In The Innovation Expedition: A Visual Toolkit to Start Innovation (BIS Publishers, Amsterdam 2013), Gijs van Wulfen includes a brief but informative discussion of “accidental accidents.”
1. Columbus: When he first reached land during the first voyage, he thought he had reached India. That is why he called the natives “indians.”
2. Penicillin: Alexander Fleming left a pile of dirty petri dishes stacked up and in one of them, mold blocked the bacteria.
3. The Slinky: Richard James developed a spring to help stabilize ships at sea. His wife suggested that — with only minor modification — it could be a child’s toy.
4. Post-It-Notes: Spencer Silver tried to develop a superstrong adhesive; the result was very weak. A church choir member, Art Fry saw a way to mark pages in his hymnal.
5. Wheaties: In 1922, a clumsy dietician spilled a wheat bran mixture onto a hot stove. It turned into flakes.
6. The Color Mauve: In 1856, chemist William Perkin was struggling to develop an artificial version of the malaria drug quinine. Instead, he produced a dark oily sludge: synthetic dye.
7. Plastics: J.W. Hyatt accidentally spilled a bottle of collodion and was surprised that it formed a flexible-yet-strong material. His brother called it “celluloid,” the first commercially successful plastic.
8. Saccharine: In 1879, chemist Constantin Fahlberg rushed off from a lab without washing his hands. When he bit into a slice of bread, he noticed that it tasted unusually sweet.
9. Corn Flakes: In 1894, the Kellogg brothers forced stale wheat through a roller. It flattened into flakes when baked. After several experiments with various grains, including corn….
10. Pacemaker: In 1956, Wilson Greatbatch was working on a heart rhythm recording device. By mistake, he plugged in a resistor of the wrong size into the circuit and he began to hear the “lub-dub” sound of the human heart.
11. Coke: Pharmacist John Pemberton was trying to develop a cure for headaches. In 1886, he mixed several ingredients. After eight years of sales in the drug store, it became popular enough to be sold in bottles.
I am curious to know why VELCRO and Liquid Paper are not on the list. In 1948, Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral got the idea for VELCRO while removing burrs from his hairy dog after a walk in the forest. As for Liquid Paper, that evolved from gesso that Bette Nesmith Graham applied with a paintbrush, in 1951, to repair her mistakes when using an IBM Mag2 electric typewriter. These two would have given van Wulfen a “baker’s dozen.”
I highly recommend his book as well as an article by Tom Donnelly, “9 brilliant Inventions Made by Mistake,” Inc.com August 15, 2002.