Whenever we think of inventions, we think of extraordinary people with their extraordinary inventions. But sometimes there are inventors whose inventions were an accident or a twist of fate. Who knew that something that went drastically wrong, would one day be something that the whole world would praise. The inventions are actually failures which the inventors came across but later turned out to be useful. Let us take a look at the 20 most useful things that changed the world but were invented by mistake.
1. Pacemaker
Wilson Greatbatch, in 1958, invented the pacemaker when he was working as an assistant professor at the University of Buffalo. He was initially making a heart rhythm recording device for the chronic disease Research institute. He reached out to a box of parts to find a resistor to complete the circuit. But he pulled out the resistor of the wrong size. After installing this resistor, the device produced emitted intermittent electrical pulses. Later he associated te timing of the electrical impulses with the human heartbeat.
2. Microwave
Percy Spencer was testing upon a contemporary vacuum tube called a magnetron. He was carrying out research for the Raytheon Corporation in 1945. He tried another experiment with the pop-corn when the candy bar in his pocket began to melt. In the wake of his chocolate melting, he realized the potential of his invention. Later the company launched the first-ever microwave which weighed 750 pounds(approximately 350 kg) and was 25.5 feet tall. It was priced at $5,000.
3. Penicillin
Alexander Fleming noticed a Petri dish left open in the basement of St. Mary’s Hospital in London. The Petri dish contained staphylococcus that had been mistakenly left open. It was contaminated by blue-green mold form an open window, which formed a visible growth. Fleming concluded that the mold later caused the lysing of the bacteria. Thus, the first antibiotic penicillin was formed. This was the traditional version of the story. It is suspected that the story is inaccurate, with the modern theory of how mold and bacteria react.
4. Ink-Jet Printer
A canon engineer accidentally placed his hot iron on a pen. The pen ejected ink a few moments later. The principle led to the creation of the ink-jet printer.
5. X-ray Images
It was 8th November 1895, when a German physics professor Wilhelm Rontgen was stumbled on X-rays. He was experimenting with Lenard Crookes. There are contradictions on the discovery since the laboratory and notes burned after his death. But it is a reconstruction by his biographers, that he was working on cathode rays using a fluorescent screen painted with barium platinocyanide and a Crookes wrapped in cardboard. He observed a faint green glow from the screen about a meter away. He concluded that there were some invisible rays that are making the screen glow. Thus the X-rays were discovered. Later it was observed that the rays passed through books, papers. The medical use of X-rays started when he tested them on his wife’s hand.
