Chemistry is one of the oldest sciences. It studies substances, their compounds, structure, transformations. People received the first information about chemical transformations by doing various crafts. Alchemists made a significant contribution to the development of chemistry. In search of a philosopher's stone that can turn any metal into gold, they made many scientific discoveries. The history of the development of chemistry is full of interesting events and amazing experiments.
Basic rules of conduct in a chemical laboratory
- If you uncork something, cork it immediately.
- If enabled, disable.
- If open, close.
- If you have liquid in your hands - do not spill, powder - do not scatter, gaseous - do not let it out.
- If you don't know how it works, don't touch it.
More expensive than gold
In 1669, the German alchemist Hennig Brand, in search of the philosopher's stone, decided to try to synthesize gold from human urine. In the course of his experiments with urine, he obtained a white powder that glows in the dark. Hennig mistook it for the "primordial matter" of gold and called it "light-bearer" (pronounced "phosphorus" in Greek). When further experiments with this powder did not lead to obtaining the precious metal, the alchemist began to sell the new substance even more expensive than the gold itself.
Great chemist
One day in 1837, a deafening explosion was heard in the basement of a private boarding house in Kazan. The culprit turned out to be 9-year-old pupil Sasha Butlerov, who tried to make either gunpowder or "sparklers". The teacher severely punished the student.
For three days in a row, Sasha walked around with a sign hung on his chest, on which it was written in large letters: "GREAT CHEMIST". Subsequently, these words became prophetic - the violator of discipline became the great Russian chemist Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov, the creator of the theory of the chemical structure of organic substances, the rector of the Imperial Kazan University.
Who Invented Safety Glass?
In 1903, French chemist Edouard Benedictus accidentally dropped a flask filled with nitrocellulose. The walls of the flask were covered with a network of cracks, but the flask itself did not break. Surprised by this fact, the scientist conducted several experiments - he made "sandwiches" from two glasses and a layer of cellulose nitrate between them. When heated, the cellulose layer melted and glued the glasses together. Such a "sandwich" could be beaten with a hammer - it cracked, but retained its shape and did not give splinters. In 1909, Benedictus received a patent for safety glass, which he called "triplex".
It is noteworthy that the military was the first to pay attention to the new material - during the First World War, gas mask glasses were made from it. And only in 1919, Henry Ford began to use triplex in the production of car windshields.
Aqua regia
Royal vodka is a mixture of concentrated acids, a very dangerous toxic substance. It has a yellowish color and smells of chlorine. It consists of hydrochloric acid HC1 (one volume) and nitric HNO 3 (three volumes). Sometimes sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4) is added to them. It owes its name to a unique property - it dissolves almost all metals, including gold and platinum, but does not dissolve either ceramics or glass.
When German troops occupied the Danish capital of Copenhagen during World War II, the Hungarian chemist György de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel medals of German physicists Max von Lause and James Frank in aqua regia, having no other way to hide them from the German invaders. After the war, Hevesy isolated the gold hidden in aqua regia and gave it to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which made new medals and gave them to von Lause and Frank.
By what accident did Linux actually come about?
Linus Torvalds used the Minix operating system, but was dissatisfied with many of the limitations in it and decided to write his own system. At a certain point, a more or less stable version was released, Torvalds' interest in the project faded, and he was ready to abandon it. But in the same period, he accidentally corrupted the partition on the hard drive where Minix stood, and instead of reinstalling it, Torvalds decided to finish what he had begun. So, by chance, the Linux kernel and later the GNU/Linux OS were born.
What part of the car was invented by chance?
Safety glass was invented by accident. In 1903, French chemist Edouard Benedictus accidentally dropped a flask filled with nitrocellulose. The glass cracked, but did not shatter into small pieces. Realizing what was going on, Benedictus made the first modern windshields to reduce the number of victims of car accidents.
What oversight led Louis Pasteur to discover the modern method of vaccination?
One day, Louis Pasteur, who was conducting experiments on infecting birds with chicken cholera, decided to go on vacation and left his assistant in the laboratory. He forgot to perform another vaccination to chickens and went on vacation himself. Returning, the assistant infected the hens, which at first weakened, but then unexpectedly recovered. Thanks to this oversight, Pasteur realized that weakened bacteria are the key to getting rid of the disease, as they give immunity from it, and became the founder of modern vaccination. Subsequently, he also created inoculations against anthrax and rabies.
