Happy accidents

Valsala Rajan writes about how chance and curiosity gave rise to big inventions

Serendipity (isn’t that a lovely word?) means a happy accident. Something good or interesting that is discovered when no one is really looking for it, and perhaps is in the hunt for something else. Of course, the intelligence to question, the curiosity to observe, and the enthusiasm to understand are always a part of the process. Take that famous story from the 17th century, about Newton and the apple. It probably didn’t fall on his head, but he did see an apple fall (there is, indeed, an apple tree in the garden of the house he lived in as a child). The falling apple didn’t tell the whole story of gravity — that was all Newton. “Why did it fall down?” he asked. “Why not sideways or up?” It all sounds fundamental now that we all know about gravity. But it was Newton who asked the questions that led to the ‘discovery’ of this basic fact.

Although this remains one of the most famous stories, many more happy accidents have taken place in the world of science. Let’s look at a few.

1895: Wilhelm Roentgen was experimenting with cathode rays and their characteristics in various vacuum tubes. And then he noticed something — a fluorescent glow on a screen near the tube, even when it was shielded from the tube by black cardboard. These mystery ‘X-rays’ could pass through most things, except bone and metal. Roentgen took a ‘photo’ of his wife’s hand using the rays and could clearly see her skeletal hand and the metallic wedding ring. The next time we have a fracture; we have Roentgen’s observation and curiosity to thank.

1928: In the midst of work with Staphylococcus bacteria (which commonly cause skin and urinary infections), Alexander Fleming went on holiday, leaving an uncleaned petri dish open on his lab counter. When he came back, he found that some disgusting mould had grown in the dish and was about to throw it away when he noticed that there was a clear border around one of the mouldy spots. Curious, he experimented further. The mould seemed to be producing a substance that killed bacteria. Can you begin to imagine the number of lives that Penicillium notatum (what we now know as Penicillin) has saved?

1938: Your mother is always going on about using less oil, and probably uses Teflon cookware in the kitchen. Teflon is considered one of the slipperiest substances in existence. Roy J Plunkett was working with gases related to refrigerants and accidentally found that a frozen cylinder of tetrafluoroethylene had transformed into polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which was waxy and slippery and impervious to most other chemicals. Voila! A superior coating material was found.

1945: A bar of chocolate melting in your pocket wouldn’t excite most of us. But Percy Spencer was working with a magnetron (a vacuum tube that converts electrical energy into microwaves), and it occurred to him that that might have something to do with the melted chocolate. He put some popcorn kernels near the magnetron, and lo and behold, they became fluffy. An egg near the magnetron exploded! Spencer realised that a magnetron could help cook food quickly and experimented some more. He created a metal box into which he fed microwave power. The energy trapped inside the box created a high-density magnetic field. The microwave oven was born.

1955: You have to wear a pesky dhoti for a wedding? No problem! Just get a ready-made Velcro one! Tying shoelaces a bother? Use Velcro fasteners! But if burrs stick to your clothes and your dogs’ fur when you’re out for a country walk, it’s a bother, isn’t it? George de Mestral didn’t think that way. He examined the burrs under a microscope and discovered that the burrs’ hooks were attaching themselves to the loops in the fabric of his trousers. Aha! He got in some textile specialists and tried out different materials until he settled on nylon for a hook-and-loop fastening system that was both durable and flexible.

1956: Coover lifted a TV presenter clear off the ground with a single drop of his super glue. Exciting? Well, it wasn’t what the research team, including Coover, were looking for. They wanted to find a clear plastic that could be used in precision gunsights for soldiers at war. The sticky cyanoacrylates they discovered during their research were of no use to them! But, several years after the war, Coover started to think of other applications for the discarded cyanoacrylates. What a fantastic super glue it made! Also, a spray that could speedily bind wounds before getting the injured person to a hospital.

1977: While everyone always thinks bigger and stronger, post-it-notes’ turned that mindset on its head. Spencer Silver was working on a super-strong adhesive but found one that stuck lightly and could be taken off without spoiling the surface. He was determined to find a use for it. Another scientist, Art Fry, hated the fact that the little scraps of paper he used to mark hymns for his church choir to sing kept falling out. Excited to hear about Silver’s new find, the two partnered to come up with a new product useful as a bookmark, a message bearer, or wherever a quick, easy-to-use communication was required.

And this list could go on and on… Think radioactivity, vulcanised rubber, implantable pacemaker and so on. Curiosity can do much more than ‘kill the cat’!