Top 10 Accidental Discoveries

[apocalypse]

Champagne The history of Champagne dates to about 1700 AD and a monk cellarmaster at the Abbey of Hautvillers near the city of Reims, the "capital" of the Champagne region. As the story goes, a monk named Dom Pirignon was making wine for his colleagues when, unbeknownst to him, he failed to complete the fermentation before bottling and corking the wine. During the cold winter months the fermentation remained dormant, but when spring arrived the contents of the sealed bottles began to warm and fermentation resumed producing carbon dioxide that was trapped in the bottle. Later that spring Dom noticed that bottles of wine in the cellar were exploding, so he opened one that was intact and drank, declaring "Come quickly! I'm drinking stars!" Thus, Champagne was born and named after the region where it was discovered. Today Muet & Chandon make a Champagne named in honor of Dom Pirignon, the serendipitous inventor of Champagne. A bronze statute of the famous monk stands outside Mцet & Chandon in Epernay, France. Brandy Medieval wine merchants used to boil the H20 out of wine so their delicate cargo would keep better and take up less space at sea. Before long, some intrepid soul - our money's on a sailor - decided to bypass the reconstitution stage, and brandy was born. Pass the Courvoisier! Microwave ovens Microwave emitters (or magnetrons) powered Allied radar in WWII. The leap from detecting Nazis to nuking nachos came in 1946, after a magnetron melted a candy bar in Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer's pocket. Kevlar Stephanie Kwolek's research with high performance chemical compounds for the DuPont Company led to the development of a synthetic material called Kevlar which is five times stronger than the same weight of steel. Kevlar, patented by Kwolek in 1966, does not rust nor corrode and is extremely lightweight. Many police officers owe their lives to Stephanie Kwolek, for Kevlar is the material used in bullet proof vests. Other applications of the compound include underwater cables, brake linings, space vehicles, boats, parachutes, skis, and building materials. Teflon The story of Teflon® began April 6, 1938, at DuPont's Jackson Laboratory in New Jersey. DuPont chemist, Dr. Roy J. Plunkett, was working with gases related to Freon® refrigerants, another DuPont product. Upon checking a frozen, compressed sample of tetrafluoroethylene, he and his associates discovered that the sample had polymerized spontaneously into a white, waxy solid to form polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). The invention of PTFE has been described as "an example of serendipity, a flash of genius, a lucky accident ... even a mixture of all three." Whatever the exact circumstances of the discovery, one thing is certain: PTFE revolutionized the plastics industry and, in turn, gave birth to limitless applications of benefit to mankind. PTFE is inert to virtually all chemicals and is considered the most slippery material in existence. These properties have made it one of the most valuable and versatile technologies ever invented, contributing to significant advancements in areas such as aerospace, communications, electronics, industrial processes and architecture. Super Glue In 1942 the original cyanoacrylates (chemical name) were discovered while searching for materials that could make clear plastic gun sights for the war. While searching for these materials, scientists came upon a formulation that stuck to everything it came into contact with. These cyanoacrylates were rapidly rejected by American researchers for the sole reason that they stuck to everything they came in contact with. It wasn’t until 9 years later that these cyanoacrylates were rediscovered by researchers from Eastman Kodak. Fred Joyner and Harry Coover recognized the true potential for these cyanoacrylates and it was first sold as a commercial product in 1958 X-rays Several 19th-century scientists toyed with the penetrating rays emitted when electrons strike a metal target. But the x-ray wasn't discovered until 1895, when German egghead Wilhelm Röntgen tried sticking various objects in front of the radiation - and saw the bones of his hand projected on a wall. Silly Putty In the early 1940s, General Electric scientist James Wright was working on artificial rubber for the war effort when he mixed boric acid and silicon oil. V-J Day didn't come any sooner, but comic strip image-stretching practically became a national pastime. Potato chips Chef George Crum concocted the perfect sandwich complement in 1853 when - to spite a customer who complained that his fries were cut too thick - he sliced a potato paper-thin and fried it to a crisp. Needless to say, the diner couldn't eat just one. Viagra Men being treated for erectile dysfunction should salute the working stiffs of Merthyr Tydfil, the Welsh hamlet where, in 1992 trials, the gravity-defying side effects of a new angina drug first popped up. Previously, the blue-collar town was known for producing a different kind of iron. LSD Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann took the world's first acid hit in 1943, when he touched a smidge of lysergic acid diethylamide, a chemical he had researched for inducing childbirth. He later tried a bigger dose and made another discovery: the bad trip. Penicillin Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming was researching the flu in 1928 when he noticed that a blue-green mold had infected one of his petri dishes - and killed the staphylococcus bacteria growing in it. All hail sloppy lab work! Vulcanized rubber Rubber rots badly and smells worse, unless it's vulcanized. Ancient Mesoamericans had their own version of the process, but Charles Goodyear rediscovered it in 1839 when he unintentionally (well, at least according to most accounts) dropped a rubber-sulfur compound onto a hot stove. Artificial sweeteners Speaking of botched lab jobs, three leading pseudo-sugars reached human lips only because scientists forgot to wash their hands. Cyclamate (1937) and aspartame (1965) are byproducts of medical research, and saccharin (1879) appeared during a project on coal tar derivatives. Yummy.

[CC1981]

America.

[Gaurav]

Viagra might come hand when I get old :hysterical: I bet there are lot of Viagra users on this forum :hysterical:

[THX_1138]

Cement - Joseph Aspidini (dont know if that is the correct spelling). safe to say, one of the most significant discoveries since fire and before the microprocessor.

