Prepared mind

Dans le champ des observations, le hasard ne esprits prepares. (In the field of observations, only the prepared mind.)... 

Good luck but remember that luck favors the prepared mind. 

Manchester KL, Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) — Ghance and the prepared mind. Trends Biotechnol 13 511—515, 1995-... 

Kubinyi, H. (1999) Chance favors the prepared mind—from serendipity to rational drug design../. Recep. Signal Transduc. Research 19, 15-39. 

Serendipity—or chance discovery—is the scientist s best friend. The mentally prepared scientist, that is. As Louis Pasteur wisely stated, In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind. Of course, entrepreneurial opportunism plays its part in this story, too, because the pharmaceutical companies that held the rights to these agents were able to mobilize both the clinical trials needed to demonstrate efficacy and the marketing machinery to make the drugs widely available. 

Unexpected results can lead to new opportunities, but the provenance of the discovery is not always clear from research publications. Bunnett [21 ] admitted that the discovery of the S RN1 mechanism (Scheme 2.9) was serendipitous, and the discoveries of hydroboration [4] and of the conservation of orbital symmetry in concerted reactions (Woodward was working on the synthesis of vitamin B12) [29] originated in unexpected results. In another context, monitoring by NMR of reaction products as they were formed led to the chance observation of negative signals (emission of radiation instead of the usual absorption), explained by CIDNP in radical pairs (Scheme 2.6 earlier see also Chapter 10) [30]. However, as Pasteur remarked in the nineteenth century [31], chance favours only the prepared mind . 

Several supramolecular chiral systems were discovered as a result of lucky breaks, but one should not forget that even 100 years ago chemists thought Pasteur was lucky. On this topic Pasteur once said Chance favors the prepared mind. ... 

The discovery of the Coriolis effect resulted from work done by Caspar Gustav de Coriolis (1792-1843) at the behest of Napoleon, who wanted to know why his cannon balls never went straight. There is no historical record to indicate that Coriolis cast any light on Napoleon s problem but, as often happens in research, unexpected findings can stimulate curiosity and lead to other useful outcomes—as Pasteur once said, Chance only visits the prepared mind. ... 

In 1776 when the Nation was born, we had two useful fungicides for food crops, elemental sulfur and copper sulfate. During the century before the founding of ACS, we added only one more, lime-sulfur in 1803 and this was only a variant of elemental sulfur. Six years after ACS was founded, Bordeaux mixture was born of one of those accidents that Pasteur said happens to the prepared mind. 

Chance favors the prepared mind is a translation from the French. (The quotation is the subject of the sentence.)... 

Observations are a prelude to experimentation, but they are preconditioned by a framework of peripheral knowledge. While there is an element of luck in being at the right place and time to make important observations, as Pasteur stated, chance favours only the prepared mind . A fault in scientific method is that the design of the experiment and choice of method may influence the outcome - the decisions involved may not be as objective as some scientists assume. Another flaw is that radical alternative hypotheses may be overlooked in favour of a modification to the original hypothesis, and yet just such leaps in thinking have frequently been required before great scientific advances. 

The story of the discovery of penicillins has been related on many occasions and in many forms, and the superb biography of Alexander Fleming by Gwyn MacFarlane gives by far the best account of his life and discoveries. It is, however, worth repeating the most salient features of the story, because it provides an excellent example of what Pasteur had earlier described as chance favours only the prepared mind [He hasard ne favorise que les esprits prepares ]. 

While these ingredients may constitute the major reactants and the energy source for discovery, the reaction almost certainly will proceed slowly if at all in the absence of an essential catalyst. This catalyst is the adequately prepared mind or, more ofen, the conjoint action of more than one such mind. 

These two competitive processes, discovered independently of each other and of Ziegler, were developed aggressively by Phillips, less so by Standard. The Phillips process is now the world s leading producer of linear polyethylene. Once again, it may be said that fruitful innovation was the result of an unexpected result encountering a prepared mind.. 

Pasteur was not a physician. He had no medical training whatever. Pasteur was a chemist who spent the first ten years of his scientific career, from 1847 to 1857, laying the groundwork for the field known as stereochemistry. He became one of the founding fathers of scientific medicine by a lucky accident—being asked to solve the problem of silkworm disease. Luck, however, as he later remarked, favors the prepared mind. ... 

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