15 Accidental Inventions You Can't Imagine Your Life Without

 

The Great Scientists & There Greatest Inventions:

Some of the greatest inventions we use every day were created by accident. From the microwave to ice-cream cones, the accidental inventions on this list completely changed our way of life. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. But every now and then, it’s for the better!

American chemist Roy J. Plunkett was doing research for the company Dupont to make fridges safer and invented a strange substance that was non-reactive, non-stick, and resistant to extreme temperatures. We all know it as Teflon.

John Pemberton was a pharmacist trying to find a way to get rid of headaches. He came up with a simple recipe consisting of two ingredients: coca leaves and cola nuts combined into a syrup. It was later mixed with soda by accident and became a huge hit.

Dr. Spencer Silver, a chemist for 3M Company, was trying to create a super-strong adhesive but what he got instead was a “low-tack” yet high-quality adhesive only strong enough to hold up a piece of paper but durable enough to be relocated multiple times without losing its stick. We all know and love it as Post-it notes today. The first antidepressant was discovered in 1957 and was supposed to be a cure for tuberculosis.

Wilhelm Roentgen unintentionally put his hand in front of an electron-beam tube back in 1895 and noticed that the radiation passed through solid objects and body parts leaving a shadow. And now we have x-ray imaging!

SUMMARY:

-British pharmacist John Walker noticed that one of the sticks he used to mix the chemicals had some substance on it that caught fire easily.

-American chemist Roy J. Plunkett was trying to make fridges safer and accidentally created a non-reactive, non-stick substance resistant to extreme temperatures.

-New York chef George Crum decided to change the way he cooked potatoes to avoid customer complaints. -The ice cream booth at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis was running out of bowls and tried using waffles instead of them.

-Pharmacist John Pemberton was trying to find a way to get rid of headaches and invented the syrup of coca leaves and cola nuts.

-3M Company chemist failed to create a super-strong adhesive but gave the world the famous sticky papers.

-French chemist Édouard Bénédictus noticed that the beaker that didn’t shatter after falling off his desk had had a thin film of liquid plastic in it.

-Charles Goodyear mixed rubber with sulfur and accidentally dropped it on a hot surface – that’s how vulcanized rubber was invented.

-Plastic was accidentally created in search of a cheaper alternative for shellac but became something way more useful.

-The first antidepressant was discovered in 1957 and was supposed to be a cure for tuberculosis.

-Wilson Greatbatch added the wrong electronic component to what was supposed to be a heartbeat recording gadget and created the pacemaker.

-Scottish scientist Alexander Flemming noticed that mold killed the bacteria in a dish in his messy laboratory and saved a great number of lives with his invention of penicillin.

-Wilhelm Roentgen unintentionally put his hand in front of an electron-beam tube back in 1895 … and invented x-ray imaging.

-In 1942, Kodak researcher Harry Coover was working on transparent plastic for gun sights when he accidentally created an extremely adhesive substance that stuck to just about anything.

-Navy radar specialist Percy Spencer noticed that the bar of chocolate in his pocket melted near a microwave-emitting magnetron. And this is how the microwave oven was invented in 1945!