Penny, Path, and Pair

Three temporal serendipity patterns

Serendipity revolves around a single unexpected event or a series of events that, when linked in hindsight, make up a serendipity story.

This is the second essay in the serendipity series. Here, I'll share three temporal serendipity patterns. These patterns may enrich the current theories on serendipity or add another dimension to the serendipity taxonomies. More importantly, they are useful for creating thinking habits and environmental affordances that can increase the likelihood of serendipitous episodes.

In the first stage of my serendipity research, I wanted to focus on experience and experiments without theory and concepts. I was interested in the phenomenology of serendipity unaffected by any theoretical framing and conceptualization. Only recently have I started reading books and papers on the subject. From what I've read so far, it seems the concepts of serendipity event and serendipity episode are used interchangeably, or when the multiplicity of accidents cohering into a serendipity episode is recognized, such unity is not conceptualized and compared with cases that qualify as serendipitous with only one accident. I’ll try to show why this distinction is useful.

Let’s start with some working definitions.

A serendipity event is a surprising event that has led to a beneficial outcome on its own or in relation to other such events.

A serendipity episode is the unity of serendipity events that has brought a beneficial outcome.

This means that serendipity events are produced backward by serendipity episodes. An unexpected event is serendipitous only if it immediately produces a beneficial outcome.

Serendipity episodes that span multiple serendipity events fall into two categories. Alongside episodes consisting of a single event — or those where events occur so closely together that they can be treated as one — we can identify three distinct temporal patterns. I refer to these as Penny, Path, and Pair.

Penny

The penny drops when we finally grasp something. The idiom originated from older British arcade machines, where there was a delay between inserting the coin and it dropping. While in this original sense of the idiom, the dropping is expected, in the serendipitous penny pattern, the event is unexpected. Yet, the revelation of understanding, of suddenly achieving clarity (or connecting the dots), is similar. In contrast to the other two temporal serendipity patterns, in the Penny case, a single unexpected event defines the serendipity episode.

For example, consider the widely experienced scenario of discovering a valuable object while searching for something else. This occurs to most of us several times a year. In certain situations, the perceived value of an item like clothing, a book, a key, a tool, or any personal possession is amplified. Later, when we are looking for something different, we unexpectedly find it, even though the perceived value of the item we haven’t found yet remains high. This discovery is surprising at that moment because we weren't actively seeking it, but the significance of the encounter is immediately recognized.

If that is not an object but rather a solution to research, engineering, medical, or any other type of problem, it remains a Penny pattern when the unexpected event provides (the key to) the solution immediately.

Path

Serendipity often happens when you get lost, take the wrong turn, miss the bus, or suddenly turn with your coffee and spill it on a stranger. Something makes you take an unexpected path, which leads to a fortuitous discovery.

During a conversation at a dinner table, or when meeting some friends, accidentally, the name of somebody that you haven't seen for a very long time is mentioned. That forgotten person may come to attention in other circumstances like reviewing old photos, emails, address books, and getting notified by LinkedIn that she changed her job, or, as I mentioned in the previous post, the name pops up based on a random algorithm of your note-taking app. Whatever the case, it is some unexpected event that is not a serendipitous event so far, but you act upon it, and in this way, you take a path on which something good may happen, but you don’t know if and what.

Remembering that you haven't seen that person for a while, you make a call to catch up. Another event happens through that person, which brings unexpected benefits. These two events define a serendipitous episode.

The Path pattern is often, though not necessarily, related to a person. When searching for a book in a library, one may find their attention drawn to a book on a completely different subject, or — as a dramatic effect often seen in movies — you might accidentally brush against a shelf, causing a book to fall open on the floor. In any case, something in it captures your attention, and you decide to borrow it. Later, as you read, you discover the key to a solution for a problem you never expected to find in that book. The initial unexpected event only becomes serendipitous when considered alongside the second, where the surprising connection takes shape.

Pair

One day, you discover something that appears intriguing but is not valuable on its own. However, later on, a second finding can prove to be very valuable when combined with the first. The name of this pattern is inspired by an old tale in which a man, while travelling to a destination, came across a shoe in good condition. Yet, he chose not to take it, as it had no value by itself. Later, he discovered the other shoe from the pair and regretted not having picked up the first one.

Pair is there to remind us that the value comes from the pair, like in a pair of shoes. But it doesn't restrict the number of pieces to two. Another way to look at it is finding a thorn piece of the last piece of a puzzle. That last piece can be torn into more than two smaller pieces. Only united can they look like the missing piece.

Of course, the condition to qualify as a serendipitous event is to be surprising and to be a solution to a problem found when not looking for it. Again, the last finding produces the previous finding as serendipitous events backward and only then does the whole connected set of events comprise a serendipitous episode.

The serendipitous episode that triggered the current work on serendipity was a Pair type. You have most likely experienced this pattern yourself. In any case, it should be familiar from detective stories, where it is used frequently.

While being aware of the Pair pattern is important, it shouldn’t be misconstrued as advice for keeping wherever we find on our way.

These three patterns can be used to extend serendipity taxonomies. One way to classify serendipity is by the type of relation between problem and solution. There is a problem, and the solution is found when not looking for it but noticing something else and making an unexpected connection. That’s the first category. Another is when looking for a solution to a problem, a solution is found to a different problem. The third is when a situation brings to attention a problem and its solution at the same time. Christian Busch calls these three types Archimedes, Post-it and Thunderbolt serendipity, respectively. And since the first two are named after a well-known serendipitous discovery, an example is needed only for the last one.

In 1970, Bernard D. Sadow, vice president of a luggage company, was returning from a vacation in Aruba and carrying two heavy suitcases when he observed a worker effortlessly rolling a heavy machine on a wheeled skid. He made the connection, and when at work, he cobbled together a prototype by taking casters off a wardrobe trunk and mounting them on a big travel suitcase. The prototype worked; it led to a patent for “rolling luggage,” and today, suitcases without wheels are extinct.

Now, if you imagine a matrix where one dimension is the problem-solution dimension, with Archimedes, Post-it and Thunderbolt, and the other is the temporal dimension, Penny, Path and Pair, then you get nine types of serendipity. We can discuss each of the nine types and how plausible they are, as well as find examples for most of them, but let’s leave that to academics and taxonomy enthusiasts.

The main practical value of the Penny, Path and Pair patterns is to be aware of them. Research shows that opportunities for serendipitous discoveries are often missed or ignored. My conjecture is that it is even more likely to miss an opportunity for a serendipitous episode of the Path and Pair type than of the Penny type. That’s why distinguishing them is important for training attention. It should also be useful to all software makers, workplace designers, and urban planners who are willing to make our environment more conducive to serendipity.