16 Accidental Scientific Discoveries and Inventions Made By Mistake

Have you ever asked yourself which everyday things that are a normal part of our lives were discovered by accident? Do you know how many lives were saved just because some of the most important medical devices were invented by accident?

Science is a wonderful thing, since it helps humanity both intentionally and accidentally. Actually it is not science itself, it is people who do it of course, and people make mistakes. Scientists usually have a somewhat different point of view on the world around us. Imagination and open mindedness is the key thing in scientific way of thinking, but:

Well, of course, not too open-minded because while “Keeping an open mind is a virtue…(but) not so open that your brains fall out”, as it was nicely said by Carl Sagan. But anyway, many of the accidental scientific discoveries that changed the world actually happened due to the clumsiness or by chance, not even being close to investigate the things they accidentally came up with. In order to explain the role of so called “accidental” discoveries played in the history of science, we can see that it is actually very high percentage of “accidental” discoveries in science – round 30% of discoveries happen by mistake or accident. While looking for some explanation or discovery there are a lot of unexpected things occurring in the way of scientific research, some of them being serendipitous and some just show up on their own.

So, mistakes do happen. Everywhere and all the time. And some of them have changed our lives and became a normal thing that we don’t even think anymore that they had to be invented at some point. Well, let’s not waste time on this talk now, and check out now the 16 Accidental Scientific Discoveries and Inventions Made By Mistake.