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Accidental Achievements : Inventions and Discoveries. ( This article has been contributed by ReadnSurf Editorial Team. ) “An accidental invention is a kind of paradox. On one level, almost everything associated with the invention seems to occur by happenstance but on another level, it is noteworthy that these mistakes and chances tend to happen to right people, in the right place and at the right time. Take a look at some really interesting ones ….  1. Viagra Sildenafil, popularly marketed as Viagra, was synthesized by a group of pharmaceutical chemists working at Pfizer's research facility in England. It was initially studied for use in hypertension (high blood ....continued below.....

2. Potato Chips

One day in 1853, a diner at Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, New York, refused to eat an order of French fries because they were too thick. The chef, George Crum, fried a thinner batch, but the customer rejected these also. Crum decided to teach the diner a lesson. He sliced a potato paper-thin and fried it so heavily that it could not be cut with a fork. But the customer loved them. Soon, other customers were asking for potato chips.

3.Velcro

In the early 1940's, Swiss inventor George de Mestral was walking his dog. When he got home, he noticed his dog's coat and his pants were covered with cockleburrs. When he took a closer look under the microscope he discovered their natural hook-like shape.
He recognized the potential for a new fastener, but it took him eight years to perfect the invention. Eventually he developed two strips of nylon fabric, one containing thousands of small hooks, just like the burrs, and the other with soft loops, just like the fabric of his pants. When the two strips were pressed together, they formed a strong bond, but one that's easily separated, lightweight, durable, and washable. Combining the words velvet and crochet, he came up with the name Velcro and formed a company to market his invention.

4. Microwave

In a famous case of accidental discovery, an early radar pioneer named Percy L. Spencer was walking through one of the laboratories at the Raytheon Company one day in 1946. He paused next to a magnetron tube, the heart of a radar system. According to legend, he suddenly noticed that a candy bar in his pocket was melting. Instead of throwing it away, washing his hands, and forgetting about it, Spencer took note. Pretty soon, he was aiming the tube's microwave radiation at a bag of unpopped corn kernels. Sure enough, according to his account, he quickly had fresh popcorn in his hands. To further test this new discovery, he put an egg near the magnetron the next day and in fascination, he watched as the egg trembled harder and harder until it finally cracked and spewed yolk all over! Thus, the microwave was born! The first industrial-sized microwave ovens, known as Radar Ranges, were on the market by 1953. They weighed hundreds of pounds, didn't cook food very well, and were widely ridiculed. But slimmed-down models eventually became standard equipment in homes and restaurants.

5. Penicillin

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. Of course he wasn't actually looking for it at the time- he was researching the 'flu. He noticed that one of his petri dishes had become contaminated with mould. Other scientists may have recoiled in horror at this result of shoddy work practice, but not Alexander. He chose to investigate.
Whatever this intruder was, it was killing off the Staphylococcus bug - a bug causing everything from boils to toxic shock syndrome. Eventually he identified it as the fungus Penicillium notatum and named the chemical released from the fungus Penicillium notatum as penicillin. Penicillin changed the course of medicine and won Fleming a Nobel Prize.

6. Rubber

In 1496 Christopher Columbus brought back the first rubber balls from the West Indies. This seemed like a magical discovery except that rubber rotted, it smelled terrible, got too sticky when warm and too rigid when cold, and in the end people pretty much gave up trying to think of a way to make it useful.

Some three hundred years later Charles Goodyear would not be defeated by rubber and resolved to solve these problems. In 1839 he tried boiling it with magnesia, lime, bronze powder and nitric acid, but to no avail. Finally he tried sulphur but that didn't work either until he accidentally dropped the mixture onto a hot stove. Vulcanization, the process of treating rubber with sulphur at great heat, named after the Roman god of fire was born! In a matter of seconds Charlie had improved rubber's strength and resilience, reduced its stickiness and stopped it smelling. That eventually led to the formation of the world famous ‘Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’.

7. NutraSweet

Dr. James Schlatter was a chemist developing a new anti-ulcer treatment at the drug company Searle. One day in 1965, as he was heating a mixture of chemicals, he accidentally knocked over the glass flask. Some of the powdery substance spilled onto the outside of the flask and stuck to his fingers. This mishap probably wouldn't have been of any consequence had Schlatter not licked his fingers a few minutes later before picking up a piece of paper. It was a lucky move. When he noticed the extremely sweet taste, he went back to sample more of the substance in the beaker. Tests confirmed that this powder, known as aspartame, was two hundred times as sweet as sugar, with none of the bitter aftertaste of saccharin and other artificial sweeteners. The resulting product, NutraSweet, made billions of dollars for the corporation before the patent ran out in 1998.

8. X- Rays

X-Rays were discovered in 1895 by the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen. He was actually studying cathode rays, the phosphorescent stream of electrons used today in everything from televisions to fluorescent light bulbs.
Willie wanted to know if he could see cathode rays escaping from a glass tube completely covered with black cardboard. He couldn't, but by chance he did notice a glow appearing in his darkened laboratory several feet away.
Very surprised, Roentgen began investigating this strange occurrence. He moved the screen farther from the tube and still the screen fluoresced. Then he placed several objects between the tube and the screen but all appeared to be transparent. When he put his hands in front of the tube he saw his bones on the screen.
Doctors soon adopted X-rays as a standard medical tool and in 1901 Röntgen took home one of the first Nobel prizes.

9. Coca Cola

In May, 1886, Coca Cola was invented by Doctor John Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia. John Pemberton concocted the Coca Cola formula in a three legged brass kettle in his backyard. He wanted to create a general “fixin'-what-ails-ya" syrup. His assistant accidentally mixed carbonated water into the brew. The resulting brew didn't fix anyone, but it sure quenched thirst and Coca-Cola was born.

10.  Pacemaker

One thing you have to know about resistors is that these tiny, millimeter-scale cylinders used to control electric current are marked by a unique series of little colored bands. Now whoever thought that a tiny stripe could make all the difference? Certainly not Wilson Greatbatch, who was an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Buffalo during the 1950s. At that time, Greatbatch was working with some cardiologists on a way to record heart sounds when he reached out for a 10,000-ohm resistor-brown-black-orange. Unknowingly, he grabbed a brown-black-green resistor instead-about 100 times stronger than what he needed-and plugged it into the circuit. The circuit suddenly pulsed for 1.8 milliseconds, stopped and repeated itself again. It was certainly no good for measuring heart sounds, but great for making heartbeats. "With the pacemaker", Greatbatch beams, "Grandpa could be in the mainstream again."

11. Teflon

In another case, a DuPont research chemist named Roy J. Plunkett was experimenting with the refrigeration gas tetrafluroethylene, also known as Freon, one day in 1938. One of the pressurized

12. Vaccination

In 1879, Louis Pasteur inoculated some chickens with cholera bacteria. It was supposed to kill them, but Pasteur or one of his assistants had accidentally used a culture from an old jar and the chickens merely got sick and recovered. Later, Pasteur inoculated them again with a fresh culture that he knew to be virulent, and the chickens didn't even get sick. Chance had led him to discover the principle of vaccination for disease prevention.

And the story continues …..

People who have liked this article have also liked these books and DVD : “Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science”, “Lucky Science” and “Accidental Inventions” 

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