Does anyone know a theory in science that resulted by accident?
-Preferably physics or chemistry
by accident I mean not intending to prove something
or not using scientific method
Thanks
Rutherford was not expecting to find the atomic nucleus - he was shooting alpha particles at gold foil to confirm the “plum pudding” model of atomic structure, and so expecting a slight deflection of the particles as they went through the foil. He was stunned by the fact that some of the particles deflected nearly 180 degrees Geiger–Marsden experiments - Wikipedia
The discovery of the positron was also a surprise Positron - Wikipedia since no one was expecting that kind of particle to exist (in retrospect, Dirac’s work “predicted” the positron, but it was not interpreted that way until afterwards).
The discovery of the cosmic microwave background was also a surprise
The microwave oven was the result of an accident - Percy Spencer noticed that the magnetron radiation he was using for radar had melted a candy bar in his pocket…
So was teflon - Roy Plunkett was developing a new CFC refrigerant, but noticed that the pressure bottles did not completely empty. He had to saw a bottle open to find the coating of PTFE, created by an iron catalysed reaction at high pressure. And thus the nonstick pan was created.
Science is full of stories like these - something happens that was not expected, and an observer spends time working out why, and a new vista in science opens up. But the new theory is tested and proven by the scientific method, and explaining why is as important as what.
Si
The original question itself is a problem because new theories don’t just spring up right away from an accidental discovery. Lots of specific scientific accidents have happened and the much more general theory that caused them didn’t get worked out until later.
Two more famous ones are:
The discovery of LSD
The vulcanization of rubber to make things like tires.
By ‘accident’ do you mean ‘unexpected consequence’? It might be argued that every experiment that ‘fails’ does this – the data leads in a different direction than the investigator expected to go, and ultimately some other important thing is discovered.
Or unexpected insight? Like Newton supposedly getting his ideas about gravity from a falling apple? Richard Feynmann claimed that he got the idea that resulted in his Nobel Prize for physics from seeing a wobbling plate in a cafeteria.
There have been a number of drugs, Rogaine for example, that were being tested for one effect and researchers noticed some other effect that was not expected. Eh, I dunno whether something like this would lead to a new theory, but it’s conceivable.
Charles Goodyear famously discovered vulcanization by leaving the stove on for too long.
Several medications, including Viagra, are the result of failed attempts to treat other illnesses (esp. cancer) but ended up having side effects which were marketable.
And, of course, there’s Archimedes’ Principle – perhaps the world’s first “Eureka!” moment.
Speaking of “eureka”, a related quote is:
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’ but ‘That’s funny…’”
- Isaac Asimov
We’ve had plenty of interesting results that came about accidentally. There are 2 in particular that together have resulted in many papers and over a million dollars in government funding.
The first was due to leaving an experiment out on the lab bench by accident over the weekend.
The second was due to a spurious band in the negative control lane on a gel.
Newton getting hit on the head with an apple resulting in his theory of gravity?
Wikipedia has a list (under serendipity) which may be helpful.
It is hard to know what “by accident” means in this context. Also, what is meant by a scientific theory. Darwin didn’t think about evolution until well after the voyage of the Beagle. He had not, for example, recorded on which island each of the finches (now called Darwin finches) that he had collected had been captured. But that was crucial to his theory of natural selection. (Incidentally, Darwin was far from the first to imagine evolution. It had long been in the air and his grandfather Erasmus had been a strong believer. What Darwin did was pair natural variation with selection.)
Then there was Kekule’s discovery of the ring structure of benzene after dreaming of a snake eating its own tail. But he had been trying to discover this structure and had thought about it a lot.
Aspirin was the result of a quack medical theory called The Doctrine Of Signatures. The quack theory doesn’t work, but on this one occasion it found a drug that actually is effective.
I am not talking about discoveries such as teflon. Those are in essence not a theory, but something that was created. I am talking about an instance where a scientist had a hypothesis for discovering something and found some data that indicated something entirely new. This resulted in the creation of a theory not something “real” like rubber.
That is not really how theories come about though. More or less accidental discoveries of effects, substances, properties, etc. are relatively common in science (although even then it almost always takes a well prepared mind to recognize that some unexpected event as amounting to an “accidental” discovery of something significant). Theories, however, are not the sort of thing that you just find, by accident or otherwise. A theory is a relatively complex structure of ideas that explains a range of phenomena. It takes work and mental effort, usually over an extended period of time to develop a worthwhile theory (and even then, it might not turn out to be right). Creating a theory by accident would be a bit like, for instance, building a computer by accident. It is not going to happen. It does not happen.
Im talking more about a discovery that was found unintentionally, (like example of discovery of atomic nucleus) that was used to create a theory. So what I mean to say is that the theory was not an accident, but the information used to create the theory was.
I hope that clarifies
The trouble with this one is that it is almost certainly mythical,* and even if (as is probably not the case) seeing an apple fall one day did once jog Newton’s thoughts in some significant way, it certainly did not cause the complete theory of gravitation to suddenly form in Newton’s brain. His theory was born out of long hard work on understanding Kepler’s laws, critiquing Descartes’ theories of planetary motion, working out the implications of Galileo’s work on falling bodies and inertial motion, working on the mathematical description of changing motion (the calculus), and, I am sure many other things. Like all worthwhile theories, Newton’s theory did not appear in his head all at once. It was the result of a long, effortful process of construction, and trial and error to see what actually worked, and fit the known facts (apple or no apple).
*Albeit a myth that may have been fostered by Newton himself.
Such as the Michelson–Morley experimentwhere they started by trying to measure the strength of the ether wind, but ended up discovering that ether doesn’t exist at all. Will that do?
Newton and the apple was a nice story but not true. In reality Newton was really interested in astronomy and using optics and was building a frame for a reflecting telescope using a five pound hammer. He dropped it, it hit his foot, he swore a lot, he wondered how such a thing could hurt so much. He then thought about mechanics and gravity.
I was going to suggest the M-M experiment, it’s the classic no-result experiment that spawned a whole new theory of cosmology.
The other example that comes to mind is the resolution of the ultraviolet catastrophe by Planck, which was the basis for the early development of quantum mechanics. Planck postulated a bold change in the theory of emission of radiation which entirely revolutionised the science, and also resolved several conflicts between theory and experiment in the field.
Edit: I see on re-reading that perhaps Planck’s theory doesn’t quite fit the requirements. Leaving it in there for what it’s worth, though.
But wasn’t willow bark already used by country people to treat aches and fevers before Stone published a paper on it? That would make the doctrine of signatures and its hit or miss rate a bit irrelevant, if people had already been finding it effective (in terms of the real world, not pseudoscience). I’m skeptical of people from a dominant culture claiming to have “discovered” something that bush people have known and used for ages. A scientist could discover the chemistry of salicin, of course, but would in the first place have gotten the idea of its medical use from the people who were already using it. This sort of thing continues in the attempts of an American pharmaceutical corporation to claim a patent on the neem tree, which has been used medicinally in India (and written and published about) for thousands of years.
I recently read an account of the first English colonists in Virginia to explore the upland habitat of the sugar maple (Acer saccharum) in the 17th century. They claimed to have discovered the maple sugaring process all by their clever English selves. When it was obvious from reading between the lines that they had to have learned it from the Indians who were already there doing it.