But it was also, at least in part, due to the power of chance. He was in the right place at the right time, where seeing the slot machine triggered a new idea. Tales of discovery often feature a similar moment: Newton’s (possibly apocryphal) apple, Archimedes’ bathtub “Eureka!,” the neglected petri dish that grew Penicillium mold. Indeed, it’s a common enough phenomenon that a word was invented to capture it: in 1754, Horace Walpole coined the term “serendipity,” based on the fairy tale adventures of The Three Princes of Serendip (Serendip being the archaic name of Sri Lanka), who “were always
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