Many of the most influential inventions in history were not the result of careful planning or deliberate experimentation, but rather the product of chance and happy accidents. These unplanned discoveries had far-reaching consequences, shaping the course of human history and leaving an indelible mark on the world. In this video, we'll explore 30 accidental inventions, reveal the fascinating stories behind their creation and examine their impact on our lives.
HERE ARE 30 Accidental Inventions That
Changed the World
#1 Penicillin
One of the first antibiotics in human
history, Penicillin, was discovered in 1928. However, its discoverer, Dr.
Alexander Fleming, never intended for it to "revolutionize all
medicine," as he subsequently put it. Fleming discovered the antibiotic
entirely by accident when he left out cultures of Staphylococcus aureus in his
lab for two weeks and discovered that a mold called Penicillium notatum had
stopped their growth.
#2 Safety Glass
Scientist Edward Benedictus was working in his lab one fateful
day in 1903 when he unintentionally knocked over a flask. As Benedictus looked
down, he saw that the glassware had only slightly cracked while preserving its
shape, instead of shattering into a million tiny pieces. Further investigation
revealed that the cellulose nitrate coating on the interior of the glass had
held the glass together, leading to the invention of safety glass.
#3 The Implantable Pacemaker
Wilson Greatbatch, an associate engineering
professor at the University of Buffalo, unintentionally created the pacemaker
in 1956. The scientist was developing equipment to record heart sounds when he
used the wrong transistor and found that instead of recording noises, his
creation produced an electrical pulse that resembled the heart's. Together,
Greatbatch and William Chardack, a surgeon at Buffalo's Veterans Administration
Hospital, were successful in controlling a dog's heartbeat in 1958 and a human
heartbeat in 1960.
#4 Vaseline
A 22-year-old chemist Robert Augustus
Chesebrough was intrigued by the potential uses for petroleum and decided to
travel to the location of its discovery - Titusville, Pennsylvania to
experiment with it. The substance known as Vaseline was created due to
Chesebrough's observation that the workers drilling for petroleum would apply a
byproduct of the pumping equipment - a jellylike substance that was cleaned off
of it and often applied to their skin to treat cuts and burns.
#5 Bubble Wrap
Although bubble wrap was intentionally
created by engineers Marc Chavannes and Alfred Fielding, it was never intended
to be used as packing material. Nevertheless, after the two business owners'
bubbling wallpaper failed to catch on, they changed course and began selling
their product as greenhouse insulation and then, in 1960, as protective
packaging.
#6 Velcro
While walking his dog, Swiss engineer George
de Mestral noticed the bothersome burrs that clung to his clothing. He
discovered that the burrs possessed tiny hooks that gave them the ability to
attach to clothing and fur with ease. De Mestral was motivated to create a
fastening mechanism that made use of the same idea by Nature's design for the
burrs. The end result was what is now known as Velcro.
#7 The Microwave Oven
Percy LeBaron Spencer was doing his job as
usual, working on high-powered vacuum tubes that generate short radio waves. He
noticed the candy bar that he had in his pocket had melted. The engineer
understood that the magnetrons were responsible for this phenomenon. And in
1945, he had already applied for a patent for his microwave-powered metal
frying box or a microwave oven as we know it today!
#8 Matches
When chemist John Walker unintentionally
scraped a stick wrapped with chemicals across his fireplace and noticed that it
caught fire, he made the discovery that would later become known as
matchsticks. Walker initially used cardboard to create his "Friction
Lights," as he dubbed them but soon converted to utilizing wooden splints
and sandpaper. By the way, this invention dates back to 1826!
#9 The Safety Pin
Walter Hunt, an inventor, is said to have
started playing around with some wire while working at his desk and trying to
figure out how to pay off some debts. Hunt invented the safety pin on April 10,
1849, after experimenting with a scrap of metal and discovering that, when
coiled, it could clasp to itself and unclasp once more.
#10 The Post-It Note
According to the Post-it website, while
researching powerful adhesives, 3M scientist Dr. Spencer Silver discovered one
that "stuck gently to surfaces but didn't strongly adhere to them."
