The course of human evolution has been marked by a long succession of chance discoveries and accidental inventions; the Eureka moment may come by chance and not by choice. In fact, experts estimate that 30-50% of all scientific discoveries are accidental in some way . Although it is true that in some cases, scientific discoveries come after painstaking laboratory work that ultimately produces the result that a researcher expected to find, the reality is that many of the most incredible findings in the world occurred when someone found something I wasn’t looking for.
Some fortuitous discoveries have generated such amazing success that they have turned against us, or rather our planet, as is the case of plastic, which is so difficult to deal with these days, which accumulates everywhere and that it is having a disastrous effect on our environment.
All these accidental inventions -which we will go on to review below- of the last two centuries have changed the world in one way or another and, in some cases, are even the result of a true accident.
None of these “accidents” would have become such a world-changing invention without the right person to recognize its value and show that the best innovations can come from the unexpected, since necessity is not always the mother of invention.
Many of the things we rely on to cure our illnesses, cook our food, and sweeten our days were not deliberately designed but were a happy accident.
From saccharin to penicillin to the microwave oven, many more were produced by chance , causing many inventions of everyday use to appear unexpectedly in our life transforming it into a much more comfortable, better existence.
Discover how chance and not the traditional, long and logical process of thought, reflection, experimentation and development, played a key role in some of the greatest inventions in the world.
How many would you be able to name? Today we discover some of the most interesting accidental devices.