What accident led to the discovery of a cure for beriberi?
At the end of the 19th century, the Dutch physiologist Christian Eikman was sent to Indonesia to study the beriberi disease, from which the locals died in large numbers. One day, he noticed that laboratory chickens were showing symptoms of the disease. Analyzing the reasons, Aikman found out that the new cook began to buy for the army ration not brown, but white rice, which also went to feed chickens. The scientist again began to give them brown brown rice, and soon the chickens were cured. Already other biologists continued Aikman's research and found a medicinal component in raw rice - thiamine, or vitamin B1.
What was invented first - matches or a lighter?
The first lighter, similar to those familiar to us, was invented in 1823 by the German chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner - 3 years earlier than modern matches that are ignited by friction against cherkash. They were accidentally obtained in 1826 by the English chemist John Walker.
Who played a key role in the popularization of champagne?
Many consider the French monk Pierre Dom Pérignon to be the inventor of champagne, but this is far from the truth. He developed many techniques that are still used by champagne producers in the process of making initial wine, but he considered bubbles in wine to be a sign of marriage. And the British played a key role in popularizing bubble wine. They imported wines from the Champagne region, and then poured them from barrels into bottles with a cork stopper (which the French did not know then). After the resumption of the fermentation process, carbon dioxide began to form in the bottles, and the wine in open bottles bubbled, which the British liked very much.
How was the tea bag invented?
The tea bag was invented by American Thomas Sullivan in 1904 by accident. He decided to send tea to customers in silk bags instead of the traditional tin cans. However, the buyers thought that they were offered a new way - to brew tea directly in these bags, and found this method very convenient.
How did Mendeleev discover the periodic law?
There is a widespread legend that the idea of the periodic table of chemical elements came to Mendeleev in a dream. Once he was asked if this was so, to which the scientist replied: “I’ve been thinking about it for maybe twenty years, and you think: I sat and suddenly ... it’s ready.”
Who solved a difficult math problem by mistaking it for homework?
American mathematician George Dantzig, being a graduate student at the university, one day was late for class and took the equations written on the blackboard for homework. It seemed to him more complicated than usual, but after a few days he was able to complete it. It turned out that he solved two "unsolvable" problems in statistics that many scientists struggled with.
How were chips invented?
The signature recipe of an American restaurant where George Crum worked in 1853 was french fries. One day, a customer returned a fried potato to the kitchen, complaining that it was "too fat". Krum, deciding to play a trick on him, cut the potatoes literally paper-thin and fried. Thus, he invented chips, which became the restaurant's most popular dish.
How were antibiotics discovered?
Antibiotics were discovered by accident. Alexander Fleming left a vial of staphylococcus bacteria unattended for several days. A colony of mold fungi grew in it and began to destroy bacteria, and then Fleming isolated the active substance - penicillin.
How was vulcanization discovered?
American Charles Goodyear accidentally discovered a recipe for making rubber that does not soften in the heat and does not become brittle in the cold. He mistakenly heated a mixture of rubber and sulfur on the stove (according to another version, he left a rubber sample by the stove). This process is called vulcanization.
Probably everyone in school learned important facts in chemistry. At the same time, not everyone knows that chemistry surrounds us everywhere. It is impossible to imagine the life of a modern person without the use of chemical elements that are of great benefit to mankind. In addition, interesting facts about chemistry in human life will help you learn more about this amazing and useful science. Everyone should learn about chemical elements and their invaluable benefits to humans. Next, we will consider in more detail interesting facts on chemistry, and how it is useful for human life.
1. To ensure a standard flight of a modern aircraft, about 80 tons of oxygen are needed. The same amount of oxygen is produced by 40 thousand hectares of forest during photosynthesis.
