Were there any cases when a person made a mistake and found something new?

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4 Answers

  1. In the early 1970s, Hideki Shirakawa was involved in the polymerization of acetylene. One day, he accidentally added 1000 times more catalyst than he needed. The powder he received was not black, as usual, but silver. Thus, electrically conductive polymers were discovered and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 was won.

  2. Percy Spencer experimented with a magnetron, ended up either getting burned or melting some food in his pocket, and eventually invented the microwave oven

  3. Albert Hoffman (1938) His research on lysergic acid, the central common component of ergot alkaloids, eventually led to the synthesis of LSD-25 in 1938. 5 years later, repeating the synthesis of an almost forgotten substance, Dr. Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effect of LSD after accidentally absorbing the substance through the tip of a finger on April 16, 1943. Three days later, on April 19 (the day known asA day later, after his ride home under the influence of LSD), he consciously took 250 micrograms (0.00025 grams) and experienced a more intense effect. After that, a series of experiments with LSD was conducted with the participation of Hoffman himself and his colleagues. The first recordings of these experiments were made on April 22 of the same year.

  4. Alexander Flemming forgot to wash a Petri dish with a culture of some bacteria. The result is a Nobel Prize for the discovery of penicillin.
    Benedictus swept a flask off the table in his lab. The result is Triplex car glass.
    I don't remember exactly, but it seems that the invention of kevlar was more a mixture of accidents and errors than a natural result of research.
    So the role of mistakes, accidents, and a successful combination of circumstances in science is not unimportant 🙂

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