The history is full of stories about the great
inventions of man-kind. These are the inventions that now make our life easier as
well as convenient. But some of these came into existence accidentally. Despite
that they made a huge change in fields of science and also our life-style. Below
is six- great inventions that were accidentally invented.
Saccharin-Artificial sweetener
Constantin Fahlberg,
a Russian chemist, was working in his lab right after which he went to have sandwiches
without washing his hands. He realized that the usual sandwich is sweeter. Upon
realizing that he discovered that his hand was covered with the compound,
benzoic sulfinide, formed after reaction of o-sulfobenzoic acid with phosphorus
chloride and ammonia is the one he tasted. Under different circumstances this
could have been a health hazard, but luckily he invented something edible.
Pace maker
Wilson Greatbatch, a professor of engineering at the
University of Buffalo, in the year of 1956 accidentally invented the pacemaker.
He was working on building a device that would record the heart beats and ended
up finding the device is giving off electric pulses, similar to that of a heartbeat.
Later Greatbatch then introduced his invention to a surgeon, William Chardack, with
whom he was to successfully abled control a dog’s heartbeat. And after few
years, in 1960, it was able to work on humans too.
Penicillin
One of the man-kinds best invention, Penicillin was invented
on accident. In the year of 1928, DR. Alexander Fleming left out his culture
Staphylococcus aureus in his lab two week. He was about to throw it away before
finding that its growth had being prevented by the mold called Penicillium
notatum. From there he isolated the mold and ran tests to determine that penicillin
has antibacterial effect on staphylococci and other gram-positive pathogens.
Champagne
The monks of the champagne, having the best access to
grapes, decided to make white wine. Since it was cold it hindered the fermentation
process and when the spring came, wine containers were filled with carbon
dioxide. The excess of carbon dioxide caused carbonation in the drink. To fix
this, French monk named Dom Pierre Perigon came over to champagne handle it. But
later people decide that the carbonation made the drink fizzy and hence tastier.
Popsicles
When Frank Epperson was 11-years old, he mixed some
soda power with water and left it in the freezer overnight completely by
accident. The next day he decided to lick the frozen soda solution and was delighted
by its taste. The young boy originally named it as ‘epsicle’, combining icicles
and his name, but later he changed it into what we know it as popsicles.
Superglue
Harry Coover, in the year of 1942, was searching for a
material that he could use to build clear plastic gun sights for the war, but
ended up with a chemical substance that would stick to everything it made
contact with. Despite that, his invention was rejected since the researcher
didn’t find any use of the sticky substance. Later in the 1951, the formulation
was innovated by Cooper and Fred Joyner as ‘alcohol-catalyzed Cyanoacrylate
Adhesive compositions’ or as we know superglue. And from the on the superglue
was embraced as one of the most useful invention.
