Happy Accidents
Let's finish the week with ten discoveries that were "happy accidents" – serendipitous breakthroughs. The lesson? Stay curious and keep your mind open.
Penicillin: Alexander Fleming, 1928
Fleming saw that mould had accidentally contaminated one of his Petri dishes, and was killing the surrounding bacteria. This chance observation led to the development of antibiotics.
Microwave Oven: Percy Spencer, 1945
Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon, was working on radar equipment when he noticed that a bar of chocolate in his pocket had melted. His curiosity led him to invent the microwave oven.
X-rays: Wilhelm Roentgen, 1895
Roentgen was experimenting with cathode rays when he accidentally discovered a new kind of ray that could pass through solid objects and create images of bones. See X-Rays [RR4:87].
Post-it® Notes: Spencer Silver and Art Fry, 1974
This one is well known. Silver was trying to create a strong adhesive, but instead created a low-tack glue by mistake. Fry used it to make bookmarks that wouldn’t fall out of his hymnal. The Post-it Note [RR2:58] was born.
Teflon: Roy Plunkett, 1938
Plunkett was attempting to develop a new refrigerant when he noticed a gas cylinder had stopped working. Inside, he found a waxy, non-reactive substance – Teflon, now widely used for non-stick cookware.
Safety Glass: Édouard Bénédictus, 1903
Bénédictus knocked a glass flask off a shelf, but it didn’t shatter. It had contained cellulose nitrate, which left a thin film inside the flask, holding the broken glass together – leading to the invention of laminated safety glass.
Slinky Toy: Richard James, 1943
James was working with tension springs to stabilise ship equipment. One fell off a shelf and “walked” across the floor. He and his wife turned it into a toy classic. Check out Slinky Toy [RR1:73].
Purple: William Henry Perkin, 1856
Perkin failed in his experiment to synthetically produce quinine. His beakers were left with a dirty brown sludge. When cleaned out with alcohol this produced a bright Purple [RR3:66] dye.
Saccharin (Artificial Sweetener): Constantin Fahlberg, 1879
While working on coal tar derivatives at Johns Hopkins University, Fahlberg forgot to wash his hands before dinner and noticed his bread tasted unusually sweet. He traced it back to a chemical compound he’d been working with.
Laughing Gas as Anaesthesia [RR3:32]: Crawford Long, Horace Wells, et al, 1840s
Observers at recreational “laughing gas” parties noticed that people under the influence didn’t feel pain from injuries. Doctors eventually explored this for medical use.
The lesson? Stay curious and keep your mind open.
As the American physicist Joseph Henry once noted:
“The seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us, but they only take root in minds well prepared to receive them.”
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