2. About twenty grams of salt is contained in one liter of sea water.
3. The length of 100 million hydrogen atoms in one chain is one centimeter.
4. About 7 mg of gold can be extracted from one ton of the waters of the oceans.
5. About 75% of water is contained in the human body.
6. The mass of our planet has increased by one billion tons over the past five centuries.
7. The thinnest matter that a person can see is the walls of a soap bubble.
8. 0.001 seconds is the bursting speed of a soap bubble.
9. At a temperature of 5000 degrees Celsius, iron turns into a gaseous state.
10. The sun produces more energy in one minute than our planet needs for a whole year.
11. Granite is considered to be the best conductor of sound compared to air.
12. The largest number of chemical elements was discovered by Carl Shelley, a leading Canadian researcher.
13. The largest platinum nugget weighs over 7 kilograms.
15. Joseph Black discovered carbon dioxide in 1754.
16. Under the influence of soy sauce, a chemical reaction occurs that causes the dead squid to "dance" on a plate.
17. The organic compound skatol is responsible for the characteristic smell of feces.
18. Pyotr Stolypin took an exam in chemistry from Dmitri Mendeleev.
19. The transition of a substance from a solid to a gaseous state in chemistry is called sublimation.
20. In addition to mercury at room temperature, francium and gallium pass into a liquid substance.
21. Water containing methane can freeze at temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius.
22. Hydrogen is the lightest gas.
23. Hydrogen is also the most common substance in the world.
24. One of the lightest metals is lithium.
25. In his youth, Charles Darwin was famous for his chemical discoveries.
26. In a dream, Mendeleev discovered a system of chemical elements.
27. A large number of chemical elements have been named after countries.
28. Onions contain sulfur, which causes tears in humans.
29. In Indonesia, people extract sulfur from a volcano, which brings them a lot of profit.
30. In addition, sulfur is also added to cosmetics that are designed to cleanse problem skin.
31. Earwax protects a person from harmful bacteria and microorganisms.
32. French explorer B. Courtois discovered iodine in 1811.
33. More than 100 thousand chemical reactions take place every minute in the human brain.
34. Silver is known for its bactericidal properties, therefore it is able to purify water from viruses and microorganisms.
35. Berzelius was the first to use the name "sodium".
36. Iron can be easily turned into a gas if it is heated to 5 thousand degrees Celsius.
37. Half the mass of the Sun is hydrogen.
38. About 10 billion tons of gold contain the waters of the oceans.
39. Only seven metals were once known.
40. Ernest Rutherford was the first to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
41. Dihydrogen monoxide is part of acid rain and is dangerous for all living organisms.
42. At first, platinum was cheaper than silver because of its infusibility.
43. Geosmin is a substance that is produced on the surface of the earth after rain, causing a characteristic odor.
44. In honor of the Swedish village of Ytterby, chemical elements such as ytterbium, yttrium, erbium and terbium were named.
45. Alexander Fleming first discovered antibiotics.
46. Birds help identify the location of a gas leak due to the presence of a smell of raw meat in it, which is added artificially.
