Guest lecture on serendipity for a probability class at National Taipei University.

1. SERENDIPITY
or
Things Probably not Covered in your Probability Class
JeffreyTzu KwanValino Koh
www.villainous.biz
jtkvkoh@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

2. It's a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a
target you didn't even know you were aiming for.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

3. How did I get here?
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

4. JEFFREY
TZU KWAN
VALINO KOH
Experience Designer &
Interactivity Researcher
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

5. PRADA WOMEN SPRING SUMMER 2008
Milan, Italy 2007
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

6. CCTV
HEADQUARTERS
Beijing, China
2008
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

7. FIGHT WITH
FLOWERS
Singapore Design Festival
2009
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

8. TEDX ZÜRICH
2010
http://youtu.be/
8W9PMeWjmO4
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

9. OMA: PROGRESS
The Barbican
London, UK 2011
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

10. UNCONVENTIONAL
BACKGROUND
• BFA Monumental Art, NL.
• MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments, UK.
• PhD ABD in Integrative Sciences and Engineering, SG.
• Close to 10 years working experience in architecture,
advertising, design research and media art.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

11. serendipity |ˌserənˈdipitē|
noun
the occurrence and development of events by chance
in a happy or beneficial way.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

12. 緣份
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

13. HORACE
WALPOLE
4th Earl of Orford
(24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797)
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

14. THETHREE PRINCES OF SERENDIP
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

15. HASHT-
BIHISHT
!"#$ !"%
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

16. AB'UL HASANYAMĪN UD-DĪN KHUSROW (1253–1325 CE)
(‫)('و‬ *+,-./01+ *(2-‫)ا$4ا‬
Indian musician, scholar and poet
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

17. SERINDIP
• Persian name for Sri Lanka
• adopted fromTamil Seren
deevu or from Sanskrit
Suvarnadweepa or Golden
Island.
• In contrast, some trace the
etymology to Simhaladvipa
which literally translates to
Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

18. Tuesday, May 28, 2013

19. serendipity = 緣份
the occurrence and development of events by chance
in a happy or beneficial way.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

20. It's a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a
target you didn't even know you were aiming for.
Lois McMaster Bujold
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

21. How did
YOU get here?
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

22. Tuesday, May 28, 2013

23. SERENDIPITOUS DISCOVERIES
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

24. ALEXANDER FLEMING
• Scottish biologist,
pharmacologist and botanist.
• Nobel Prize in Medicine
(1945).
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

25. • Petri dish containing Staphylococcus plate culture mistakenly
left open.
• Contaminated by blue-green mould.
• Mould released a substance that repressed the growth of
bacteria.
• Grew a pure culture and discovered it was a Penicillium
mould, now known to be Penicillium notatum.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

26. AUGUST KEKULÉ
• From the 1850s until his
death, Kekule was one of the
most prominent chemists in
Europe, especially in
theoretical chemistry.
• He was the principal
founder of the theory of
chemical structure.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

27. OUROBOROS
• Ancient symbol of a serpent
or dragon eating its own tail.
• Similar to 鳳凰.
• Used in Alchemy
symbolizing the circular
nature of an alchemists’
work.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

28. Tuesday, May 28, 2013

29. BENZENE
• First chemical to be
described using modern
chemical structure.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

30. OUROBOROS ==> BENZENE
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

31. PERCY SPENCER
• American engineer and inventor.
• Had no formal education.
• Joined the US Navy as a radio
operator and became an expert on
radio technology.
• Taught himself trigonometry, calculus,
chemistry, physics, and metallurgy,
among other subjects.
• While working at Raytheon he was
testing a magnetron for radar sets.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

32. NOT
MEGATRON!
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

33. MAGNETRON!
used in early radio technology
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

34. IT’S CHOCOLATE. SERIOUSLY.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

35. MICROWAVE
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

36. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
• Italian explorer, navigator,
and colonizer, born in the
Republic of Genoa, in what
is today northwestern Italy.
• Was looking for a new route
across the Atlantic Ocean to
India when he accidentally
ran into...
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

37. NORTH
AMERICA
Where I’m from!
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

38. Tuesday, May 28, 2013

39. HEDY LAMARR
• Austro-American actress and
mathematician, celebrated for her
great beauty, who was a major
contract star of MGM's "Golden Age."
• Mathematically talented, Lamarr and
composer George Antheil invented an
early technique for spread spectrum
communications and frequency
hopping.
• Discovered during her experiments
with automated control of musical
instruments.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

40. HEDY LAMARR
Spread-spectrum communication technology is still used in
Bluetooth,Wi-Fi, CDMA, etc.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

41. ANGINA PECTORIS
Commonly known as angina – is chest pain due to ischemia of the heart
muscle, generally due to obstruction or spasm of the coronary arteries.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

42. WHEN IS A
BANANA NOT
A BANANA?
When it’s a picture of a banana.
What were you thinking of?
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

43. SILDENAFIL
CITRATE
Also known as Viagra
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

44. OTHER CHANCE
DISCOVERIES
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Popsicles
• Brandy
• Teflon
• Potato Chips
• LSD
• Pap Smear
• Insulin
• Allergies
• X-Rays
• Vulcanized Rubber
• Pacemaker
• Radioactivity
• Plastic
• Coke
• ...and more!
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

45. Tuesday, May 28, 2013

46. How do I make serendipity?
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

47. Reverse Serendipity
By (Our Name Here) Productions
Campus MovieFest 2013: Rutgers University
http://youtu.be/78fiFPrrfe0
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

48. Reverse Serendipity
By (Our Name Here) Productions
Campus MovieFest 2013: Rutgers University
http://youtu.be/78fiFPrrfe0
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

49. Do good things.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

50. Chance favors the prepared mind.
Louis Pasteur
JeffreyTzu KwanValino Koh
www.villainous.biz
jtkvkoh@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 28, 2013