Many important discoveries or creations are accidental: it is usually while seeking the answerto one question that we come across the answer to another.

The writer of the statement believes that many important discoveries or creations are happened by chance, through seeking something else is that a discoverer comes across a discovery. Aside the fact that there are evidences fit in the statement to support it, lots of endeavors is missed by the author.

To initiate, there are many discoveries and inventions achieved from the results of experiments that initially were not supposed to conclude in such results. This is because the mind of an observer is flexible and apt to grasp the results no matter it is intended results or not. “Chance favors the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur. In this regard, consider Henry Becquerel. Becquerel's discovery of spontaneous radioactivity is a famous example of serendipity, of how chance favors the prepared mind. Becquerel was experimenting on the phosphorescence activity of certain materials. This activity happens when certain materials are primarily exposed to light, then they emit different wavelengths of light. In a rainy week, Becquerel could not go out and expose the uranium salts to light. So he just kept them in his drawer with a negative of photography. After some days he comes back and decides to develop the negatives. He accidentally noticed that without any exposure to light, these uranium salts emit light spontaneously. Then, radioactivity discovered by Henry Becquerel which further more led to X-ray photography and the Nobel Prize for Henry Becquerel.

At the same time, there are also lots of inventions and discoveries based on a directed and protracted endeavors. Consider Albert Einstein and curvature of the time and space dimensions. Having studied the Newton theory of gravitational forces and considering the deviation of orbit of Mercury from Newtonian laws, Albert Einstein devoted his endeavors to find the more reliable theory. It was in the wake of World War that such a scientist tried hard to find a better explanation for the orbits. He discovered the curvature of time and space dimensions and made the science to leap forward. Another example is Lamp. Edison was intended so decisively to make lamps with the energy of electricity. In his endeavors, he was needed to repeat his experiment near one thousand times. Lamp bulbs, in that time, were hardly able to be to be filed with the gas protecting the lamp from exploding. But it was the perseverance of Edison and the aimed path that brought him such an invention, not the chance.

In short, there is not any common rule in findings that scientist shift from one answer to the other by chance when they discover. As mentioned in the body paragraphs, discoveries and inventions are sometimes resulted from accidents and sometimes they are the result of years of focused endeavors.