[THX_1138]

America.

not quite... its an urban legend that christopher columbus intended to reach india. he was one of the few intellectuals at the time who firmly believed that the earth for round and he was bound to either reach the shores of india or china, or he might discover a landmass hitherto unknown of. once he discovered the west indies, it was rather obvious that a larger land mass existences elsewhere (non coral or volcanic rock based islands rarely ever sprout up in the middle of the ocean far from any continental body). later, Amerigo Vespucci set out to validate this since chirstopher columbus could not raise the funds needed for another expedition (thank the goddamn spanish inquisition for that). eventually Vespucci was the first to land on the continental united states and thereafter, the continents were named after in his honor: america.

[Dhondy]

What a fantastic thread! That bit about Roentgen seeing his own hand projected on the wall isn't true. It was his wife's hand. It was 1895. Roentgen was testing out a cathode ray tube in his darkened lab, when he noticed that when the CRT was charged with electricity and sealed in a dark cardboard box, a piece of paper across the room coated with a fluorescent chemical started glowing. He ran experiments for 7 weeks, and finally produced a radiograph of his wife's hand, with her wedding ring. This was that radiograph. Because the nature of the rays was still not known, Roentgen named them 'X-rays'.

[Ram]

It will be really interesting to analyse the effects these accidental discoveries have had on human life. If these discoveries are PURELY accidental ( i.e - they had nothing to do with the progression of science and mankind's intellectual prowess), does that mean that we could still be without some of these inventions but for those lucky moments ? If Roentgen hadnt made that accidental discovery that night in 1895 , would we still be without X-rays in 2007 ? Its humbling to know that its such bizarre and unexpected moments such as these that sometimes decide man's destiny !

[theguyinallblue]

who was that person who infamously quoted that all that can be discovered by mankind has been discovered..? was he some scientific adviser so President of USA ..??? ok..can we think of some new discoveries..some new things..which will be possible in future.. 1. i think we will be able to alter our DNA structure to suit our needs... Dhondy ..is it possible?

[THX_1138]

who was that person who infamously quoted that all that can be discovered by mankind has been discovered..? was he some scientific adviser so President of USA ..??? ok..can we think of some new discoveries..some new things..which will be possible in future.. 1. i think we will be able to alter our DNA structure to suit our needs... Dhondy ..is it possible?

officer at the department of patents in 1904.

[Dhondy]

We don't need to go that high, GIB. We all "discover" things every day. The difference between us and those scientists is that we don't fret about them and hence let the thought get away from us, while they, the obsessive ones, follow those thoughts through. Think of what surprised you today at work. Did you try and find out why a certain thing wasn't behaving as it should, why a certain pattern was out of place? Try doing that next time, and you'll have made your own little discovery. Then tell us about it.

[CC1981]

its an urban legend that christopher columbus intended to reach india.

False. his request for ships to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain (which FYI, is still available in Christopher Columbus's own handwriting) hinged on his promise to find a western route to India, since he believed the earth to be round and the Portuguese utterly controlled the route to India in those days with utmost secrecy. No European ever suspected that there would be another landmass to their west, except for the long-gone Vikings (the first Europeans to visit Americas) and for 10 yrs after Columbus's initial voyage, Spain and Portugal engaged in a fierce diplomatic propaganda war as to who's actually IN 'India'. Not until Vasco daGama's son showed up with Indian muslin & spices (the hallmark of Indian trade since many many thousands of years ago) was it settled once and for all that Americas were a new and different landmass to India. The entire reason native Americans/aboriginal americans are called 'indians' is because Columbus mistook them for Indians and his official report to Spain,when he returned from his first voyage was that he found India- again, a claim that exists on paper in Columbus' own handwriting.

[CC1981]

Cement - Joseph Aspidini (dont know if that is the correct spelling). safe to say' date=' one of the most significant discoveries since fire and before the microprocessor.[/quote'] cement,like most other western discoveries, were known to man (and subsequently,lost) thousands of years before.

[THX_1138]

What a fantastic thread! That bit about Roentgen seeing his own hand projected on the wall isn't true. It was his wife's hand. It was 1895. Roentgen was testing out a cathode ray tube in his darkened lab, when he noticed that when the CRT was charged with electricity and sealed in a dark cardboard box, a piece of paper across the room coated with a fluorescent chemical started glowing. He ran experiments for 7 weeks, and finally produced a radiograph of his wife's hand, with her wedding ring. This was that radiograph. Because the nature of the rays was still not known, Roentgen named them 'X-rays'.

you beat me to it! easily the most significant diagnostic tool of the last century prior to the invention of MRIs... alas roentgen died of leukemia because of over exposure to x rays!

[THX_1138]

False. his request for ships to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain (which FYI, is still available in Christopher Columbus's own handwriting) hinged on his promise to find a western route to India, since he believed the earth to be round and the Portuguese utterly controlled the route to India in those days with utmost secrecy. No European ever suspected that there would be another landmass to their west, except for the long-gone Vikings (the first Europeans to visit Americas) and for 10 yrs after Columbus's initial voyage, Spain and Portugal engaged in a fierce diplomatic propaganda war as to who's actually IN 'India'. Not until Vasco daGama's son showed up with Indian muslin & spices (the hallmark of Indian trade since many many thousands of years ago) was it settled once and for all that Americas were a new and different landmass to India. The entire reason native Americans/aboriginal americans are called 'indians' is because Columbus mistook them for Indians and his official report to Spain,when he returned from his first voyage was that he found India- again, a claim that exists on paper in Columbus' own handwriting.

i wanna see a source on this... and please not wikipedia.

[CC1981]

i wanna see a source on this... and please not wikipedia.

Do a check on Columbus's journal on the net or in your local library..or read Columbine history from anyone who isnt a yankee..the proof to that is pretty categoric.