Modern science is a chronicle of serendipitous discovery.
Pasteur's first step toward vaccine development was his investigation into disease problems in the French wine industry at the request of the French government. Alexander Fleming chanced upon the discovery of penicillin when a stray spore of the mold drifted into his bacterial culture in a Petri dish. The science of cellular immunity was born when Russian zoologist Eli Metchnikoff stayed home from a day at the circus to poke around with a starfish larvae and first observed phagocytosis. Serendipity is not just dumb luck. Unpredictable results and unanticipated external factors are as much a part of scientific endeavor as cool reason, but only when strong intellect responds to an unexpected situation does serendipity work.