Serendipity

SERENDIPITYor

Things Probably not Covered in your Probability Class

Jeffrey Tzu Kwan Valino Kohwww.villainous.biz

[email protected], May 28, 2013

http://www.villainous.biz


mailto:[email protected]


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

How did I get here?


JEFFREYTZU KWAN

VALINO KOHExperience Designer & Interactivity Researcher


PRADA WOMEN SPRING SUMMER 2008Milan, Italy 2007


CCTV HEADQUARTERS

Beijing, China2008


FIGHT WITH FLOWERS

Singapore Design Festival 2009


TEDX ZÜRICH 2010

http://youtu.be/8W9PMeWjmO4


http://tedxzurich.com/previous/2010/2010/09/05/jef-koh-builds-animated-interactive-liquids/




OMA: PROGRESSThe Barbican

London, UK 2011


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.


serendipity |ˌserənˈdipitē|nounthe occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.


緣份Tuesday, May 28, 2013

HORACE WALPOLE

4th Earl of Orford(24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797)


THE THREE PRINCES OF SERENDIP


HASHT-BIHISHTهشت بهشت


AB'UL HASAN YAMĪN UD-DĪN KHUSROW (1253–1325 CE) (ابوالحسن یمینالدین خسرو)

Indian musician, scholar and poet


SERINDIP

• Persian name for Sri Lanka

• adopted from Tamil 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.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language


serendipity = 緣份the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.


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


How didYOU get here?



SERENDIPITOUS DISCOVERIES


ALEXANDER FLEMING

• Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist.

•Nobel Prize in Medicine (1945).


• 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.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staphylococcus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staphylococcus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mould

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mould

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.


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.



BENZENE

• First chemical to be described using modern chemical structure.


OUROBOROS ==> BENZENE


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.


NOT MEGATRON!


MAGNETRON!used in early radio technology


IT’S CHOCOLATE. SERIOUSLY.


MICROWAVE


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...


NORTH AMERICA

Where I’m from!



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.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US

HEDY LAMARRSpread-spectrum communication technology is still used in

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, CDMA, etc.


ANGINA PECTORISCommonly known as angina – is chest pain due to ischemia of the heart muscle, generally due to obstruction or spasm of the coronary arteries.


WHEN IS A BANANA NOT

A BANANA?When it’s a picture of a banana.

What were you thinking of?


SILDENAFIL CITRATE

Also known as Viagra


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!



How do I make serendipity?


Reverse SerendipityBy (Our Name Here) Productions

Campus MovieFest 2013: Rutgers University http://youtu.be/78fiFPrrfe0


Reverse SerendipityBy (Our Name Here) Productions

Campus MovieFest 2013: Rutgers University http://youtu.be/78fiFPrrfe0


Do good things.


Chance favors the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

Jeffrey Tzu Kwan Valino Kohwww.villainous.biz

[email protected], May 28, 2013





Serendipity

Education

development of events

dead center of atarget

wonderful feeling

benecial way

lois mcmaster bujoldtuesday

design research

intheoretical chemistry

media art