47. Charles Goodyear first invented rubber.
48. It is easier to get ice from hot water.
49. It is in Finland that the cleanest water in the world.
50. Helium is considered the lightest of the noble gases.
51. Emeralds contain beryllium.
52. Boron is used to color the fire green.
53. Nitrogen can cause clouding of consciousness.
54. Neon is able to glow red if a current is passed through it.
55. The ocean contains a large amount of sodium.
56. Silicon is used in computer chips.
57. Phosphorus is used to make matches.
58. Chlorine can cause allergic reactions in the respiratory system.
59. Light bulbs use argon.
60. Potassium can burn with violet fire.
61. A large amount of calcium is found in dairy products.
62. Scandium is used to make baseball bats, which improves their impact resistance.
63. Titanium is used to create jewelry.
64. Vanadium is used to make steel stronger.
65. Rare cars were often decorated with chrome.
66. Manganese can lead to intoxication of the body.
67. Cobalt is used to make magnets.
68. Nickel is used to produce green glass.
69. Copper conducts electricity very well.
70. To increase the service life of steel, zinc is added to it.
71. Spoons containing gallium can melt in hot water.
72. Mobile phones use germanium.
73. A toxic substance is arsenic, from which poison for rats is made.
74. Bromine can melt at room temperature.
75. Strontium is used to make red fireworks.
76. Molybdenum is used to produce powerful tools.
77. Technetium is used in x-rays.
78. Ruthenium is used in jewelry production.
79. Rhodium has an incredibly beautiful natural luster.
80. Cadmium is used in some pigment paints.
81. Indium can make a sharp sound when bent.
82. Uranium is used to produce nuclear weapons.
83. Americium is used in smoke detectors.
84. Edward Benedictus accidentally invented impact-resistant glass, which is widely used today in various industries.
85. Radon is considered the rarest element of the atmosphere.
86. Tungsten has the highest boiling point.
87. Mercury has the lowest melting point.
88. Argon was discovered by the English physicist Relay in 1894.
89. Canaries sense the presence of methane in the air, so they are used to search for gas leaks.
90. Small amounts of methanol can cause blindness.
91. Cesium is one of the most active metals.
92. Fluorine actively reacts with almost all substances.
93. About thirty chemical elements are part of the human body.
94. In everyday life, a person often encounters salt hydrolysis, for example, while washing clothes.
95. Due to the oxidation reaction, color drawings appear on the walls of gorges and quarries.
96. It is impossible to remove stains from protein products in hot water.
97. Dry ice is a solid form of carbon dioxide.
98. The largest number of chemical elements is included in the earth's crust.
99. With the help of carbon dioxide, a large number of other substances can be obtained.
100. One of the lightest metals is aluminum.
10 facts from the life of chemists
1. The life of the chemist Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin is connected not only with chemistry, but also with music.
2.Edouard Benedictus is a chemist from France who made the discovery by accident.
3. Semyon Volfkovich was engaged in experiments related to phosphorus. When he worked with him, the clothes were also impregnated with phosphorus, and therefore, returning home late at night, the professor emitted a bluish glow.
4. Alexander Fleming discovered antibiotics by accident.
5. The famous chemist Dmitry Mendeleev was the 17th child in the family.
6. Carbon dioxide was discovered by the English scientist Joseph Priestley.
7. Dmitri Mendeleev's paternal grandfather was a priest.
8. The famous chemist Svante Arrhenius became fat from an early age.
9.R. Wood, who is considered an American chemist, originally worked as a laboratory attendant.
10. The first Russian textbook "Organic Chemistry" was created by Dmitry Mendeleev in 1861.
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There is a legend that the periodic table of elements appeared to Mendeleev in a dream. But the great scientist himself never told that the idea of ordering the elements came to him in the middle of the night, moreover, he said that he had been working on the table for many years. However, some major discoveries, thanks to which the world has changed forever, occurred by the will of His Majesty by chance.
website compiled for you a list of "accidental" inventions, without which our reality would be very different.
1. Reinforced concrete
At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867, the French gardener Joseph Monnier presented his development - a concrete tub for plants, reinforced with iron rods. Monnier worked in the greenhouse of the Tuileries Palace, where he took care of orange trees: in the summer, the plants in cement tubs were taken out into the street, and in the winter they were put into the greenhouse, and because of the temperature difference, the pots cracked and broke.
To strengthen them, Monier began to experiment with iron rods, which he set in a mold for casting pots. Perhaps the gardener heard about similar experiments with iron and cement, but it was he who guessed to strengthen the products not just with rods, but with a mesh of them.
During his research, Monier noticed that tubs are the most durable, where the rods are installed both horizontally and vertically. By the way, the honor of the invention of reinforced concrete sleepers also belongs to Joseph Monnier.
2. Nobel Prize
In 1888, an obituary appeared in one of the French newspapers entitled "The merchant of death is dead", which spoke of the death of Alfred Nobel. However, the sad news was published by mistake, because not Alfred himself died in one of the Cannes hospitals, but his brother Ludwig.
After reading the obituary, the inventor of dynamite thought about how he would remain in the memory of posterity, and, not wanting to be forever remembered solely as a "merchant of death", he changed his last will, bequeathing all his property to a special fund that would encourage science throughout the world.
3. Safety glass
In 1903, the French artist, writer, composer and scientist Edouard Benedictus accidentally dropped a flask on the floor during a chemical experiment. To the surprise of Benedictus, the thin glass cracked, but did not break: as it turned out, the flask contained the remains of a solution of nitrocellulose, which, having dried, “enveloped” the vessel.
