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There are a lot of accidental discoveries that changed the world. Here are five best accidental inventions of all time.
American engineer Percy Spencer, was experimenting on magnetrons when he stumbled upon microwaves cooking food faster. Magnetrons use microwave frequencies. During an experiment, Spencer found the chocolate melted in his pocket, an egg exploded and a corn popped. From these observations Spencer got the idea that microwaves can cook food faster than conventional heating. Microwave is an electromagnetic wave with a frequency range of 300 MHz to 300GHz. For household cooking purposes the frequency range is 2450 MHz and for industrial purposes it is 945MHz to 2450MHz. In 1945 he filed a patent for the invention of the microwave oven. Commercially we ll know that the Microwave oven is a big success.
X ray is one of the best accidental inventions of all time. In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was performing experiments on cathode ray tubes. During the experiment, he noticed that a barium cyanide platinum screen placed a short distance away began to glow. He understood that the glow was caused by rays coming out of the cathode ray tube. He tested these rays on different materials and found that they could penetrate the human body and leave shadows of the bones. He named these unknown short wavelength rays as X Rays and was one of the inventions that is a boon for the medical field.
George Crum, a cook at the Moon's Lake House in New York was trying to solve the problem of a customer who kept refusing his french fried potatoes because they were too thick and not salty enough. Disturbed Crum, sliced the potatoes to very thin pieces, fried them in hot oil to a crisp, and added more salt. The customer liked them and the chips were known as “Saratoga Chips”.
Aunt Katie, sister of George Crum is also associated with the invention of potato chips. Aunt Katie sliced a potato into very thin pieces but she forgot them in the pan, while frying. This is how potato chips became an invention by accident.
The first antibiotic penicillin was an accidental invention as well. Scottish researcher Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. At the time, Fleming was conducting experiments on his influenza virus in the laboratory of the Immunization Department at St Mary's Hospital in London. When Fleming returned from a two-week vacation to discover mold growing on his accidentally contaminated staphylococcal culture plates, he found that the culture inhibited the growth of staphylococci. Alexander Fleming found that penicillin can stop growth of many pathogens.
Fleming stopped his work on penicillin in 1931, but his work was continued and completed by Oxford University researchers Howard Flory and Ernst. Alexander Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Florey and Chain for the discovery of penicillin.
In the 1830s, Charles Goodyear tried to heat rubber and mix it with other chemicals to improve the quality of rubber for tubular tires. Heating rubber improved its various properties, but the chemicals it contained were ineffective in improving the quality of the rubber. Charles Goodyear accidentally mixed rubber with sulfur. Charles Goodyear observed that the incorporation of sulfur improved the quality of rubber in terms of elasticity, toughness, tensile strength, viscosity and many other properties. This is how Charles Goodyear invented the vulcanization process.
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