Accidental Inventions That Impacted Our World

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The world has witnessed scientific and technological innovations over decades and centuries. This is because our knowledge of science and technology keeps improving, same way our world keeps evolving with the times.

Some of the great inventions we use today have great and unique history attached to their creation. Some inventions were made from pure ingenuity; others happened by chance or accidents.

In this post I share some of the accidental inventions that have impacted our world of science, technology, and engineering.

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1.) Microwave

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During World War II, scientists working for Raytheon sought for ways to improve detection of German U-boats, this was when the concept of our undeniably useful microwave device was born.

A scientist, Percy Spencer, while working with the detector (as it was known back then) observed that radiations from the machine melted a chocolate stick in his pocket. Curiosity made him use the same rays from the detector in a contained oven-like machine, and that was the birthday of the microwave.

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2.) Popsicles

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An 11-year old kid, Frank Epperson, invented the Popsicle in 1905.

Little Epperson left a mixture of sugary soda powder with water outside overnight, and the result the following day was a frozen creamy substance that could be eaten of the stirring stick that was used in its mixture. Epperson named his creation “Epsicle”, (a coinage of Epperson and icicle), but he later renamed it ‘Popsicle’ after his friends convinced him to do so.

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3.) Laughing Gas

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In the past, compounds that could medically serve as anesthetic drugs were highly sort after.

But it was around 1800 that Humphry Davy, an apprentice to a British surgeon, discovered that when he took nitrous oxide recreationally, it made him laugh and feel less pain. After the discovery nitrous oxide (laughing gas) became popular in surgeries as a means to anesthetize patients.

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4.) Potato Chips

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The origin of our crunchy chips is quite a funny one, because it was birthed out of spite for a disgruntled customer, by a New Yok Chef in 1853.

George Crum was a chef in a hotel restaurant where a man kept sending back his fries insisting that they weren’t crispy or salty enough. George Crum who got fed up with the dissatisfied customer decided to trick him. Out of spite, Crum decided to slice the potato paper-thin, covered them in salt and fried the ‘crisp’ into them. Surprisingly, the customer adored them and even ordered some more. Not long after, Crum’s potato magic became and national and worldwide sensation.

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5.) Coca-Cola

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Coca-cola was invented in the late 1880s, and back then, it was created as a syrup which at a point contained about 9 mg of cocaine (coca) per serving, to be consumed for curing common sicknesses.

However, John Pemberton, the creator figured that it wasn’t very potent in curing ailment, but that when mixed with soda water, it yielded a tasty fizzy drink, and that was the genesis of our Coca-cola beverage drink.

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6.) Viagra

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Viagra was originally created in 1989 by Pfizer scientists as a medication for blood pressure. However, the drug failed to lower blood pressure during clinical trials in the 1990s.

But then, male volunteers for the clinical trials also reported that the drug failed to lower ‘something’ as well, not just the failure of the drug to lower blood pressure. Eventually, doctors realized that they had ignorantly created a drug for erectile dysfunction, and soon after the little pill became a household name in pharmaceutical stores.

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7.) Super Glue

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Despite the fact that super glue had been around for years before its usefulness was discovered, Harry Coover, its creator at Eastman Kodak was pretty upset at its rapid stickiness.

It was in 1942 that the advantage of something capable of sticking two items together with such a firmness and promptness became known.

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8.) Penicillin

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Alexander Fleming was researching on the influenza virus when he observed that a plate he used for culture of the virus two weeks earlier had started growing a strange mold, which stopped the virus from growing and spreading in places where the mold was present.

That mold was discovered to be penicillin and medical history was made.

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9.) Teflon

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In 1938, Teflon was discovered by Roy J. Plunkett when he combined two gas compounds in a tank for storage while attempting to make a better refrigerator.

After opening the tank he discovered a non-stick substance chemically inert and resistant to heat. The substance was later added to cooking utensils resulting in the popular noon-stick surfaces we know of today.

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10.) Matches

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In England 1826, a scientist, John Walker, stirring a pot of chemicals, pulled his wooden stir-stick out of the pot and tried to wipe the glob of chemicals stuck on it, off a table.

To his surprise, the stick ignited, and this led to the creation of matches.

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11.) Safety Glass

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A French chemist, Edouard Benedictus in 1903 accidentally dropped a glass flask. To his surprise, the glass shattered but didn’t fall apart into pieces as it hit the floor. Upon investigation Benedictus discovered that the flask had earlier contained cellulose nitrate, which acted as a protective barrier.

This scientific idea led to the use of safety glasses of windshield treated with the same chemical solution in order to make the glass shatterproof.

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12.) X-ray

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In 1895, a German scientist, named William Conrad Rontgen discovered X-rays while experimenting with cathode-ray tubes in other to create light bulbs.

During his experiment, he observed that the cathode tube continued emitting light, even when placed inside a cardboard box, which should have stopped the light emission. Rontgen soon discovered that the cathode tubes were not only emitting light, they were emitting invisible rays which could penetrate solid matter. After the human tests, X-rays were now certified for medical use to look for broken bones in patients.

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13.) Saccharin

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A chemist, Constantin Fahlberg at the John Hopkins University in the 1870s was researching on how coal-tar derivatives reacted with each other. One of the compounds spilled on his hands. But due to the fact that the compound wasn’t toxic, he was not troubled.

Later that night, he observed during dinner that things he touched, ended up tasting sweet. The day after, he went on to isolate the particular compound that had spilled on him, and developed the artificial sweetener now known as saccharin.

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Reference:

• http://all-that-is-interesting.com/accidental-inventions#1
• http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a19567/how-the-microwave-was-invented-by-accident/
• https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/07/22/425294957/how-an-11-year-old-boy-invented-the-popsicle
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/davy_humphrey.shtml
• https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/george-crum
• http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/spring08/Cantwell/invention.html
• http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/27/health/viagra-anniversary-timeline/index.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/business/28coover.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=D31AA93E239733F1188626B601215F65&gwt=pay
• https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1945/fleming-bio.html
• https://www.chemheritage.org/historical-profile/roy-j-plunkett
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/hQR9oN5LTeCLcuKfPDMJ9A
• https://sites.psu.edu/passion2bernstein/2013/03/22/safety-glass/
• http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-scientist-discovers-x-rays
• http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/magazine/the-bittersweet-history-of-sugar-substitutes.html

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