The Wright stuff

Microwave ovens

saccharin

LSD

penicillin

vulcanized rubber

teflon

evolution

cosmic background radiation

velcro, all discovered somewhat by accident, but by a trained investigator.

For something accidentally discovered by someone with no training, I suggest:

pottery

astronomy

fire

agriculture

gun powder

Did the Wright brothers then in fact wrightfully discovered the wind tunnel?

The question is very much the same as what was first (egg, hen or rooster). My vote for GI (Good Initiative) goes to the rooster for carefully planing for having all the fun but no responsibilities.

No.

anything that was discovered purely by accident.

When I was a little kid my big Sis had taken me shopping...I was shuffling my feet with boredom (hey things havn't changed there )

She looked down to see what I was scuffling on the floor ...

It was a £5 note...!

There you are neither of us trained and she discovered a fiver!

The same probably applies to a few big diamonds and nuggets of gold...(No I don't mean me and big Sis found 'em)

Del
(PS £5 was a lot of money nearly 50yrs ago...she did hand it in, but as it wasn't claimed she got it in the end. She bought me some sweets....)

How much wasn't discovered purely by accident? The 3M Co. in particular has a long history of serendipitous failures. Originally designed for meat packaging the clear scotch tape arrived on the scene too late, but consumers obviously found applications they had not thought about, then of course there was that screwup with the glue wouldn't permanently stick to anything hence some guy in the office came up with the idea or of sticky pads, some of their products even carry the distinction of being named after one the companies miscalculations, when developing masking tape for the two-tone crazy 50s automobile industry 3M only put glue on one edge, the initial feedback was favorable except for the comment, they were to scotch with their adhesive.

If you're interested in more I believe were I read all this trivia was in a mid-90s scientific American, of course it's been a long time and that might not be the right magazine. The article contains more examples than I can possibly remember of what you're talking about. Including the fact that the first antibiotic drugs ,the sulfur compounds came from trying to understand why some biological fibers would except being dyed by sulfur, and some wouldn't.

In the spirit of my question, I wouldn't count either Teflon or Post-its as purely accidental. In both cases, trained, experienced researchers were trying to do something related when they stumbled across something new and then looked to see what they could use that for. Penicillin is more what I was asking about.

TPV45,

By your definition, nothing would be accidental. Everybody was trying to something when the discovery was made.

Roy Plunckett was researching refrigerants when he discovered Teflon. He was not trying to make polymers. It was an accidental discovery. In fact, he is lucky that the cylinder did not rupture and destroy the lab when the TFE spontaneously polymerized.

Fleming was culturing bacteria when he discovered penicillin.

I'd say one is no more accidental than the other, but neither meet your original criteria (someone untrained).

I'd vote for the discovery of how to make fire.

Of course, in these days I'd have to say all the folks that have discovered free energy, HHO, the discovery that the laws of thermodynamics simply are not true, etc. (Tongue firmly in cheek). I'm thinking this may be the thought behind your question?

Tad

Good points..

But even fire...
It wouldn't have been 'made' at first it would be collected from forest fires etc caused by lightening and nurtured...kept as glowing embers or smoulding dried moss.

Then when it went out someone would try to revive it perhaps...then eventually they would work out how to start it from scratch...

Maybe noticing sparks when throwing rocks about looked like minature lightning...

I dunno, but they were quite probably 'trying' to light fire.

Del (I shall go and try to make toast )

Well, my question was narrowly defined. On purpose. The claim is often made that many important discoveries were made by people too ignorant to know that the discovery was "impossible". And, so far as I know (which is quite limited, thus my question to the larger community), that is not true. I don't know of a single useful invention or discovery made that way.

TVP, I believe your original point is valid, but needs to be clearly stated. Discovering something purely by accident is not the same as discovering something by accident when in the process of experiment or research into something not related to the discovery.

In the case of the Wright brothers, I have heard and/or read this story at least twice: Their father was a minister who traveled often. When he came home from one of his trips, he gave them a toy that could fly. This toy captured their imagination so much, they spent a lifetime investigating the possibility of human flight in a powered, controllable vehicle. Nothing accidental in that.

You do face an uphill battle, because the belief that many important discoveries were made by people too ignorant to know that the discovery was "impossible" is rooted in people's desire to believe in luck.

Also, just because people say something is impossible doesn't mean it is. By the time the Wright brothers did their thing at Kitty Hawk, people had been flying for several decades - in hot air balloons. People might have thought that powered, human-controlled flight might have been impossible, but now we see it is very possible.

Now that's a mule of a different color. I used to have several books loaded with that kind of scientific trivia.

I can recall the name of two of the books. Flying buttresses entropy and O-rings, published some time circa early 90s. Physical science its structure and development by Kimball published circa 1960 (old enough but not advanced enough to read that type of book in 1960) however I love browsing used bookstores. Both are worth the read. I'm not sure how easy they are to locate but both had some relevant information.

If you can locate Murphy, he's probably got my books as a box containing those and several other valuable books was lost when I moved several years ago (I really miss my 1938 Van Norstrom's scientific Encyclopedia). The trivia questions I could post if I still had that.

On multiple occasions I have smirked behind the back of some pompous ass (oh sorry TVP) shouting out his multiple credentials. Most of the time I merely claim to be a mechanic, which I believe leaves me in some very good company such as James Watt, obviously a very talented mechanic, I believe he had no more formal credentials than Orville and Wilbur.

One of the comments I remember from the read of flying buttresses entropy and O-rings was about numerous advancements in automobile engines that were discovered in some remote racetrack, by people that had no idea who Sadi Carnot was.

Ya gotta get yer animals straight. I'm a pompous mule, not an ass.

I love old bookstore browsing too, though I have to limit how much money I have in my pocket when I go in. My most-used book is a 1930 edition of Marks Handbook.

I agree with your point about formal credentials not being required. My argument was with those who automatically "dis" anybody with education. In previous threads I've disagreed with those who thought experience was of no use as compared to education. I think you need both.

Zerodur is a frightfully expensive material made by Corning glass works for use in precision mirrors.

A simple 18" diameter blank, 4 inches thick costs in excess of $7000 I am told. What makes is costly is hard to say but what makes it valuable is it's virtually zero coefficient of thermal expansion. That's what makes it so great for parabolic astronomical mirrors: they never loose their figure when temps change.

Rumor has it that a lab technician overcooked a borosilicate mix. When they tested the "spoiled" material, they realized what they had and they went wild.

When I was around 10 years old, I watched a house on fire from our second floor apartment a few blocks away. Just then a small plane flew overhead and I thought:

"Hey! What if we can fill up a plane with water and 'bomb' the house as it flew overhead?"

I told my friends and family members about my idea and soon, as kids do, forgot about it. Several years later, I saw my idea on TV, bombing a forest fire in the US.

Apparently, someone stole my idea.

The wheel.

Blu-Tack.

Viagra.

The condensing steam engine.

Skewed-arch brick bridges....