Some of the greatest inventions we use every day were created by accident. These accidental inventions on this list completely changed our way of life. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. But every now and then, it’s for the better! Lets look at 15 of them
Matches
British pharmacist John Walker noticed that one of the sticks he used to mix the chemicals had some substance on it that caught fire easily.
Teflon
American chemist Roy J. Plunkett was trying to make fridges safer and accidentally created non-reactive, non-stick substance resistant to extreme temperatures.
Potato chips
New York chef George Crum decided to change the way he cooked potatoes to avoid customer complaints.
Ice-cream cones
The ice cream booth at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis was running out of bowls and tried using waffles instead of them.
Coca Cola
Pharmacist John Pemberton was trying to find a way to get rid of headaches and invented the syrup of coca leaves and cola nuts.
Post-It notes
3M Company chemist failed to create a super strong adhesive but gave the world the famous sticky papers.
Safety glass
French chemist Édouard Bénédictus noticed that the beaker that didn’t shatter after falling off his desk had had a thin film of liquid plastic in it.
Vulcanized rubber
Charles Goodyear mixed rubber with sulfur and accidentally dropped it on a hot surface – that’s how vulcanized rubber was invented.
Plastic
Plastic was accidentally created in search for a cheaper alternative for shellac but became something way more useful.
Antidepressants
The first antidepressant was discovered in 1957 and was supposed to be a cure for tuberculosis.
Implantable pacemaker
Wilson Greatbatch added the wrong electronic component to what was supposed to be heartbeat recording gadget and created the pacemaker.
Antibiotics
Scottish scientist Alexander Flemming noticed that mold killed the bacteria in a dish in his messy laboratory and saved a great number of lives with his invention of penicillin
X-rays
Wilhelm Roentgen unintentionally put his hand in front of an electron-beam tube back in 1895 and invented x-ray imaging.
Superglue
In 1942, Kodak researcher Harry Coover was working on transparent plastic for gun sights when he accidentally created an extremely adhesive substance that stuck to just about anything.
Microwave oven
Navy radar specialist Percy Spencer noticed that the bar of chocolate in his pocket melted near a microwave-emitting magnetron. And this is how the microwave oven was invented in 1945!
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