what does this quote mean? and when to use it? "sheer the blind luck"?

Question

I heard this when I was listening to the nobel lecture of Professor Peter Agre; nobel prize winner in chemistry 2003. I didn't understand the situation and why the audience laugh.??
can you help me please.. :)

Answer 1

Replace the word sheer for the word complete or total and it will make more sense. Blind luck would be being lucking without any sense [sight] of being lucky. Prof. Agre discovered a protein, aquaporin, by what he considered an example of luck favoring the well prepared. They were searching for proteins that are part of the Rh-factor when they happened across an abundant and much smaller protein.... ‘happened across’ is where the sheer blind luck was... the Nobel prize was from knowing what to do with the information the tests were giving... brilliant!

Answer 2

I think you mean "sheer blind luck." It means that someone discovered or accomplished something just by happening to find it. Another word for this is "serendipity." It would be like standing in a dark room and being told to find the light switch. You don't know which direction to go, but you just choose one, walk forward with your hands out, and you just happen to pick the right wall with the light switch on it. Another way to say it might be "sheer dumb luck." In the first Harry Potter movie, Professor McGonagall tells Harry and Ron they will get extra points for killing the troll, but only because of "sheer dumb luck." In other words, she didn't think the boys beat the troll by skills, but just because they got lucky. In your class, the people probably laughed because scientists are usually so caught up in careful measurements and proof, that whatever was discovered made the scientists stop and scratch their heads in surprise.

Answer 3

well I wonder if they mean sheer luck because that's always what happen's if I win something. Then I guess Luck has to be blind.

Answer 4

He probably said sheer blind luck

Answer 5

in Spanish we say "La suerte es ciega" to which in English a literal translation will read something like "blind luck.", luck can touch anyone, this is to say (Ephemera or a merely a chimeric), specially went I most need it, it will touch someone else, and not me. .

Answer 6

Don't you mean pluck the lame duck?

Answer 7

it means stuff