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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Murray.booth (talk | contribs) at 10:19, 21 November 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Just want to say that the eBay image made me laugh. Don't remove it! slicedoranges

Why the stub warning? What's missing? -- till we *) 10:11, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

I think it's too much of a dictionary entry; there ought to be more 'encyclopedic' material in there. Gaurav 13:20, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

But isn't it more than a dictionary entry, with the hints on its artifical origin, its usage in sociological theory and the list of things named so? -- till we *) 14:59, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

serendipity

good luck or to find something useful

Cases of serendipity which could be added to the list

The tale is of Indian origin not Persian

As I have mentioned before, The Three Princes of Serendip was published in Venice in 1557 by an enterprising printer called Michele Tramezzino. That Tramezzino was well-respected can be judged by the fact that the book bears the imprimatur of Pope Julius III. The title page of The Three Princes of Serendip claims that one Christoforo Armeno translated the book from Persian into Italian, but there are serious doubts as to whether Armeno ever existed, except in the fertile mind of Michele Tramezzino. Most likely Tramezzino was himself the compiler of the various tales, which were probably of ancient origin, mostly Indian.[1]. Heja Helweda 15:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • Good Work But!:

If you want to know origin of a word you must consult prestigious dictionarys.Up to know, do you have any complain? OK I continue:)

Merriam Webster Dictionary :

  • "Etymology: from its possession by the heroes of the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip" [2] and [3]

Do you know Dictionary.com?

  • Serendipity was its word of the day in January 15, 2004 :

"The word serendipity was formed by English author Horace Walpole (1717-1797) from Serendip (also Serendib), an old name for Sri Lanka, in reference to a Persian tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes "discovered, quite unexpectedly, great and wonderful good in the most unlikely of situations, places and people." [4]

American Heritage Dictionary : "From the characters in the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, who made such discoveries, from Persian Sarandp, Sri Lanka, from Arabic sarandb.[5]

and I can't see anything in here :[6]

and the last, Horace Walpole (the one who coined it in English) says : " ...Deriving its name from an ancient Persian folktale "The Three Princes of Serendip.." [7] you think, he is lying or what?

So according to above, I changed back the article. Good Luck!

--Pejman47 16:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, those sources should be included, but one can not deny the fact that there is a controversy over the origin of the name, as shown by this source [8] Cheers! :).Heja Helweda 04:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't understand my point! I said the dispute was about the origion of a word. And for that you must consult prestigious dictionays not unknown unverifable websites. The persian story has the support of M_W and all the known dictories. They have not even mentioned this dispute! I can make a website like you have found to support my point. so, until you find a Dictionay to support it, you may not change it back. (I said dictionary OK!)You even mentioned the Indian orgion first and then Persian story! As M_W source is inferior to your source!
Be carefull that I consider any other move by you on this subject as vandalism and proof of your biased behaviour on Wikipedia. --Pejman47 06:16, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Blooming English: Observations on the Roots, Cultivation and Hybrids of the English Language By Kate Burridge, pg 15: Serendip is an old name for Sri Lanka. The name came into English initially via the a Persian story called the Three princes of Serendip. Heja's source is an unacademic website and does not merit giving it more weight than the more academic and widely accepted argument. Also the Encyclopedia Britannica agrees. I am sure there are more serious articles to make arguments over..--alidoostzadeh 06:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With specific reference to "The tale is of Indian origin not Persian":

The tale as Walpole knew it then (possibly a French translation of the 1557 Italian Peregrinaggio) and as we know it today (Remer's 1965 English translation; Hodges' 1964 and 1966 versions; scholarly papers about Persian, Indian and related literature) is a COMPOSITE.

The detailed stories about the king (the "host" to the Three Princes who nearly puts them to death) go back to Firdausi's Shahnameh (1010 AD) and are about the life of Bahram V Gur, a real king of the Sassanid Empire who ruled from ~420-440 AD in the region that was once known as Persia (now Iran). The Sassanids are PRE-Persian. Firdausi was Persian; the Shahnameh is Persian and it is definitely an important part of Persian history and culture. Many of the stories about Bahram V Gur and his rule have been verified by historians. However, in his 1010 epic history, Firdausi did NOT describe any stories of Three Princes from the land of Serendip.

After Firdausi, other poets (and minstrels?) retold and rewrote parts of the Shahnameh, sometimes for other kings or patrons. Nizami wrote his extract, the Haft Paykar, around 1197 AD. As far as I am aware, the first version known to incorporate The Three Princes of Serendip was Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht (1302 AD). (This is NOT the current Hasht-Bihisht entry in Wikipedia.) Khusrau was a Turk living in India when he wrote it so things are getting even more multicultural. I am not sure whether Khusrau wrote the Hasht Bihisht in Arabic or Hindi: probably in Arabic and probably NOT in Persian. The story about three princes or three wise brothers and the missing camel that Khusrau appears to have added to the Shahnameh can be traced to Indian folktales going back to around 100-500 AD, but possibly even earlier.

