>The moral of the story is that planning and structured R&D funding matters. If 90% of inventions over this time period were intentional (people looking for a solution to that specific problem), it matters a lot.
Mainly the "accidents" occur as collateral surprises during intentional efforts to create targeted solutions. Tangential or not.
Targeted solutions that succeed are the main thing that's appreciated, I feel that most researchers who are dedicated to that kind of effort have preferred not to reveal that any of their advances are accidental if it's avoidable.
I expect lots of under-reporting of the serendipidous breakthroughs has been tradititonal.
fuzzfactor•4mo ago
From the comments:
>The moral of the story is that planning and structured R&D funding matters. If 90% of inventions over this time period were intentional (people looking for a solution to that specific problem), it matters a lot.
Mainly the "accidents" occur as collateral surprises during intentional efforts to create targeted solutions. Tangential or not.
Targeted solutions that succeed are the main thing that's appreciated, I feel that most researchers who are dedicated to that kind of effort have preferred not to reveal that any of their advances are accidental if it's avoidable.
I expect lots of under-reporting of the serendipidous breakthroughs has been tradititonal.