Wednesday, August 13, 2008

On discovery

Albert Szent-Györgyi, a Hungarian physiologist, a Nobel laureate for finding vitamin C, once stated

"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind."

and also

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."

A wise guy.
Both remarks relate to the same fact. If you can create a vision*) of the future you're in a very good position to foresee the coming change. You are much more able to notice the weak signals because your vision highlights them and separates them from the noise. You can see what everybody else misses. And in that sence, you will be also lucky - or accident-prone - because you are prepared.

*) a real vision, not one of those "we-will-grow-25%-per-year-and-rule-the-world"