Other embellishments incorporated into Firdausi's Shahnameh by Khusrau or others can be traced to many different but sometimes overlapping sources: Indian folktales, Persian folktales, Hebrew folktales, possibly Turkish folktales, etc.

Pre-Persian Sassanids, Persians, Indians, Turks, ... The current English version of The Three Princes of Serendip that I think is being "discussed" here is from the Italian Peregrinaggio. That work is most closely derived from Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht. However, the entire work is a composite primarily yet inseparably derived from Persian epic literature (the Shahnameh) about pre-Persian Sassanians with elements added from Indian (camel story and some other adventures) folktales by a Turk.

The first few pages of Reference 3b ("Bahramdipity and Nulltiple Scientific Discoveries") on the main Serendipity page has some of the historical background, with detailed references. The PDF is a free download.

Rough Timeline:
100-500 AD: Indian folktales, including the story of three wise brothers or three princes and a camel.
400 AD: The real Bahram V Gur. Nothing about wise three princes.
1010 AD: Firdausi's epic history, the Shahnameh, in Persian. Nothing about three princes.
1197 AD: Nizami's Haft Paykar, in Persian. Nothing about three princes.
1302 AD: Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht. Written in India, possibly in Arabic but later translated into Persian. First verifiable mention of The Three Princes of Serendip along with stories of Bahram V Gur.
1557 AD: The Peregrinaggio published in Italy, attributed to Christoforo Armeni and almost certainly a partial translation of Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht, even if only from memory of "folktales" he learned growing up.
1754 AD: Walpole coins the word "serendipity" from the Peregrinaggio or a translation.
1900+ : Resurrection and poplularization of the word "serendipity".

Please login. Also you did not read the pdf carefully: [9], the three princes of serendip is based on the life of Bahram V Gur, king of Persiaa. (pg 78). Also the stories are in a Persian book and was translated from Persian. --alidoostzadeh 07:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The paper does say that Bahram V Gur was "King of Persia" but it does get complicated. I'll concede "Persia" but some works break things down into the Early, Middle and Late Persia periods or sometimes even distinguish some periods as pre-Persian. In those cases, Pre-Persian must mean pre-modern Persian.

But I still say that The Three Princes of Serendip is a composite. At that time, much of the literature was oral, not written. The most famous story about the three princes and the missing camel is of early (100-500 AD) Indian origin. I don't know of any source that places it elsewhere eariler. Such stories do, of course, travel well and there may have been Persian, Chinese, Turkish and other adaptations or translations.

The stories of Bahram Gur and other kings began as an oral tradition and became a sort of mythology. They also probably traveled into other languages and cultures. Firdausi wrote them down in the Shahnameh.

Khusrau is the first writer to have placed the camel story in with the other stories that have been definitively traced to the section of the Shahnameh that deal with the life of Bahram V Gur.

Where did Khusrau learn these stories? We don't know, but probably by oral transmission. Did Khusrau learn an Indian version of the camel story and an Indian or Arabic version of the Shahnameh? We don't know. Did Khusrau learn the camel story and the Bahram Gur stories as Persian stories? We don't know. In what language did Khusrau originally write the Hasht Bihisht? I don't know, but I might be able to dig it out. He was on the payroll of Indian kings so he probably wrote for them. But Persian was known in India at the time.

In what language did Cristoforo Armeni learn the stories that were eventually translated as the Peregrinaggio? By the inscription, he probably learned and translated them from Persian, which makes sense as Persian was spoken in regions where he probably lived and grew up ("Christopher the Armenian", Persian being spoken in Armenia). Did Armeni ever see a written version of the original Hasht Bihisht and know that it was written by Khusrau? Probably not. It was probably all oral folk tales to him.

Some people actually did think that the Shahnameh was just mythology and folk tales until scholars figured out that it was based on reality.

I'd like to make an analogy to the Western literature, such as the Bible. Today, children know a lot of Bible stories in their native language (e.g., English) as if they were folktales. No one has to read the Bible to know about Noah and the Ark. But what is the origin of such stories? Walt Disney? England, the King James Bible? Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic versions? The earliest oral versions?

The camel story can be traced to oral Indian folktales.
The stories of Bahram Gur can be traced the written Shahnameh and earlier oral versions.
The final Three Princes of Serendip is a combination of Indian and Persian material.

