Microwave Invention: Radar Mistake and Melted Chocolate
Chapter 1

Accidental breakthroughs in science

Chapter 2

Culinary slip-ups that tasted great

Chapter 3

The science of how our brains learn from failure

Chapter 4

Accidental toys that conquered the world

YOUR GOAL

Master of How to mess up and make history

Ch 1 · Accidental breakthroughs in science
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007skaty Alexander Fleming kept a notoriously messy laboratory desk in London.

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007skaty Accidental Scientific Breakthroughs

Melted chocolate! Melted chocolate! A radar mistake made the microwave!

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Progress often comes from studying an error instead of correcting it.

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007skaty Engineer Percy Spencer discovered microwave cooking through a melted candy bar

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Wilson Greatbatch's wrong resistor

007skaty Using a 1-megohm resistor instead of a 10,000-ohm one at the University of Buffalo made a recording circuit

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Percy Spencer's melted candy bar

007skaty A gooey, melted chocolate candy bar sits inside an engineer's coat pocket.

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Accidental breakthroughs in science
BETA

007skaty Sort famous lab blunders to discover how history's greatest mistakes became major breakthroughs.

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Fun Fact

The colorful mistake: In 1856, 18-year-old chemist William Perkin tried to cure malaria but accidentally created mauveine, the world's first synthetic purple dye.

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Glossary
serendipity (noun)
The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Alexander Fleming experienced this in 1928 when mold contaminated his petri dishes, leading to penicillin's discovery.

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Gossip

Which accidental invention would you least want to live without?

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Quiz

Which scientist won the first-ever Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for his accidental discovery?

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007skaty Wilson Greatbatch designed the implantable pacemaker by accident.

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Quiz

What did Alexander Fleming find growing on his messy petri dish in 1928 that led to penicillin?

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007skaty Wilhelm Röntgen accidentally discovers X-rays in his dark laboratory

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Quiz

What was chemist William Perkin trying to create in 1856 when he accidentally invented the first synthetic purple dye?

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Quiz

What snack melted in Percy Spencer's pocket in 1945, sparking the invention of the microwave?

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Quiz

What radar-related component was Percy Spencer testing in 1945 when his candy bar melted?

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Quiz

In 1895, what did Wilhelm Röntgen accidentally discover when he saw a screen glowing across his dark lab?

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Quiz

What type of bacteria was Alexander Fleming studying in 1928 before mold contaminated his petri dish?

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Quiz

What medical device did Wilson Greatbatch accidentally invent in 1956 by using the wrong electrical resistor?

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