Top 10 Accidental Inventions || Accidents that led to Great Inventions and Discoveries

Top 10 Accidental Inventions:

Sometimes a single accident can change the world...... For this list, we are looking at the products that resulted in moments in history when scientists inadvertently stumbled upon some pretty life-changing discoveries whether they stemmed from sticky stowaways in dog fur or from leaving their experiments out for too long these accidental inventions revolutionized our lives.

10. The X-Ray

 In 1895 German physicist Vihelm Rincon was doing his scientist thing when he upon a discovery that influenced how we treat anything ranging from cavities to broken bones from luggage he was messing around with cathode rays trying to prove whether or not they could pass through glass when he noticed a glow in a screen nearby that probably wouldn't have been strange had it been deliberate but as an unintended consequence of his work it was remarkable and since he couldn't explain it he nicknamed it X radiation. More than a century later x-ray technology can be used in cancer treatment and can ensure that you don't smuggle anything untoward onto a flight.

9. Velcro

Pets make awesome companions but sometimes they come in handy in the science world as well while hanging outside with his dog engineer George de Mestral noticed burrs sticking to his dog's fur and his own clothing upon inspection under a microscope he found the seeds themselves were shaped like hooks which allowed them to stick to animal fur or anything that mimicked a loop shape though no one was particularly interested in the idea at first Dumas cloud built upon the concept of velu Akasha or velvet hook eventually leading to a patent and velcro's use in spacesuits and annoying wallets.

8. Stainless Steel

Back when the world was using still using stainless steel that stained or rusted, one intrepid metallurgist shot to the forefront of the industry there's been a good 20 years of research into the idea of a steel alloy that didn't rust, but it wasn't until English metallurgist Brewer Lee was approached by an arms company to develop a specialized gun barrel that he accidentally cracked the stainless code while working to develop a rust-free material for gun manufacturing he ended up developing one that didn't. 

This discovery made steel even more applicable to everyday uses.

7. Dynamite

Alfred Nobel, you know the dude responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize was also the guy behind the invention of dynamite. He was the mind behind blasting caps used for the safe detonation of nitroglycerin but he was looking for a less deadly way to transport and utilize the volatile substance. One day a crate containing nitroglycerin fell over and spilled into the substance used to encapsulate the jars called keels agar but nothing exploded, Nobel recognized that the silica provided the much-needed stabilization and the sand nitroglycerin paste mixture could be then be safely transported and detonated reliably.

6.Teflon

Back in 1938 Roy Plunkett a chemist working for DuPont was trying to develop a new type of refrigerant when something curious happened he and his assistant were working specifically with tetrafluoroethylene when they noticed that the interior of one of the steel cylinders in which they contained it had become covered in a waxy substance. Their further experiments with the material found that this polymerized perfluoro ethylene was extremely slippery in fact it was one of the most slippery substances known to man so naturally it was applied to frying pans.

5. Microwave Oven

Back when the Allied Forces were reviving up for World War 2, an American radar specialist was helping develop radar equipment for potential use in the conflict in his lab one day Percy Spencer was working with magnetron's when he noticed that the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted and not from his body heat. Connecting the dots back to the magnetrons he'd been handling Spencer discovered that a radar set could be used to cook food like popcorn and eggs and thus decades later hot pockets and pizza bagels got their day in the sun or just two minutes in the microwave.

4. Implantable Pacemaker 

As an electrical engineer, Greatbatch was working to develop an oscillator to record heartbeats when he put the wrong piece into his machine, when he turned it on he noted that the pace it was keeping seemed to be in sync with a human heartbeat after being shrunk down and protected from bodily fluids the device became the first practical implantable pacemaker almost entirely by chance.

3. Plastic / Bakelite

Right around the turn of the century inventor and chemist dr. Leo backland was looking for a way to replace a product made from the excrement of the lac beetle known commonly as shellac as it was being used for everything from wood varnish to gramophone records Baekeland had already made his mark in photography with innovations in developing and printing but according to his own words he hoped to make money by discovering a shellac substitute instead he stumbled upon an interesting formulation his combination of phenol and formaldehyde produce a moldable easily hardened material that may not have been shellacked but it assured an era of happy shiny plastic stuff and were sure made him plenty of cash.

2. Anesthesia 

Historically cultures worldwide had been using some form of anesthetic for pain relief or recreation for millennia but it wasn't until the 1800's that its use in medical procedures was formalized with several men claiming ownership of the discovery as the story goes dentists Horace Wells and William T g Mortan witnessed the effects of anesthetics at laughing parties which were gatherings where people basically got high. Intrigued by its apparent pain inhibiting properties Wells used laughing gas or nitrous oxide for his own tooth extraction while Morton used ether in a procedure along with several other doctors these men helped implement the widespread usage of anesthetics in medicine. 

1. Penicillin

Sometimes good things come to those who are gross in this case good things came in the form of a medical revolution sparked by a messy lab after summer vacation. Scientist Alexander Flemming returned to his laboratory at St. Mary's Hospital to a little surprise he'd apparently left some of his Petri dishes out allowing mold to grow upon closer inspection he noticed the mold was actually inhibiting the growth of the bacteria around it in an era when a simple infection could mean a rapid death this was nothing short of a medical miracle. Several years later the world's first antibiotics were put to use saving lives around the globe.

Do you agree with our list? what do you think is the best accidental invention. Hope you liked the information, please share with your family and friends.