MadSci Network: Other |
>I have been reading up on inventions and I found that many inventions >were accidents or had other uses prior to their current one. For >example the Post-it note was actually a failed superglue experiment... >I was wondering if anyone could help me find other cases such as that. I recently posted an answer to a question about bubblegum. It was accidentally invented by a chemist, but his company ignored it until the patent ran out. Then Bazooka took it over and the rest is history. I usually use AltaVista for searches but searching using the advanced mode and trying this search: (accident OR accidental) NEAR (invent OR invention) produced thousand of hits but the "density of useful hits" was very low. I would suggest resubmitting the question to the science history section here at the Mad Scientist Network.
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Other.