The Key To Astronomy Has Often Been Serendipity

Ars Technica has a great look at just how often serendipity plays a part in major astronomy advances. From Galileo to the accidental discovery of cosmic microwaves, it seems that it is still better to be lucky than good. "But what's stunning is a catalog of just how common this sort of event has been. Herschell was looking for faint stars when he happened across the planet Uranus, while Piazi was simply creating a star catalog when he observed the object that turned out to be the first asteroid to ever be described, Ceres I."

Re:This is surprising?

[garg0yle]

My point too... How is this news? As has often been said, science is less about "Eureka!" and more about "Hmm, that's odd..."

Re:This is surprising?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more: astronomy is mainly an observational science. If something does not happen (or more preciselly, the information of the event arrives) right when you are looking out, you will never discover it. You cannot set up an experiment to test your ideas you always need to be lucky enough to see things happen.

Ok. So that theory about the big bang is nice. Let's make another big bang so we can test it.

The Sky is Big

[PPH]

Odds are if an astronomer is going to be looking around for evidence to support one hypothesis, they'll come across lots of other stuff while they're at it.

Its not the same as staring at the sludge in the bottom of a test tube.

In the fields of observation

[mgrivich]

Chance favors the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur

Re:This is surprising?

[samkass]

It's funny how "lucky" things often happen to those striving to do new and interesting things in various pursuits. In order for luck to cause anything to happen you have to be set up to take advantage of the lucky situation. The more you do the "luckier" you'll get. (As long as you keep your eyes open while you do it.)

Re:This is surprising?

[Z00L00K]

In addition to luck you must also have a flexible mind. This to be able to interpret the unexpected data. Otherwise you can only dismiss it as magic.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
        Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)

Re:the surprise is what defines a "breakthrough"

[insufflate10mg]

I believe you're a bit off track. Breakthrough status is given to an achievement or accomplishment resulting in a relatively large number of newly opened doors. These doors lead even further down the path of progress in the field. As you chip away at a problem, you slowly open up various doors and make progress towards an ultimate objective. Usually, a surprising discovery is considered a breakthrough simply because the scientists involved weren't slowly opening doors, the surprise instantly opened them up. Simply put, yes, usually milestones referred to as "breakthroughs" are just surprising discoveries, but if a general cure for cancer were discovered today it would also be considered a "breakthrough" despite decades of research prior to it.

First post ever, finally took the leap after two years worth of lurking.

Re:In the fields of observation

[jschen]

Exactly. It's not that those guys got lucky. It's that they followed up on what exactly was interesting about what they observed.

Re:This is surprising?

[MrMr]

Let's make another big bang so we can test it.
Well, that is close to one of the objectives: of this gadget [wikipedia.org]