Famous inventions and advances that came about by accident | Free ...

Famous inventions and advances that came about by accident?

Some of the biggest game-changing inventions and discoveries of our time were not the product of calculated genius, but accidents that happened to work out. These lucky mishaps have given the world everything from the awesome Slinky toy to the lifesaving antibiotic penicillin. In many cases they?ve also reshaped major industries or created entirely new ones. NEWSWEEK takes a look at some of the most serendipitous breakthroughs in history and how they came about?

Saccharin

It may sound gross, but when Constantin Fahlberg failed to wash his hands one day in 1879, it was the luckiest thing he ever did. Fahlberg, a chemist, was at the lab of the noted scientist Ira Remsen, trying to find new uses for coal tar, when he spilled a chemical derivative on his hands. That evening, at dinner with his wife, Fahlberg noticed that his rolls tasted sweet. He asked her if she had done something special. She had not, and he quickly realized that what he was tasting was the residue he?d spilled on himself at the lab earlier that day. Eager to find out what it was, Fahlberg proceeded to taste the various residues on his arms and clothes, and later at his lab. He eventually figured out what the sweet taste was, and so did Remsen. The duo published their findings in the American Chemical Journal in 1880. Four years later, Fahlberg patented what he called saccharin?a sweetener about 300 times sweeter than sugar?but left his partner off the patent. Today saccharin is used in many low-calorie and sugar-free products, from diet soda to salad dressing.

The Color Mauve

Sometimes, in the pursuit of scientific endeavors, scientists become famous for reasons that don?t seem entirely scientific. Take the chemist William Perkin. His big dream was to find a cure for malaria. In 1856 the young Englishman was working on an artificial form of quinine when his experiments yielded a dark sludge. It was a disappointing result, but instead of chucking the mess, Perkin noticed the color. It was a particular shade of purple, which happened to be a hot color among the fashionable folks of the time. He was able to isolate the compound that produced the color?mauve?and realized it worked well as a dye. Within a year, Perkin patented his synthetic dye, the first synthetic dye ever made, and opened a company to make and sell it.

Popsicles

Every child is grateful for Frank Epperson, even if he or she doesn?t know it. In 1905, Epperson was a mere 11 years old when he accidentally left a soft-drink concoction with a stirring stick in it on the front porch of his San Francisco home. It happened to be a very cold night, and when the boy found his cup the next day, the liquid inside was frozen to the stick. While he had no idea what to make of it at the time, nearly two decades later he patented his ?frozen ice on a stick? and called it the Eppsicle, but then changed the name to ?Popsicle? because his children liked that better. A few years later he sold his invention to the Joe Lowe Co. in New York. Popsicle eventually ended up in the hands of Unilever?s Good Humor pision, which offers more than 30 flavors today.

Microwave Ovens

In 1946 Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer was testing a magnetron?a device that emits microwave radiation?when he realized that the candy bar in his pocket had melted. He figured the magnetron caused this to happen and tested his theory by placing popcorn kernels near the device. When those popped, he tried to cook an egg, which exploded. Sure, it made a mess, but he also realized that exposure to low-density microwave energy could quickly cook food. Spencer and other engineers started to work on a practical way to trap the waves and use them for this purpose. By 1947 the first commercial units became available through Raytheon. They weighed as much as 750 pounds and cost thousands of dollars, but by 1975 technological advances had made the device as popular (and affordable) as an oven range?

Dynamite

Alfred Nobel, who established the Nobel Prize, had quite the explosive history before he came up with his prestigious award. It was the 1860s, and nitroglycerin was a popular form of explosive, but it was completely unstable. That was an unfortunate problem for those trying to handle the substance, since it would unexpectedly blow up. Nobel, who owned a nitroglycerin factory, knew it was worth trying to make the compound safer, so he started to test it. One day, while researching the explosive in his lab, he accidentally dropped a vial of it on the ground. When it didn?t explode, he realized it was because the substance had seeped into sawdust. The mixture essentially made nitroglycerin more stable, although not yet perfect. Nobel refined this by combining kieselguhr (a form of silica) and the explosive, *** it stable enough that he could begin production of what became known as dynamite at mass scale.

Play-Doh

Perhaps it?s not surprising that nobody deliberately set out to invent Play-Doh, the odd-smelling, pliable goop that American kids have been shaping (and eating) for decades. In fact, Play-Doh was invented not as a toy but as wallpaper cleaner. In 1933, Cleo McVicker approached a grocery-store chain about letting his soap-manufacturing company, Kutol Products, develop a new wallpaper cleaner. The chain agreed, and Kutol started producing its cleaner, which removed the dust given off by coal furnaces. It also happened to be delightfully moldable. But demand for wallpaper cleaner eventually declined as people stopped using coal to heat their homes. Kutol Products was in peril until Cleo?s son, Joseph McVicker, realized that the cleaner could double as modeling clay. In 1955 Joseph started testing the clay in schools and day-care centers?free of the cleaning agents, of course?and realized he had a hit. He named the stuff Play-Doh, and the next year he and his uncle Noah (Cleo died in 1949) created the Rainbow Crafts Co., the sole purpose of which was to make and sell Play-Doh?

Stainless Steel

The next time you raise a nonrusty fork to your mouth at a meal, you should think of Harry Brearley, the English metallurgist credited with discovering the steel alloy we commonly call ?stainless.? Actually, stainless steel wasn?t entirely Brearley?s doing. Metallurgists for nearly a century before him had been toying with different metal mixes, trying to create a corrosion-resistant variety. But nobody succeeded to the extent that Brearley did when he stumbled on the recipe in 1913. He had been hired by a small arms manufacturer, whose gun barrels were wearing out too quickly, to develop an alloy that would better resist erosion (not corrosion). Brearley tried elements in different proportions in the metal until he created a steel containing 12.8 percent chromium and 0.24 percent carbon. How he figured out that his steel resisted corrosion isn?t entirely verified, but the most plausible account has him running a routine test on the barrel that involved etching it with nitric acid. The metal stood up to the acid, and after it withstood other corrosives like lemon juice, Brearley realized it would be perfect for cutlery. He took his ?rustless steel? to a local cutler, who dubbed it ?stainless steel,? and the name stuck?

Post-it Notes

While the credit for the adhesive belongs to one man, Spencer Silver, the idea for the Post-it note belongs to another: Arthur Fry. In 1968 Silver, a chemist at 3M, created a high-quality, ?low-tack? adhesive, which basically means it wasn?t very sticky. Silver realized it was ideal for use with paper, because the adhesive was strong enough to hold it to a surface but weak enough that paper could be removed without tearing it. The added bonus: the adhesive remained sticky through multiple uses. In seminars at the office, Silver pitched it as a surface for bulletin boards or as a spray, but after five years of trying, he continued to have difficulty finding a marketable application for it. In attendance at one of these seminars, however, was Art Fry. A colleague at 3M working in the product-development department, Fry sang in his church choir, and the paper bookmarks he used to mark his spot in the hymnal were constantly slipping out. He realized that Silver?s adhesive offered a solution, and he wrote a proposal for a sticky, reusable bookmark. The samples he passed around the office were a hit, and after refining the idea, 3M introduced the Post-it nationwide in 1980.

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