're bound to come up with something. The uncommon part is having any momentum at all on anything non-targeted that comes up. Lots of the time, unexpected findings can be show-stoppers that must be worked around, sometimes with the utmost creativity in unconventional ways, before progress can be resumed on the designated project. This can be like an emergency situation, but some of the same talents needed for it could be similarly put to use judiciously building momentum from scratch from potentially worthwhile tangents, without compromising the projected progress of the primary endeavor. >Pievani concludes that what serendipity really is, is evidence of the infinitude of our ignorance. Well you can't fix stupid but he is concentrating on established institutions. I figured out the towers were not made of ivory before I was a teenager too.