RESEARCH BY ACCIDENT

The article addresses the issue of uncertainty in technological knowle dge. ''Research by accident'' is seen as a central cognitive process t o generate (unanticipated) knowledge about the characteristics of a te chnology. In the example of nuclear weapons, scientific programs have initially led to a sequency of unanticipated discoveries-a process of research by accident that subsequently reveals properties and characte ristics of a technology that were not expected initially. The second p art of the article deals with cases in which uncertainty originates no t in the absence of knowledge per se, but rather with whether knowledg e is available in the right form and the right policy context. The exa mple of energy studies of the 1970s illustrates that uncertainty also includes cases where the problem at hand deals with the efficiency of information distribution rather than information generation. There is a difference between (scientific) information that exists somewhere an d scientific information that is known in the right context to the rig ht people (the persons with the capacity to take, or to resist, action ) at the right time.