Isaac Asimov once said “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka! ‘ but ‘That’s funny…’
Throughout the history of science, many major discoveries were accidental and funny.
Here are some of them!
Penicillin
The discovery of penicillin, one of the world’s first antibiotics, marks a true turning point in human history.
Alexander Fleming, a Scottish scientist in 1928 was on his vacation when he left a Petri dish in his lab where he was investigating the properties of infectious bacteria, Staphylococcus.
When he returned, he found a colony of mould on the petri dish.
Surprisingly, that zone of mould was completely and unexpectedly clean of bacteria.
Fleming obtained an extract from the mould, naming its active agent penicillin. He determined that penicillin had an antibacterial effect on staphylococci and other gram-positive pathogens.
Match stick
Did you know fire was a key ingredient in human evolution? But it was never easy to produce fire, a process that required a lot of time and effort.
To solve this problem, many scientists worked on it for ages. But John Walker in 1826 was able to introduce matchstick. One day he was mixing some chemicals using a stick and after some time he noticed the lump formed at one end of a stick. He tried to remove it by rubbing the stick across a floor but it caught fire.
Then he created friction light and helped people to produce fire.
Microwave Oven
The microwave is beloved for its speed and ease of use. But what you might not know about this indispensable kitchen appliance is when it was invented.
The Microwave was invented by an accident when a Raytheon engineer named Percy Spencer was testing a military-grade magnetron and realized that his chocolate had melted.
He wasn’t the first one to notice such a phenomenon but was the first one to become intrigued by it. He exposed popcorns to microwaves and they popped, he tried a whole egg and it exploded. Then he attached a high-density electromagnetic field generator to an enclosed metal box and experimented on food in a way that allowed for controlled and safe experimentation.
By the 1970s prices fell rapidly and microwave ovens became common in many households.
Beer
The ancient discovery of fermentation was almost certainly a happy accident – perhaps one of the happiest of all.
No one knows who exactly invented the first beer. Humans first began domesticating wild grains around 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. The first pieces of bread were unleavened, meaning they were flat and tough. When grain gets wet, it becomes food for naturally occurring yeasts in the air, which produce alcohol as a byproduct.
At some point, ancient bakers must have noticed that this fermented grain rose into fluffier loaves of bread. A few adventurous/crazy folks also decided to take a sip of the stinky foam in the grain bin.
And that is how beer was born!
Radioactivity
In 1896, Henri Becquerel was using naturally fluorescent minerals to study the properties of x-rays, which had been discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Roentgen.
He exposed potassium uranyl sulfate to sunlight and then placed it on photographic plates wrapped in black paper, believing that the uranium absorbed the sun’s energy and then emitted it as x-rays.
This hypothesis was disproved on the 26th-27th of February when his experiment “failed” because it was overcast in Paris. For some reason, Becquerel decided to develop his photographic plates anyway. To his surprise, the images were strong and clear, proving that the uranium emitted radiation without an external source of energy such as the sun.
Becquerel had discovered radioactivity.
Accidents are not meant to leave us gloomy. Some can be happy accidents!
These and many more discoveries helped our world to change and improve.
Let us know in the comments which discovery inspired you the most!
Read More -
Comments