Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new”. Over the years, there have been inventors who while on a quest to fulfill unrelated tasks stumbled on life-saving inventions that changed humanity forever. Below is a compilation of tech products that have helped the world but originally emerged from mistakes or accidents.
X-Rays
In 1895 Wilhem Roentgen, a Professor of Physics in Wurzburg and an eccentric physicist discovered x-ray accidentally. X-ray was not his initial intention but he was more interested in investigating the properties of cathodic ray tubes when he suddenly noticed that though his machine had an opaque cover, yet the florescent papers in his lab would ignite whenever he shined his light through the tubes. This discovery led to the creation of x-rays.
Microwave oven
When Percy Spencer, who was a self-taught engineer with the Raytheon Corporation set out on his research project he had no idea he will make an invention that will be so useful to humanity. In 1945 Spencer was working on building magnetrons for radar sets and he worked with a vacuum tube only for him to realize that the candy bar in his pocket was melting, he decided to try popcorn into the device and when it popped, he knew he had found a technology that will make life easy for humanity.
Ink-Jet printer
The ink-jet printer is so useful these days that one would wonder how our world would be without a printer. The ink-jet printer was created by a canon engineer, and it was basically by accident. He mistakenly placed a hot iron on his pen and ink was released, this brought the idea that led to the science of the creation of the ink-Jet printer
The slinky
In 1943 When Richard Jones, who was a naval engineer, set out to design a power monitor on naval battleships, he had no idea something else would come out of it. Richard was working with springs when one of the tension springs fell on the ground and kept bouncing from place to place and that was how the slinky came into existence
The Pacemaker
The pacemaker was invented by John Hopps an electrical engineer, in 1941, but the Pacemaker was not his original intention. He was actually carrying out research on hypothermia and was trying to use radio frequency heating to restore body temperature when he suddenly realized that if a heart stopped beating perhaps due to cooling it could be reignited by artificial stimulation. This realization led to the invention of the pacemaker.
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