In those years, ordinary glass was in cars, whose fragments seriously injured drivers and passengers in accidents. After reading in the newspaper about another car accident, Benedictus began to conduct experiments and eventually came up with glass consisting of two sheets with a layer of cellulose sandwiched between them. When heated, the cellulose melted and tightly held the glass sheets together.
The resulting “sandwich” was patented by the scientist under the name “triplex”, and in 1919 Henry Ford was the first to install it on his cars.
4. Radioactivity
In 1896, the French scientist Antoine Becquerel conducted experiments with recently discovered (also, in general, by chance), trying to understand if there is a connection between them and the glow of uranium salts.
For the experiment, Becquerel used a mineral with uranium salts: for some time he kept it under the sun's rays, then put it together with a metal object on top of a photographic plate, on which a “photographic” image appeared after a while. True, its clarity was worse than that of x-rays, so the scientist decided that it was a lack of sun, and decided to wait for a sunny day.
But nature did not favor Becquerel, and then he decided to temporarily remove the mineral and photographic plates, wrapping them together with the Maltese cross in a dark opaque material. A few days later, for some reason, the scientist developed a photographic plate and saw an image of a cross on it, after which he suggested that the glow had nothing to do with the sun's rays.
Further study of the mysterious "rays" gave the world such a concept as radioactivity, for the discovery of which Becquerel in 1903, together with Pierre and Marie Curie, received the Nobel Prize.
5. Anesthesia
In 1844, the dentist Horace Wells, during a lecture by the chemist Colton demonstrating the action of nitric oxide, noticed that one of the students, who was under the influence of laughing gas, broke his leg and did not notice the pain. Wells conducted an experiment on himself and, after inhaling nitrous oxide, had a colleague pull out his tooth. The operation was painless, and the doctor began to give his patients a dose of laughing gas.
One day, Wells decided to publicly demonstrate the effect of the gas, but the experiment failed, possibly due to a small dose of nitrous oxide. During the operation, the patient screamed, and colleagues who gathered in the hall ridiculed Wells. Further attempts to introduce this method of anesthesia ended in failure, moreover, at that time chloroform and ether began to be used for anesthesia, and nitrous oxide was forgotten for a while.
Unable to withstand the test, Horace Wells took a dose of laughing gas and cut the femoral artery. Almost 20 years later, Dr. Colton, from whose lecture the history of anesthesia began, began to successfully introduce the Wellsian method of anesthesia, which later spread throughout America and then Europe.
Bonus: Botox
In 1987, Dr. Jean Carruthers, an ophthalmologist at a private clinic in Vancouver, injected one of her patients with a solution that, among other things, contained botulinum toxin. The drug was administered to help a woman cope with blepharospasm, a symptom in which the eyelids close involuntarily.
Some time later, the patient returned to Dr. Carruthers and asked for another injection. When the doctor said that this was not necessary, since the blepharospasm had disappeared, the woman admitted that after the injection her eyes became more open and younger.
Dr. Carruthers suggested that her husband, Alistair Carruthers, who worked as a dermatologist at the same clinic, try botulinum toxin as a "cure" for wrinkles. Jean herself, along with hospital administrator Katie Swann, became the first patient to receive a Botox injection not for medical purposes, but to smooth out wrinkles.
Have there been accidents in your life due to which there have been changes for the better?
What is needed for an invention? Many will answer that this will require months and years of research and experimentation. In classical cases, this is exactly what happens. However, history knows many cases when important inventions were made completely by accident. And we are talking not only about scientific, but also quite everyday things. Let's talk about the most famous of them.
