Sometimes things don’t go according to plan but every now and then it’s for the better. From the Microwave oven to the match stick, the accidental inventions on this list completely changed our way of life.
1. Coca Cola
John Pemberton wasn’t a business man. He was just a pharmacist trying to find a way to get rid of headaches so he came up with a simple recipe consisting of two ingredients “Cola leaves and Cola nuts” combined into a syrup. It went on the market in 1886.
The syrup was supposed to be mixed with water but the seller once mixed it with soda by accident. This is how Coca Cola was created.
2. Matches
In the early 1800's, British Pharmacist John Walker would routinely prepare medicine using wooden sticks to mix the chemicals together. One day, he noticed that one of the sticks had some substance stuck to it.
When he tried to scrape it off, the stick caught fire. That’s how he came up on this brilliant idea to make life easier in a world with no electricity. He started making and selling cardboard matches which he later replaced with wooden sticks accompanied by a sandpaper to light then
3. Plastic
Before we had plastic, there was Shellac. It was used in the beginning of the 20th century for all kinds of purposes from wod furnishing to record plates and even dentures. The problem was its price. It was highly expensive to import its raw materials from South-East Asia for its production.
That was when Chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland tried to find a cheaper alternative for Shellac. During his experimentation, he happened to come up with something even more useful. The new mixture was a mouldable material able to resist high temperatures which we all know today as plastic
4. Antidepressants
The first antidepressant was discovered in 1957 and was supposed to be a cure for tuberculosis. It’s creators noticed that while not doing much to treat the disease, it did help lift the patient’s mood. This medicine is stil used till date to treat the symptoms of depression
5. Antibiotics
Scottish Scientist, Alexander Flemming’s laboratory was always a mess. Beakers and papers all over the floor, a desk full of petridishes with all kinds of bacteria. One day, the scientist found mould in one of the petridishes containing the staphylococci bacteria.
The mould had formed a shield around itself, killing the bacteria in the dish. Flemming intrigued, decided to further study the property of this fungus. He then received a Nobel prize for the discovery of penicillin in 1945.
6. Vulcanized rubber
A young scientist named Charles Goodyear was trying to improve the quality of rubber which wasn’t so durable in the 19th Century. Goodyear was experimenting and mixing resin with salt, pepper, sugar, sand castor oil and even soup in an attempt to find the perfect combination. One day he decided to see what will happen when he mixed the rubber with Magnesia, lime and nitric acid.
Again failure but once the rubber was mixed with sulfur and accidentally dropped on a hot surface, it worked! The scientist invented vulcanized rubber is now used to produce just about everything from basketballs to car tyres.
7. Safety glass
He couldn’t figure out why until he noticed that the beaker had a thin film of liquid plastic in it left over from a previous experiment. This is how shatter proof glass was invented
8. Super glue
In 1942, Kodak researcher, Harry Coover was working on a
transparent plastic for guns when he accidentally created an extremely adhesive
substance that stuck to just about anything.
While working on another research
project sometime later, the adhesive proved to be too sticky. Seeing this as a
unique and useful discovery, in 1948 Kodak patented this superglue.
9. Microwave oven
Just like every other invention on this list, Microwave
oven was accidentally invented by Percy Spencer. Back in his days, micro-waves
were used in radars.
One day Spencer a Navy radar specialist was standing near
a micro-wave emitting magnetron and noticed that the bar of chocolate in his
pocket had turned into a sticky mess. This is how the microwave oven was
invented in 1945.
Article by: Agbontaen Eseosa Israel, Editorial and publicity CDS
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