5 MISTAKES THAT LED TO AN INVENTION

More often than not, mistakes are frowned at and unwanted. But for some people, their mistakes made them inventors. In fact, we owe them an applause for their clever mistakes. A few of these mistakes are;

●ALEXANDER FLEMINGS DISCOVERY OF PENICILLIN

Prior to the year 1928, Fleming was only a normal doctor, pharmacologist and microbiologist with nothing to his name except a few researches on enzymes. During the first world war, Fleming served in an Army Medical Corp where he watched a lot of soldiers die due to untreated infections. He first moved a motion to state that the antiseptics which was the only treatment being given to the soldiers at the time were ineffective in curing the bacteria, but the motion was rejected, still he carried on. One day in 1928, Fleming left an uncovered Petri dish next to an open window, where it became contaminated with fungus spores. Checking under a microscope, he discovered that the bacteria around that fungus were all dying, so he isolated the fungus and later discovered that it was a very effective cure for fever, pneumonia, meningitis and many more infections. Penicillin was therefore discovered.

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●JOHN PEMBERTON’S COCA-COLA

The Coca-cola drink you enjoy today was actually produced as a drug. In the 1880s, a pharmacist John Pemberton specialized in selling cures to relieve headaches and nerve disorders. One day he cooked up the Coca concoction for this purpose and business was blooming. Until in 1885 when there was a bn on the sale of alcohol in Atlanta He therefore removed the wine and created a syrup that could be mixed with carbonated water. You guessed it, it became Coca-Cola. Pemberton is gone, but his drinks live on probably one beside you right now.

●PERCY SPENCER’S MICROWAVE

You are probably very familiar with this one. In 1945, Percy Spencer was working in a radioactive environment and he just happened to have a chocolate bar in his pocket. Imagine his surprise when he felt a sizzling sensation in his trouser pockets, he reached out to take out his chocolate and it was melted. Viola! He traced the occurrence to the microwave emitting magnetron he was working with and then proceeded to invent the microwave machine.

●JOHN KELLOGG’S CORNFLAKES

John Kellogg was the superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in 1894. He worked with his brother Will Kellogg to feed patients. One day, Will accidentally left boiled wheat outside and by the tie he returned, it was already stale. Instead of throwing it they still rolled it but it formed flakes instead of the usual dough. They toasted the flakes, served the patients, and the rest is history. In 1906, the Kellogg’s company was created.

●CHARLES GOODYEAR’S PLASTICS

If not for Charles’ mistake, you probably would have been walking around carrying a wooden or steel container and well, nobody would mind that because that would be the norm anyway. One day, in the lab, Charles Goodyear combined rubber and sulfur, and accidentally put it left it on a hot stove. When he returned, he found that the sulfur and rubber had formed something else, a tough and durable material that would later be called Plastic.
On the second part, John Wesley Hyatt while organizing a 10,000 dollars contest for the person that could find a replacement for elephant ivory in billiard balls accidentally spilled a bottle of collodion, after it dried, it formed a flexible but strong material. All this made no sense until in 1872, Hyatt’s brother Isaiah called the material ‘celluloid’. This is of course what now formed the plastics being used today.