The word "serendipity" derives from an 18th century fairy tale by Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Oxford, (1717-1797).

The term "serendipity" means "finding something of value and recognizing it is valuable".

The 1937 Nobelist in Medicine, Albert Szent-Georgi, who discovered Vitamin C and ATP (which powers the muscles), said, "Discovery is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought".

For example, bread mold had been seen for thousands of years, but Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) discovered in bread mold the first antibiotic, penicillin.

In Walpole's fairy story,"The Princes of Serendip", two brothers dash off on their beautiful white horses, in search of adventure. And they make many exciting finds.

Folks at home think this is pure luck. But The Princes are always moving about, not sitting around at home, and The Princes know an adventure when they see one.

The "Beggar" part of my phrase is taken from the story of Caliph Haroun-Al-Rashid, in The Arabian Knights, who slipped out in beggar's disguise at night, roaming around Bagdad, to learn what his advisers could not or would not tell him. But I didn't need a disguise. The poverty of my childhood and in later life -- when, after World War II, I was a homeless veteran -- prepared me to be The Beggar of Serendip, experiencing what the "well-heeled" are insulated from. And my 12 years of miseducation (noted herein) in the public schools of Springield, MO, and Tulsa, OK, and the 8 years of fear and loathing (also noted herein) at Columbia University and New York University -- when I never once had a proper curriculum adviser! -- prepared me to recognize genuine education from sham and to discover long neglected resources.