10 Life Changing Inventions Accidently Created

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Life Changing Inventions Accidently Created

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10 Life Changing Inventions Accidently Created

Most people consider necessity to be the mother of all invention. While this is true as a rule of thumb, the march of human progress isn’t merely measured by the deliberate steps. We’ve advanced plenty forward through accidental stumbling. Necessity may be a primary cause for most designs, but these life-changing inventions show that accidents are definitely a hefty contributor!


1: Chocolate Chip Cookies


Chocolate chip cookies are considered a staple on people’s desert trays. Ruth Wakefield ran out of bakers chocolate when she was cooking one day. She tried using a chocolate bar instead, but it didn’t fully melt. When she and her husband had a taste, they knew they had stumbled upon something spectacular.


2: Plastic

Plastic skeleton warriors group shot

The reason we have modern plastics is because Leo Hendrik Baekeland attempted to replace an expensive item found in beetles. By mixing phenol with a derivative of coal, Baekeland essentially created the staple of the modern world.


3: Matches

Match one

For a long time, creating flames wasn’t a precise science. Everyone had their preferred methods to make a spark. That is until a pharmacist accidentally sparked a revolution in fire-starting. Working diligently, pharmacist John Walker accidentally struck his dirty mixing stick, creating a spark. Upon isolating the elements that caused this phenomenon, he started selling what are now known as match-sticks to the general populace.


4: Viagra


The world’s most famous erectile dysfunction treatment was actually designed to help with people’s blood pressure. Viagra was originally designed to help people with heart problems, however testing showed that it suited a distinctly male need. Since then, the famous blue pill has been helping men retain their youth and vigor.


5: X-Rays


The X in X rays stems from the founder’s confusion. He has no idea what could be causing the weird transparent effect he noticed in his lab. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s tinkering with cathode rays would benefit medicine for over a century and earn him a Nobel prize.


6: Microwave Ovens

Red Microwave Oven

Most wouldn’t expect another invention to be had at the expense of slightly melted chocolate, but we have that to thank for the microwave. As he walked passed a magnetron tube at work, Percy Spencer noticed that a candy bar in his pocket was melting. It was his eureka moment. He discovered that microwaves can heat food and he designed the famous kitchen device to generate and house these properties.


7: Potato Chips


This wasn’t so much created by accident as much as it was out of spite. In New York, a patron complained to the chef that their fried potatoes were much too thick. In order to teach them a lesson, the cook cut them into extremely thin pieces and served them. Thinking he had won, he was shocked to learn that they went over extremely well. It was just a bit later that the potato chip first hit the market.


8: Penicillin

Penicillin 1

The infamous Alexander Flemming discovered his claim to fame by mistake! He had left his lab for vacation. When he returned, he discovered that a specific mold had infiltrated and killed a sample of his bacteria. Further research earned him and two others a Nobel prize and international acclaim for penicillin.


9: Purple Dye

purple streaks

For the longest time, clothing was particularly drab and boring. Then William Perkins set out to try and cure malaria. While he wasn’t successful he did create the most common purple dye still used on the market today.


10: Safety Glass

All praise safety glass

We’ve actually had the technology for safety glass since the late 19th century. However, automakers weren’t having any. It’s because it was made entirely by mistake by a french chemist and artist. When Édouard Bénédictus dropped his glass flask and without it shattering, he realized that it was due to a specific chemical reaction.


Jun Shung is a health blogger who loves to share information on men’s health. Whether its new athletic shoes or erectile dysfunction treatment, he enjoys blogging about anything that can help people a man’s health.

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