Serendipity

Iain Morley is a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, where he is Tutor in Archaeology and Anthropology, and a Lecturer for the Institute of Human Sciences. A scholar of archaeology and the evolution of human cognition, he has undertaken archaeological fieldwork around the world, and has published on the origins of music, early ritual and religion. Mark de Rond is a Reader at the Judge Business School and a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge, with a particular interest in causation, explanation and imaginations of human importance in organisational life. His published work has received several prestigious awards, including the George R. Terry Book Award and inclusion in the Best of Books 2008 (Financial Times).

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• Introduction. Fortune and the prepared mind Iain Morley and Mark de Rond; 1. The stratigraphy of serendipity Susan E. Alcock; 2. Understanding humans - serendipity and anthropology Richard Leakey; 3. HIV and the naked ape Robin Weiss; 4. Cosmological serendipity Simon Singh; 5. Serendipity in astronomy Andrew C. Fabian; 6. Serendipity in physics Richard Friend; 7. Liberalism and uncertainty Oliver Letwin; 8. The unanticipated pleasures of the writing life Simon Winchester.