• Question: Was there any accidental inventions?

    Asked by Dr.Bantalope to Claire, Liad, Ruth, Ryan, Mako on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Liad Baruchin

      Liad Baruchin answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      I’d hazard a guess and say that 60% of inventions are accidental.
      But even if the number in not quite accurate, it’s still true that many are.

      Penicillin – not strictly an invention, but still a discovery- for example was discovered because somebody forgot to do the lab dishes 🙂

    • Photo: Ruth Elderfield

      Ruth Elderfield answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      One of the most famous is penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming, mould failing on a petri dish. But the bit of the story that is often missed out is the work of Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain who spent YEARS trying to successfully grow and refine the process to produce the drug long after Fleming had abandoned it.

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