accidental discoveries

1. Serendipity

2. Serendipity
Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant
surprise―.
specifically, the accident of finding something good
or useful without looking for it.
The word has been voted one of the ten English
words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British
translation company.

3. Etymology;
• The first noted use of
"serendipity" in the
English language was
by Horace Walpole
(1717–1792).
• He said he formed it
from the Persian fairy
tale The Three Princes
of Serendip, whose
heroes "were always
making discoveries, by
accidents and
sagacity, of things
they were not in quest
of".

4. Role in business and strategy
―windfalls that were not anticipated by the buyer
prior to the deal": i.e., unexpected advantages or
benefits incurred due to positive synergy effects of
the merger.
Serendipity is a key concept in Competitive
Intelligence because it is one of the tools for
avoiding Blind Spots.

5. TOP RATED;
1.Penicillin.
2. LSD.
3.Potato Chips.
4.Microwave OVEN.
5.Teflon.

6. Penicillin
• In 1928, Scottish Scientist Sir
Alexander Fleming was studying
Staphylococcus – the bacteria that
causes food poisoning.
• He turned up at work one day and
discovered a blue-green mould that
seemed to be inhibiting growth of
the bacteria.
• He grew a pure culture of the mould
and discovered that it was a
Penicillium mould.

7. LSD
• LSD was first synthesized on
November 16, 1938 by Swiss
chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the
Sandoz Laboratories in Basel,
Switzerland, as part of a large
research program searching for
medically useful ergot alkaloid
derivatives.
• Its psychedelic properties were
unknown until 5 years later, when
Hofmann, acting on what he has
called a ―peculiar presentiment,‖
returned to work on the chemical

8. Potato Chips
• The first potato chip was invented by
George Crum (half American Indian half
African American) at Moon’s Lake House
near Saratoga Springs, New York, on August
24, 1853.
• He was fed up with the constant complaints
of a customer who kept sending his
potatoes back to the kitchen because they
were too thick and soggy.
• Crum decided to slice the potatoes so thin
that they couldn’t be eaten with a fork.
• Against Crum’s expectation, the customer
was ecstatic about the new chips. They
became a regular item on the lodge’s menu
under the name

9. Flavored chips;
• In an idea originated
by the Smiths Potato
Crisps Company Ltd,
formed in 1920,[9]
Frank Smith
originally packaged a
twist of salt with his
crisps in greaseproof
paper bags, which
were then sold
around London.

10. Microwave OVEN
• Percy LeBaron Spencer of the
Raytheon Company was walking
past a radar tube and he noticed
that the chocolate bar in his pocket
melted. Realizing that he might be
on to a hot new product he placed a
small bowl of popcorn in front of
the tube and it quickly popped all
over the room. Tens of millions of
lazy cooks now have him to thank
for their dull food!

11. Teflon

12. Teflon - Roy Plunkett:
• Roy Plunkett, whose experienced immense frustration while
inadvertently inventing Teflon in 1938. Plunkett had hoped to
create a new variety of chlorofluorocarbons (better known as
universally-despised CFCs), when he came back to check on
his experiment in a refrigeration chamber.
• When he inspected a canister that was supposed to be full of
gas, he found that it appeared to have vanished — leaving
behind only a few white flakes.
• The new substance proved to be a fantastic lubricant with an
extremely high melting point — perfect at first for military
gear, and now the stuff found finely applied across your non-
stick cookware.

13. Artificial sweetener:

14. Saccharin - Ira Remsen,
Constantin Fahlberg:
• In 1879, Ira Remsen and Constantin Fahlberg, at work in a
laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, paused to eat.
Fahlberg had neglected to wash his hands before the meal
— which usually leads to a quick death for most chemists,
but led to him noticing an oddly sweet flavor during his
meal.
• Artificial sweetener! The duo published their findings
together, but it was only Fahlberg's name that made it onto
the (incredibly lucrative) patent, now found in pink packets
at tables everywhere.

15. Pacemaker:

16. Pacemaker - Wilson
Greatbatch:
• An assistant professor at the University of Buffalo thought he
had ruined his project. Instead of picking a 10,000-ohm
resistor out of a box to use on a heart-recording prototype,
Wilson Greatbatch took the 1-megaohm variety. The resulting
circuit produced a signal that sounded for 1.8 milliseconds,
and then paused for a second — a dead ringer for the human
heart.
• Greatbatch realized the precise current could regulate a pulse,
overriding the imperfect heartbeat of the ill. Before this point,
pacemakers were television-sized,cumbersome things that
were temporarily attached to patients from the outside.

17. X-Rays - Wilhelm Roentgen
• In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was performing
a routine experiment involving cathode rays, when he noticed
that a piece of fluorescent cardboard was lighting up from
across the room.
• A thick screen had been placed between his cathode emitter
and the radiated cardboard, proving that particles of light were
passing through solid objects.
• Amazed, Roentgen quickly found that brilliant images could
be produced with this incredible radiation — the first of their
kind being a skeletal image of his wife's hand.

18. X-Rays:

19. Chocolate Chip Cookies

20. Super Glue - Harry Coover:

21. Popsicles

22. Brandy: