I was hoping to compile a list of scientific and/or technological advances which were discovered by mistake. For examples, the adhesive for the 3M sticky-note pads, penicillin, and…?
There must be hundreds. Just wondering what the SDopers might know about… curious to hear more!!!
Thanks,
I can’t think of any off hand, but I agree there must be many examples. This reminds me of a saying:
Discoveries are not generally accompanied by the cry “eureka!” but by the words, “that’s funny…”.
Teflon
silly putty
perhaps you should define ‘technological advance’
I doubt the creation of such things as peanutbutter and banana sandwiches and potato chip pizza can be called entirely ‘intentional’, considering… q;}
Pasteurization.
X-rays/radiation… IIRC discovered by accidentally exposing a photographic slide to some lump of radioactive rock.
hazy memory of primary school project
Max 
I’m not sure these are discoveries “by mistake”. They’re certainly “by accident” if anything, but they were discovered by someone looking for something (if not necessarily the thing they found).
“Silly Putty” wasn’t a discovery by mistake – it was a silicone compund that the guy left on his desk, and everybody wanted to play with it. So it ended up being a toy, which nobody expected. Becquerel’s experiments certainly weren’t what he expected, but it wasn’t the result of accident – he left the uranium ore next to the film on purpose, to demonstrate another principle. He didn’t expect radioactivity, but he expected something.
IIRC, the 3-M “Stik-It” Notes were deliberately designed by one of the adhesive chemists. He saw the need and thewn looked for the adhesive. I hadn’t heard if the adhesive might not have been stumbled upon prior to this, though.
As for the “accidental discoveries”, you can add to the list:
Vulcanization – the story of Charles Goodyear’s accident with dropping the rubber into sulfer on his stove is legendary. But Goodyear was looking for a way to stabilize rubber.
Stainless Steel – The way I heard it, they noticed that one of the alloys on their refuse pile stubbernly refused to rust, and stood out like an unsore thumb, so they took it out and analyzed it. I don’t know what they were looking for at the time, but they were clearly looking for something.
Phosphorus – The alchemist who first made phosphorus (from his own urine, no less) was looking for Gold and/or the Philosopher’s Stone. Phosphorus was a lucky accident turnmed up in the search.
Mauve and other aniline dyes. Discovered in 1856 by 18 year old William Perkin while he was searching fora way to synthesize quinine.
LSD
The microwave ws discovered IIRC, when a scientist noticed that a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
I had read somewhere that Tungsten Carbide was discovered as a result of a failed experiment following an unreported laboratory spillage, but I can’t find anything at all supporting that idea.
I saw an interview with the inventor (on the BBC science magazine programme Tommorow’s World), IIRC, it went something like this:
An experimental adhesive had (already) been developed for which nobody could think of a good use, the inventor needed some way of (temporarily)marking pages in a book (either a music book or a Bible I think), but the little slips of paper he normally used kept falling out.
He made some little squares of papre with a line of the adhesive on them, but the idea of using them as notelets in their own right did not occur to him until quite a while later.
That is from memory; I’ll look up the story later (be interesting to see how much, if any, I have remembered correctly)
I believe lithographic printing was discovered by accident, but I can’t remember the details.
The adhesive in PostIts™ was purposely designed. Once they had figured it out (sticky enough to hold the paper, not too sticky it couldn’t be pulled off without damage), it was several years before a real use was found. The next step was when one of the inventors was having trouble keeping paper slips in hymnals. Not really an accident, just awareness. The real trick though was getting 3M management to produce it. They made up sample pads and gave them to the management’s secretaries. The rest is history. Invented in 1974 but not distributed nationally until 1980. They now appear in period movies set before their invention!