Penicillin. Penicillin was discovered in 1928. The author of a random invention was Alexander Fleming, who at that time was researching influenza. According to legend, the scientist was not neat enough and did not bother to frequently wash laboratory glassware immediately after research. So, he could store influenza cultures for 2-3 weeks in 30-40 cups at a time. And then one day, in one of the Petri dishes, the scientist discovered a mold, which, to his amazement, was able to destroy the sown culture of staphylococcus bacteria. This aroused Fleming's interest, it turned out that the mold with which the culture was infected belongs to a very rare species. It most likely came to the laboratory from a room on the floor below, it was there that mold samples taken from patients with bronchial asthma were grown. Fleming left the cup that was to become famous on the table and went on vacation. Then a cold snap came in London, which created favorable conditions for the growth of mold. The subsequent warming favored the growth of bacteria. Later it turned out. What exactly such a combination of circumstances served as the birth of such an important discovery. Moreover, its significance has stepped far beyond the 20th century. After all, penicillin helped and still helps to save the lives of millions of people. People paid tribute to the memory of the scientist, after the death of Fleming he was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, placing him on a par with the most famous Englishmen. In Greece, on the day of Fleming's death, national mourning was even declared.
X-rays or X-rays. The discovery was made in 1895 by the physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. The scientist conducted experiments in a darkened room, trying to understand whether cathode rays, discovered only recently, could pass through a vacuum tube or not. By changing the shape of the cathode, X-ray accidentally saw that a blurry greenish cloud appeared on the chemically cleaned screen at a distance of several feet. It seemed that the faint flash from the induction coil could be reflected in the mirror. This effect interested the scientist so much that he devoted seven whole weeks to it, almost without leaving the laboratory. As a result, it turned out that the glow occurs due to direct rays emanating from the cathode ray tube. The radiation itself gives a shadow, and it cannot be deflected by a magnet. Applying the effect on a human, it became clear that bones cast a denser shadow than soft tissues. This is still used today in fluoroscopy. In the same year, the first x-ray appeared. It was a picture of the scientist's wife's hand, on the finger of which a golden ring clearly stood out. So the first test subject was the woman whom the men could see through. Then they did not know anything about the danger of radiation - there were even photo studios where they took single and family pictures.
Vulcanized rubber. In 1496, Columbus brought a wonderful thing from the West Indies - rubber balls. Then it seemed magical, but of little use fun. In addition, rubber had its drawbacks - it stank and quickly rotted, and when warm it became too sticky, hardening also in the cold. It is not surprising that people could not find a use for rubber for a long time. Only 300 years later, in 1839, this problem was solved by Charles Goodier. In his chemical laboratory, the scientist tried to mix rubber with magnesia, nitric acid, lime, but it was all to no avail. Ended in failure and an attempt to mix rubber with sulfur. But then, quite by accident, this mixture was dropped on a hot stove. And so it turned out elastic rubber, which today surrounds us everywhere. These are car tires, balls and galoshes.
Cellophane. In 1908, the Swiss chemist Jacques Brandenberger, working for the textile industry, was looking for ways to create a coating for kitchen tablecloths that would be as stain-resistant as possible. The rigid viscose coating that was developed was too rigid for its intended purpose, but Jacques believed in this material, suggesting that it be used for food packaging. However, the first machine for the production of cellophane appeared only 10 years later - that is how long it took the Swiss scientist to realize his idea.
Safety glass. Today, this combination of words is not surprising, but in 1903 everything was completely different. Then the French scientist Edouard Benedictus dropped an empty glass flask on his foot. The dishes did not break, and this surprised him very much. Of course, the walls were covered with a network of cracks, but the form remained intact. The scientist tried to find out what caused this phenomenon. It turned out that before that the flask contained a solution of collodion, which is a solution of cellulose nitrates in a mixture of ethanol and ethyl ether. Although the liquid evaporated, a thin layer of it remained on the walls of the vessel. At this time, the automotive industry was developing in France. Then the windshield was made of ordinary glass, which entailed many injuries to drivers. Benedictus realized how his invention could be used in this area and thereby save many lives. However, the cost of implementation was so high that it was simply postponed for decades. Only decades after World War I, during which triplex was used as glass for gas masks, safety glass was also used in the automotive industry. The pioneer was Volvo in 1944.
Protective material Scotchgard. In 1953, Patsy Sherman, an employee of 3M Corporation, was developing a rubber material that was supposed to successfully withstand interaction with aviation fuel. But suddenly, one sloppy laboratory assistant spilled one of the experimental compounds right on her new tennis shoes. It is quite obvious that Patsy was upset, since she could not clean the shoes with either alcohol or soap. However, this failure only pushed the woman to new research. And now, just a year after the incident, the Scotchgard drug was born, which protects various surfaces from pollution - from fabrics to cars.
