The invention came from randomness

There have been many scientific inventions stemming from mistakes and absentmindedness, like Achimedes' law and many breakthrough inventions in human history that have been born by chance. Accidents or casualties always happen and the scientists will be grateful to them as follows:

Penicillin

Photo: Nobelprize

Alexander Fleming was groping in the lab on a day in 1928, when a piece of mold floated, falling right on the glass plate that the scientist was using. This disk contains a very stubborn bacterium called staphylococcus. Without a watchful eye, Fleming was able to immediately throw the broken test disc into the trash, but he found the undeveloped bacterium near the green mold. So, through experiments that have clarified the problem, penicillium notatum mold also kills some other bacteria and does not cause serious side effects when used for rabbits, mice and humans. By 1939, Howard Florry and Ernst Chain at Oxford University isolated the active ingredient of the mold, and named it penicillin. It is the first antibiotic for humans, fighting many infections and saving millions of lives.

Nylon

Dupont scientist Wallace Hume Carothers noticed that some polymers can form durable and expandable fibers. His colleagues accidentally disturbed the laboratory; one holds a glass rod and runs out of the room, following the stick of a molten polyester piece. He marveled at the toughness and stretchiness of the polyester piece before it was torn. But polyester melted so easily that it could not be fabricated, scientists at Dupont tried polyamide and nylon hair.

Small sticky pieces for notes

When Spencer Silver at 3M company discovered a very weak glue in the early 1970s, he discarded it as useless.

Photo: Glass-resource

A few years later, Silver's colleague Art Fry complained while attending church service: the pages of his book's pages were disturbed forever. He thought of the 'useless' glue and had its sticky effect but did not destroy the book. So small pieces of sticky notes for birth notes, warmly welcomed by office workers.

Safety glasses

Safety glass was discovered at the right time when people needed it most: the dawn of the car age. In 1903, French chemist Edouard Benedictus dropped the glass vase on the lab floor. The vase broke, but the glass gut still stuck to each other despite cracking into small pieces. It was a thin plastic layer that had accidentally formed after the liquid contained vapors. He mixed a layer of cellulose nitrate between two glass surfaces to create a 3-layer glass. This invention was applied to car windshield manufacturing in the 1920s.

Chemical sugar

In the study of tolune derivatives in 1789, a student named Fahlberg tasted the chemical splashes on his hands and . found artificial sugar. Two other artificial sweeteners were also found by chance. In 1937, Michael Sxeda, a student at the University of Illinois, lit a cigarette and . heard a sweet taste. You find out and it was cyclamates. Nutra Sweet artificial sugar is born in the study of stomach pain medicine in 1965.

Ngoc Phuc