Most inventions come about as the result of hard work. Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, famously said, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” (When I was growing up, my mom loved to repeat that to me whenever I dawdled or had trouble with my homework).
Despite Edison’s astute (that means clever) observation, many inventions have resulted from accidental discoveries. Here are a few of them:
• In 1931, Charles Getz was a college student at the University of Illinois. To make extra money, he got a job at the school’s dairy bacteriology department. One of his projects was to find a better way to sterilize, or destroy germs in, milk. Getz thought he might be able to achieve that goal by using pressurized gas. But instead of sterilizing milk, the gas whipped it. Getz knew from his days working in an ice cream shop that it took a long time to whip cream. After replacing milk with cream and finding the right gas to use (nitrous oxide had no smell or taste), he invented Instantwhip — whipped cream in a can.
• The next time you leave a Post-it Note on the refrigerator reminding your mom to buy a quart of rocky road ice cream, think of Spencer Silver. Silver, a chemist at the 3M company, set out in 1968 to create a super-strong glue. Instead, he produced a weak adhesive. Silver couldn’t find a use for the adhesive, but years later, co-worker Arthur Fry used it to lightly attach a note to a report. Post-it Notes were born and finally appeared on store shelves in 1980. Now we can’t live without them.