When Silver first discovered it, he had no clue what to do with it. However,
years later, Art Fry, another 3M scientist, approached Silver to develop a
bookmark that could adhere to paper without tearing it. That bookmark
eventually evolved into the Post-it note - the ultimate piece of paper to write
little "I love you" notes on!
#11 The X-Ray Machine
Scientist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen was working
on a vacuum tube experiment at his lab in Wurzburg on November 8, 1895, when he
became aware of a strange glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen.
Confounded and intrigued, he gave the mysterious new rays causing this glow the
name "X-rays" because of their then-unexplained origin. After
experimenting with the new rays, he discovered that holding his hand in front
of the glow allowed him to see through his skin to his bones, creating the
first X-ray picture in history.
#12 Coca-Cola
The man who developed the syrup for Coca-Cola was not a chef and
had no business with the food industry. Instead, Dr. John Stith Pemberton was a
pharmacist. He wanted to make an alcoholic beverage that was loaded with
caffeine and cocaine so that drug addicts like himself could use it to wean
themselves off of morphine and other substances. The first bottle of Coca-Cola
was created in 1886 when Pemberton removed the alcohol from the recipe due to
Prohibition. However, cocaine remained a part of the concoction for years to
come!
#13 The Pap Smear
Dr. George Nicholas Papanicolaou developed
the concept for the Pap smear, a procedure used to check for cancer while
looking at a slide of cells extracted from a woman's uterus. Papaniculaou's
first goal was to merely track cellular changes that occur during a woman's
menstrual cycle. Still, as he conducted his research, he learned that one of
his patients had uterine cancer and that her cancer cells were simple enough to
examine under a microscope.
#14 Vulcanized Rubber
Charles Goodyear accidentally created
vulcanized rubber in 1839, which is now used to create durable items like car
tires. He had been trying to make a weatherproof rubber for years, but only
succeeded when he put some conventional rubber mixed with sulfur onto a hot fire
by mistake and discovered that it retained its structure.
#15 Popsicles
Frank Epperson, an 11-year-old child, created
the popsicle when he accidentally mixed soda powder with water and left it out
overnight with the stirrer still in. Epperson decided to lick his frozen blend
and discovered that it tasted, well, pretty great. The young businessman
originally called his creation the Epsicle (a combination of the word icicle
and his name), but he later changed the name to popsicle because kids would
already call the ice pops "Pop's 'Sicle" anyhow.
#16 Viagra
Despite being one of the pharmaceuticals with
the highest sales rates ever, Viagra is no longer used for its intended
purposes. During its testing phase, Viagra was promoted as a treatment for
angina, a cardiac ailment that generates chest tightness. The little blue pill
also boosted the frequency and strength of erections, despite the fact that it
was unsuccessful in treating angina in research participants.
#17 Brandy
A Dutch shipmaster tried to make wine more
transportable in the 16th century by using heat to concentrate the alcohol to
add water before consumption. But, he soon realized that concentrated wine
tastes far better than wine watered down. As a result, he abandoned the water
portion of his idea and gave his new alcoholic beverage the Dutch name
brandewijn, which means "burnt wine."
#18 Tea Bags
A mesh "Tea-Leaf Holder" was the
subject of a patent application by two ladies in 1901, but Thomas Sullivan, a
tea trader, is credited with creating the modern tea bag in 1908. Although it
wasn't Sullivan's intention for consumers to use the little silk pouches in
which he sent his tea samples as tea bags, they did so anyway and enjoyed how
convenient it was.
#19 Quinine
Although quinine was a known healing
substance for ages, its first use as an anti-malaria drug is attributed to
Charles Marie de La Condamine in 1737.
#20 Radioactivity
You can thank Henri Becquerel and Mother
Nature for this one. In 1896, the chemist was attempting to make fluorescent
materials emit X-rays when exposed to sunshine. He had to leave the goods in
his drawer because it was a week of clouds and overcast, which was unfortunate.
He opened the drawer when the sun finally emerged and discovered the uranium
rock he had been using had left its mark on a nearby photographic plate without
being exposed to light.
