Spinning a Rattleback in Rotterdam
Until now we've used the words luck and serendipity almost interchangeably, but not just anything can be called serendipity. It's this peculiar sub-species of luck that we're really interested in.
Serendipity is a coined word, made up out of whole cloth in 1754 by the English wit Horace Walpole. The word has exploded in popularity only in the last fifty years or so, and still has no translation in many other languages. Its sudden ubiquity is stunning; there were a mere 135 mentions in print before 1958, but by 2000 the word had appeared in the titles of fifty-seven books, was the name of a 2001 major motion picture starring John Cusack, appeared in 13,000 news articles, and produced 23 million Google search ...
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