Adhesive sheets - mestikers. This random invention is also known as post-it notes. In 1970, Spencer Silver, who worked for the same 3M corporation, tried to develop a super strong adhesive. However, his results were depressing - the resulting mixture was constantly smeared on the surface of the paper, but if they tried to stick it to something, then after a while the leaf fell off, leaving no marks on the surface. Four years later, another employee of the same company, Arthur Fry, who sang in the church choir, figured out how to improve the search for psalms in the book. To do this, he pasted bookmarks there, smeared with exactly the composition developed earlier. This helped the stickers stay inside the book for a long time. Since 1980, the history of the release of post-it notes, one of the most popular office products, began.
Super glue. Also, this substance is also called Krazy Glue, but in fact its correct name is "cyanoacrylate (cyanoacrylate)". And his invention also became an accident. The author of the discovery was Dr. Harry Coover, who during the Second World War in 1942 was looking in his laboratory for a way to make plastic for gun sights transparent. As a result of the experiments, cyanoacrylate was obtained, which did not solve the required problem in any way. This substance quickly hardened and stuck to everything, spoiling valuable laboratory equipment. Only many years later, in 1958, the scientist realized that his invention could be used for the benefit of mankind. The most useful was the ability of the composition to instantly seal ... human wounds! This saved the lives of many soldiers in Vietnam. With the wounds sealed with miracle glue, the wounded could already be transported to the hospital. In 1959, an extraordinary demonstration of glue took place in America. There, the host of the program was lifted in the air on two steel plates glued together with just a drop of composition. Later, during demonstrations, both televisions and cars were lifted into the air.
Velcro or Velcro (velcro). It all started in 1941 when the Swiss inventor Georges de Mestral was walking his dog as usual. Upon returning home, it turned out that both the owner's coat and all the dog's hair were covered with burdock. A curious Swiss decided to examine under a microscope how the plant manages to cling so firmly. It turned out that everything was to blame - tiny hooks, with which the burdock was attached to the wool almost tightly. Guided by the peeped principle, George created two ribbons with the same small hooks that would cling to each other. And so an alternative clasp appeared! However, mass production of a useful product came only after 14 years. One of the first such Velcro began to be used by astronauts who fasten spacesuits in this way.
Fruit ice cream on a stick (popsicle). The author of this invention was only eleven years old, and the young man's name was Frank Epperson. What he discovered will be called by many one of the most significant inventions of the 20th century. Luck smiled at the boy when he dissolved soda powder in water - such a drink was popular with children at that time. For some reason, Frank did not manage to drink the liquid right away, he left a stirring stick in the glass and left it outside for a while. The weather then stood frosty and the mixture quickly froze. The boy liked the funny frozen thing on a stick, because it could be licked with the tongue, and not drunk. With a laugh, Frank began to show his discovery to everyone. When the boy grew up, he remembered the invention of his childhood. And now, 18 years later, sales of "Epsicles" popsicles began, which had as many as 7 flavor options. Today, this type of delicacy is so popular that more than three million popsicle popsicles are sold annually in America alone.
Garbage bag. Mankind received a waste bag only in 1950. One day, Harry Vasilyuk, an engineer and inventor, was approached by the municipality of his city with a request to solve the problem of spilling waste when loading garbage trucks. Vasilyuk has been designing a device that works on the principle of a vacuum cleaner for a long time. But then, suddenly, another idea struck him. According to legend, one of his acquaintances accidentally exclaimed: "I need a trash bag!". It was then that Vasilyuk realized that for garbage operations, only disposable bags should be used, which he proposed to make from polyethylene. At first, such packages began to be used in a hospital in Winnipeg, Canada. The first garbage bags for individuals appeared only in the 1960s. I must say that the invention of Vasilik turned out to be very useful, because now one of the global tasks of mankind is just waste disposal. And this invention, although it does not contribute to the direct solution of the problem, indirectly still helps.