New Comments:

I recently noticed a new entry for The Three Princes of Serendip. I originally wrote most of what is posted there and asked someone to submit it to this (serendipity} article before I knew how to post things. I did notice that it was removed but it seems that someone actually relocated it to a new article without making it clear what had happened. (For months, I thought it was completely deleted.) There is now a link from serendipity to The Three Princes of Serendip.

Next, I have added info about Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht to the wikipedia article Hasht-Bihisht.

Next, alidoostzadeh seems to know a lot about all of this stuff. Some of the differences may arise from imprecise use of terms: "Persian" to refer to the geographic region cf. culture cf. language cf. genealogy cf. etc. Were the Sassanians also Persians or did another group or tribe establish a lineage that is more closely associated with modern (current) Persians? The Sassanians were a dynasty within the Persian (geographic? cultural? genealogical?) empire? Did the Sassanids die out or did they get assimilated into a subsequent identifiable group? Similar disagreements probably arise in discussion of China and the various dynasties that have ruled the land we know as China. In the U.S., we are probably exposed to more Chinese history and culture and know about Qin, Han, Ming, Qing, ... dynasties from movies, books, etc. and better understand if someone says that an expensive porcelain vase is Ming, not Chinese or if a famous artwork is Han, not Chinese. I don't have an answer, I'm just trying to explain why there may be confusion or disagreement about what is meant by Persian in each discussion.

Next, a few more comments about origin of the word serendip versus the literary origin of The Three Princes of Serendip. Walpole was primarily influenced by the camel story. If Walpole had read it in a different context, he might still have been inspired to coin a new word as long as the Princes or brothers had a catchy word in their name or homeland. If Walpole had read the camel story in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (the English version can be found here: Burton, R. F. (1901) Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume IV. Burton Society, Denver, CO: pages 1-15. (Facsimile reprint of the original 1886 Edition by the Kamashastra Society, Benares.), there would be no mention of Bahram V or anything else definitively traceable to Persian history or folklore. He might still have coined serendipity. But he didn't read it there.

Walpole only came across the Princes and the camel story because of a long series of events that I listed above in the "Rough Timeline": there are Sassanid, Persian, Indian, Turkish, Armenian, Italian and French contributions to Walpole's creation of serendipity in 1754.

The book originated as a composite as described above (and in Reference 3b on the main page); the word was inspired by a sub-plot that is, thus far, known to be of Indian origin but would not have been known to Walpole without the book.

Discovery of Nylon?

The main page (on October 19, 2006) says: "Nylon was discovered when a group of young scientists playing around the lab when the boss was away, tried to produce a long fiber by stretching a blob of polyamide gel across the corridors." Unless the well documented history of nylon is a complete fabrication, this story seems to be outrageous beyond belief. For many years the focus of the Carothers group's research was synthetic polymers and fibers. Their goal was to make fibers to replace silk and other natural materials. From personal accounts that I have read and heard, they were pulling fibers from their flasks and tubes from the outset. There was nothing accidental or serendipitous about the preparation of Nylon. The choice of specific starting materials was deliberately planned to circumvent problems encountered with earlier approaches. This story about "playing around ... when the boss was away" sounds like pure hogwash and should be authenticated or referenced or removed as an example of serendipitous discovery.

Serendipity in the Origin of the Origin of The Three Princes of Serendip

Walpole derived "serendipity" from The Three Princes of Serendip, parts of which can be traced back to Firdausi'sShahnameh. There is an example of serendipity in the Shahnameh.

In the first part of the Shahnameh ("The First Kings"), it is told how King Hushang discovered fire from flint: "One day the king was riding ..." when he encountered a big black monstrous snake. The king threw a rock. The thrown rock hit the ground and shattered. "From the collision of the two stones a spark leaped out and the rock's heart glowed with fire. The snake was not killed but the fiery nature of flint was discovered so that whenever anyone struck it with iron sparks flashed forth." Hushang gave thanks to god and from that day forth men prayed toward fire. (Quotations from: Shahnameh; The Persian Book of Kings, translated by Dick Davis, Copyright: Mage Publishers, Washington DC, 1997/2000/2004; Published by Viking Penguin, NY/London, 2006.)

If Walpole had read that, he might have coined "hushangdipity" instead of "serendipity".AdderUser 23:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Split page

The bulk of this page is a list of accidental scientific discoveries, which isn't really about serendipity. The list needs to be made into a separate article (eg List of accidental scientific discoveries), and the remainder of the article tidied up. --88.111.41.106 01:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know a lot about how Wiki works, but maybe make a redirect or co-title "List of serendipitous scientific discoveries" to faclilitate searching? 129.64.56.40 22:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Science

I removed the bit that says scientists don't like to admit to a discovery being serendipitous, this is completely counter to all of my experience with them. One of the frequent justifications for conducting all blue sky research is that beneficial discoveries and technologies will be discovered by accident Murray.booth 10:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]