#21 LSD (Lysergic Acid
Diethylamide)
In 1938, Albert Hofmann created his first
synthetic version of lysergic acid, a potent molecule that was first discovered
from a fungus that grows on rye. He investigated compounds that would be used
to make medications, and many of their derivatives are still in use today. He
unintentionally sampled his creation in 1943. Hoffmann claimed that while using
this drug, he experienced agitation and lightheadedness. He continued to test
it, and, well... you heard the legend surrounding The Bicycle Day, right?
#22 Super Glue
Harry Coover was looking for materials to
make clear plastic gun sights for the war in 1942 when he came across a
chemical mixture that stuck to everything it came in contact with. It wasn't
until 1951 that Coover and fellow Eastman Kodak researcher Fred Joyner adopted
and repurposed the same recipe as "Alcohol-Catalyzed Cyanoacrylate
Adhesive Compositions/Superglue," as the patent says because researchers
didn't perceive a need for such a sticky solution.
#23 Teflon
Teflon is a synthetic polymer that is used to
create anything from nail paint to nonstick frying pans. Roy J. Plunkett, the
person who found the product, did it entirely by mistake. When the scientist
realized that some of the gas he was working with at the time had changed into
a white powder, he tested the material further. Plunkett concluded that the
substance had low surface friction and was heat-resistant, making it the ideal
material for its current uses.
#24 Dry Cleaning
Although Jean Baptiste Jolly worked as a
textile maker in the apparel sector, he discovered a new dry cleaning technique
by mistake. Jolly didn't realize that kerosene made the tablecloth cleaner until
his maid unintentionally toppled a light over it; this observation gave rise to
the first dry cleaner.
#25 Silly Putty
James Wright, an engineer, was charged with
developing a less expensive substitute for synthetic rubber during World War
II. To develop a replacement, Wright mixed silicone oil with boric acid and
found that the resulting substance was flexible and bouncy with the ability to
copy words from comic books and newspaper articles. Wright's bosses, however,
were displeased by his "nutty putty," and it took a few years before
businessman Peter Hodgson saw its potential.
#26 Corn Flakes
A failed attempt to cook wheat in 1894 was
what gave rise to the recipe for Corn Flakes.
John Kellogg was in charge of the medical department at the Seventh Day
Adventist Battle Creek Sanitarium at the time. John was attempting to develop a
diet for the patients at the sanitarium with the help of his brother William,
who also worked there.
The brothers mistakenly overcooked some wheat one day while attempting to
prepare it. The wheat was instead divided into flakes when they tried to roll
it out into dough after taking it from the burner. As the brothers discovered,
the flakes could be baked into a crunchy snack.
#27 The First Artificial
Sweetener
Constantin Fahlberg made the first artificial
sweetener, saccharin, in 1878. The Russian chemist discovered how sweet some of
the substances he was handling were when he unintentionally tasted them while
working in Ira Remsen's lab. After conducting some research, Fahlberg concluded
that the reaction of o-sulfobenzoic acid with phosphorus chloride and ammonia
produces benzoic sulfinide, or saccharin. That was what gave it the sweet taste
without any calories!
#28 Dynamite
Although Ascanio Sobrero created the
explosive nitroglycerin, Alfred Nobel was the one who employed it to create
dynamites. While living in Paris, Nobel started experimenting with
nitroglycerin. Eventually, by mixing the substance with kieselguhr, he
unintentionally discovered a means to control it. Several people perished in
the invention process, including Nobel's brother Emil.
#29 Chewing Gum
Even though chewing gum has existed in
various forms since the time of the ancient Greeks, the modern variety was not
created until the late 1800s. The chewy treat was discovered by an American
inventor by the name of Thomas Adams, Sr., but only after attempting and
failing to transform chicle, the ingredient used to make gum, into
rubber.
#30 Play-Doh
The Strong National Museum of Play claims
that the first version of this well-known kids' toy was a cleaning solution.
The soap manufacturer Kutol Products created the product, which was on the
verge of bankruptcy in the late 1920s. However, Cleo McVicker secured a
contract with Kroger grocery stores to produce a ready-made wallpaper cleaner
for their stores.
No comments: