Inventions Born by Accident
Penicillin, microwaves, Post-it notes: what if the best ideas came from a blunder?
What this quiz asks
- 1Which medicine was born from a mould that accidentally contaminated one of Alexander Fleming's culture dishes?
- 2The microwave oven owes its discovery to Percy Spencer, who saw which object melt in his pocket near a radar set?
- 3The Post-it note exists thanks to a failed glue developed at 3M. What was wrong with it?
- 4Velcro was inspired in George de Mestral by what, left clinging to his dog after a walk?
- 5Which non-stick coating was discovered by chance at DuPont in 1938, inside a cylinder of frozen gas?
- 6How did Charles Goodyear discover vulcanisation, which makes rubber tough and durable?
- 7Saccharin, the first synthetic sweetener, was spotted because a chemist had done what?
- 8Wilson Greatbatch's implantable pacemaker owes its steady tick to which mistake?
- 9Édouard Bénédictus got the idea for safety glass by seeing a dropped flask behave how?
- 10While trying to make which medicine did William Perkin accidentally obtain mauveine, the first synthetic dye?