Trolley for supermarket. Sylvan Goldman was the owner of a large grocery store in Oklahoma City. And then he noticed that customers do not always take some goods, because they are just hard to carry! Then Goldman in 1936 invented the first shopping cart. The businessman himself came up with the idea of his invention by accident - he saw how one of the customers put a heavy bag on a toy car, which his son was rolling on a string. The merchant first attached the wheels to an ordinary basket, and then, having called for the help of mechanics, he also created a prototype of a modern cart. Since 1947, the mass production of this device began. It was this invention that allowed the emergence of such a phenomenon as supermarkets.
Pacemaker. Among the random inventions of mankind, there are also devices. In this row, the pacemaker stands out, which helps save the lives of millions of people suffering from heart disease. In 1941, engineer Johns Hopkins was researching hypothermia for the Navy. He was given the task of finding a way to maximize the heating of a person who had been in the cold or in icy water for a long time. To solve this issue, John tried to use high-frequency radio emission, which would warm up the body. However, he found that when the heart stops due to hypothermia, it can be restarted with electrical stimulation. This discovery led to the introduction of the first pacemaker in 1950. At that time, it was bulky and heavy, and its use sometimes even led to the formation of burns in patients. The second accidental discovery in this area belongs to the physician Wilson Greatbatch. He tried to create a device for recording heart rhythms. One day, he accidentally inserted the wrong resistor into his device and saw fluctuations in the electrical network similar to the rhythm of a human heart. Two years later, with the help of Greatbatch, the first implantable pacemaker was born, delivering artificial impulses that stimulate cardiac activity.
Potato chips. In 1853, in the town of Saratoga, in the state of New York, a regular, but especially capricious customer literally plagued the staff of a cafe. This man was the railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, who constantly refused the offered French fries, considering them thick and wet. In the end, the cook George Krum got tired of cutting the tubers thinner and thinner, and he decided to take revenge or just play a trick on the annoying visitor. Several waffle-thin potato slices were fried in oil and served to Cornelius. The grumbler's first reaction was quite predictable - now the slices seemed to him too thin to prick them with a fork. However, after trying a few pieces, the visitor was finally satisfied. As a result, other visitors also wished to taste the new dish. Soon a new dish called "Saratoga chips" appeared on the menu, and the chips themselves began their victorious march around the world.
LSD. The accidental discovery of d-lysergic acid diethylamide led to a whole cultural revolution. Few people today can dispute this fact, because the hallucinogen, discovered by the Swiss scientist Albert Hoffman in 1938, greatly contributed to the formation of the hippie movement in the 60s. Interest in this substance was quite large, it also had a huge impact on the research and treatment of neurological diseases. In fact, Dr. Hoffman discovered LSD as a hallucinogen while participating in pharmaceutical research in Basel, Switzerland. Doctors tried to create a drug that would ease the pain of childbirth. When synthesizing what was later called LSD, Hoffman initially found no interesting properties in the substance and hid it in storage. The real properties of LSD were revealed only in April 1943. Hoffman worked with the substance without gloves, and some of it entered the body through the skin. As Albert rode home on his bicycle, he was surprised to see "an unceasing stream of fantastic pictures, unusual forms with a rich and kaleidoscopic play of color." In 1966, LSD was outlawed in the United States, and soon the ban spread to other countries, which greatly complicated the study of the hallucinogen. One of the first researchers was Dr. Richard Alpert, who claimed to have managed to test LSD in 200 subjects by 1961, 85% of whom claimed to have had the most rewarding experience of their lives.
Microwave. And in this case invented a completely different device. So, in 1945, the American engineer Percy Spencer created magnetrons. These devices were supposed to generate microwave radio signals for the first radars. After all, they played an important role in the Second World War. But the fact that microwaves can help cook food was discovered quite by accident. One day, standing near a working magnetron, Spencer saw that a bar of chocolate had melted in his pocket. The mind of the inventor quickly realized that those same microwaves were to blame. Spencer decided to experiment with popcorn and eggs. The latter, expected for us modern ones, exploded. The benefits of microwaves turned out to be obvious, and over time, the first microwave oven was made. At that time, it weighed about 340 kilograms and was the size of a large modern refrigerator.
