Serendipity: The Unexpected in Science

In this stimulating study, Pievani (Imperfection), a biology professor at the University of Padua, surveys chance’s role in advancing scientific knowledge. He describes how in 1928, British microbiologist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin after one of the petri dishes he was using to grow staph bacteria became contaminated with Penicillium mold, which, to his surprise, killed the surrounding bacteria. Elsewhere, Pievani explains that 18th-century chemist Joseph Priestley was the first person to describe oxygen after his attempts to produce carbon dioxide for use in soda (which he invented) generated a mysterious gas that made his lungs feel “stronger and lighter,” and that in 1967, Cambridge University PhD student Jocelyn Bell unexpectedly confirmed the existence of pulsars (“rapidly rotating neutron stars” that had been first theorized decades earlier) after detecting radio signals from distant stars while studying “the behavior of radio waves in interplanetary space.” Pievani uses such examples to argue for the importance of research “driven by the mere curiosity to learn about nature,” rather than by practical applications, and to argue that scientists should embrace “good ignorance” by candidly accepting the limits of their knowledge and allowing doubts to drive their research. Erudite and illuminating, this persuades. (Sept.)