From the Ian Leslie’s original article: “Louis Pasteur wrote, ‘In the field of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind.’…These days, we tend to associate serendipity with luck, and we neglect the sagacity”
“We are less likely to come across things we are not in quest of.”
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I like this description of flâneurs those who wander without a map, a term I’ve never heard it before. I’ve often made many of the same points (less eloquently) that Ian Leslie brings up in his article and my concern grows as Google develops social search.
Ian Leslie in The Economist 1843: In Search of Serendipity