Throughout history, man has invested enormous resources (physical and brainpower) to discover the hidden secrets of the world he lives in. Governments, corporations, and individuals spend billions of dollars annually on R & D (Research and Development) constantly trying to discover new solutions to problems and negative situations, like climate change, that we find ourselves in.
It then becomes amazing when we discover this life-changing methods and solutions by accident. On “a platter of gold”.
A couple of days ago, I stumbled on an article and it got me thinking about true life cases of this phenomenon. So like my username suggests, I decided to dig through troves of information and I was amazed by what I found.
Now, I’m not talking about embellished tales like the apple hitting Newton’s head in his mom’s garden.
(P.S There is no substantial evidence that the apple hit Newton’s head. Here’s an interesting read about the whole story – link 1 . And yes, the apple did fall to the ground and inspire him to form the law of gravity)
I’m talking about really cool stuff that have saved the lives of millions of people and changed the way we perform some actions today. Accidental Eurekas like:
Penicillin - The Life Saver
This is perhaps the most popular accidental discoveries made by man. It all happened in 1928 when a specialist in bacteriology left his laboratory experiments for a couple of weeks. On returning back, Professor Alexander Flemming discovered that the petri dish wasn’t cleaned correctly before he left. And on it, was a mold growth that had no bacteria around it but was present in surrounding areas.
This led to the creation of one of the most effective anti-bacteria drugs, Penicillin. After extensive testing, the drug has been used to save millions of lives and it is still being used today, especially in the pill form.
Here’s an interesting YT video that explains how it all happened.
Safety (Laminated) Glasses
There are over 1.2 million motor related deaths annually all over the world. The figure could have been worse but for the absence of a situation: shattered windscreen glasses flying all over the place causing serious danger to already wounded victims.
Enter Benedictus’ accidental discovery. He made this discovery when his glass flask dropped on the floor without shattering into tiny harmful-flying shards. Upon further research, he discovered that flask was coated with plastic cellulose nitrate which the flask was previously filled with.
After several refinements, the laminated glass was adopted by the automotive industry and also by safety head gears' producers. The tempered glass is a derivative and it is commonly used in screen monitors and also very effective in protecting UV rays.
Saving The Planet Accidentally - CO2 to Ethanol
Here’s the event that led to the birth of this post. My recent posts are focused on initiatives helping to save the world. With climate change being one of the biggest earthly concerns for us all, you can imagine the excitement when researchers discovered a way of converting carbon dioxide to ethanol. This could potentially spell a lot of cool stuff when eventually refined.
How did it happen?
Late last year, a team of scientists in their search to convert CO2 to methanol accidentally discovered that CO2 converts to Ethanol pretty easily. This process was even more economical and more refined as the ethanol was ready to use in that form.
Accidentally discovering a renewable fuel from a major greenhouse gas is super-cool. If you’re interested in the geeky aspect, here’s a nice video made by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Researchers.
Coloring A Mood - Color Deficiency Glasses
In many industries, correctly deciphering different types of colors is a key part of being successful on the job. In fact, in many countries, it is illegal to perform some mundane tasks like driving if one is color blind.
Happily, an accidental discovery by a color blind man is slowly changing this- easing the problems of millions of color-blind people.
Enchroma initially made laser prevention glasses for surgeons. But after a color blind man used it, it was discovered that the glass increases color saturation in the eyes. This happens when the glasses filter out the wrong shades of light that distort the real color perceived by the eyes.
So after years of further R & D and refinements, Enchroma released the glasses en masse. With it, many color blinds can finally see a color for the first time in their lives.
Nanowires Powered Longer Batteries
A long-lasting battery is fast becoming a basic need for everyone. But despite years of technological advancement, researchers are still finding it hard improving the lithium batteries used to power many devices.
So last year when researchers decided to look for lithium substitutes, little did they know that they were in for a big surprise. They found out that a processed gold nanowire can be used as an electrolyte gel producing 400 times the capacity of today’s mobile phone’s battery.
We all should be looking out for more exciting times outdoors when the discovery is finally standardized for mass production.
These are some of the exciting stuff I found during my curiosity for accidental discoveries. Some other popular ones are smartdust, microwave, velcro, Vulcanized rubber, bing bang, radioactivity, x-ray, dynamite et al. Here's a video that makes a recap of some other accidental discoveries.
……Creating Your Own Accidental Eureka
This is more of a reminder to myself… Last year, my own accidental eureka was discovering Steemit out of the blue. (Read my story? ). Funnily, I've also written about our love for eureka moments here
We all love eureka moments and because we are often caught unawares with little preparation when it comes – we bore everything down to luck.
Acting like an autodidact, Persistence, Exercise, Shunning Limitations and Interacting with Other Smart ones are some of the ways successful entrepreneurs and researchers posit we can increase our chances of capturing the several Aha! Moments in our lives.
Over to you. What’s your favorite eureka (aha!) Moment.
Sources:
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