ARCHIMEDES PRINCIPLE

The legend says that Archimedes discovered the famous Archimedes principle while taking a bath. Archimedes must have realized that this body was gradually weighing  less as he was getting into the bath, while spilling the same volume of water. He was so thrilled that he ran naked out of the bath tub yelling “Eureka!” meaning, I found it.

TELEPHONE

The first telephone came about in 1875, as a result of an accident. Alexander Graham Bell, with help of his assistant Watson, built a kind of electro- mechanical ear in the quest of creating a speaking telegraph’. Watson had been trying to transmit telegraph signals, and when one of the metal reeds got struck, he plucked it in an effort to break it free. Bell came rushing into the room to find out what Watson was doing, because he had heard a strong signal from the receiving reed in the other room, strong enough that he knew he could use this simple device to transmit speech. Like many other inventors, Bell took advantage of this event that occurred accidentally, which would have been ignored by anybody else.

DYNAMITE

Before the development of dynamite, the explosive used in most industries was pure nitroglycerine. It was however unsafe and very difficult to handle. Alfred Nobel once found some amount of nitroglycerine leaking from a truck and falling on the ground. He found that the soformed mixture of clay and nitroglycerine had explosive properties and was safe in handling. Thus he developed dynamite-nitroglycerine absorbed in Kieselguhr (a type of clay). Noble made his fortune from this discovery although he had to lose his family members during his work on explosives.

The long list of products of serendipity includes Velcro, many dyes and pigments, several chemotherapeutic drugs, some well known reactions in chemistry all of which play a significant role in our day-to-day life. It is, however important to remember that though serendipity refers to accidental discoveries, it requires a lot of intellect on the part of the researcher to make it commercially worthwhile.

VACCINATION

Edward Jenner, an English physician, accidentally came across the concept for designing the smallpox vaccine that ultimately saved  millions of people from death and eradicated this fatal disease from the face of the Earth in 1979. Jenner observed that milkmaids who had already suffered from cowpox never had small pox. So the idea struck him that he could inoculate patients with cowpox to protect them deadly smallpox.

PENCILLIN

Perhaps the best-known important accidental discovery occurred in 1922, when Sir Alexander Fleming discovered an antibiotic that killed bacteria but not white blood cells as did carbolic acid- the most common antiseptic at that time. While suffering from a cold, Fleming made a culture from some of his own nasal secretions. As examined the culture dish filled with yellow bacterias, a tear fell from his eye into the dish. The next day, he found a clear space in the culture where the tear had fallen. His keen observation and inquisitiveness led him to the correct conclusion; the tear contained a substance that caused rapid destruction of bacteria, but was harmless to human tissue. This discovery was vitally important when in 1928 Fleming was conducting research in influenza and noticed that one dish had an unusual clear area where a bit of mold had fallen. Remembering the “tear” experience, he concluded that the mold was producing something that was deadly to the staphylococcus bacteria in the dish. From this mold, penicillin was isolated.

VULCANIZED RUBBER

American inventor Charles Goodyear tried for five years to find a way to make rubber a useful product. He wanted rubber that would not melt in presence of heat or became brittle and stiff in cold. He applied various treatments to the substance but none worked. One winter night in 1839, Goodyear accidentally dropped a piece of rubber sprinkled with sulphur on to a red-hot stove. To his astonishment, instead of melting the rubber fattened out into a small disk. Lifting it from the stove, he found it was still flexible and strong. He then hung, the disk on his doorpost overnight in the winter cold. The next morning the disk still had its rubber like qualities. Goodyear had accidentally invented vulcanization – the process of heating rubber treated with sulphur – to give the rubber elasticity, hardness and strength.

X-RAYS

x-rays, which are invaluable for identifying broken bones, were actually discovered by accident. In 1895, a German Physicist, Wilhelm Roentgen, was experimenting with electric current flowing through a gas filled tube, called a cathode ray tube. He noticed a strange glow coming from a little fluorescent screen, which had been left lying on a bench more than a meter away. Putting his hand between the tube and the screen he was surprised to see a clear image of the bones of his hand. They appeared as a dark shadow within the shadowy image of the hand itself. Being a keen amateur photographer, Roentgen decided to put a photographic plate where the screen had been. This time using his wife’s left hand as on object, he took the first X-ray picture. It showed her bones obscured only by a wedding band. Roentgen called the mysterious rays ‘D-rays’. His discovery had powerful impact on science. Soon X-rays proved invaluable in medical diagnosis. Roentgen received worldwide acclaim for his chance discovery, including the first Noble Prize ever awarded in physics in 1901. So next time you wonder if you’ve broken a bone be grateful for the accidental observation that made it possible to get a clear picture of it.