The Unexpected Discoveries of Everyday Items When Serendipity Leads to Innovation
Looking around your house, you’ll spot countless inventions you couldn’t imagine living without, from your television to the refrigerator. We like to imagine the inventors behind these ideas were intentional with their actions, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, the latest and greatest discoveries occur by happenstance.
As other alternatives gained popularity, Kutol Products saw their sales fall. A Kutol employee’s sister-in-law thought the product would be great for modeling. After testing it with kids, she found they loved molding it into various shapes. Thus, Play-Doh was born, saving a floundering company on the verge of bankruptcy. The Microwave In 1945, Percy Spencer, a self-taught engineer, was leading a radar project when he discovered a chocolate bar in his pocket had melted while testing a piece of equipment called a magnetron. Wanting to see if he could reproduce the same results, Spencer placed some popcorn kernels near the equipment. Within seconds, the popcorn popped. He tested it once more with an egg before confirming his findings. Understanding
that the magnetron cooked food quickly, he crafted a metal box around the device, creating the first microwave oven. Potato Chips Many Americans eat potato chips daily, but most don’t realize they’re simply an accidental product of spite. In the 1850s, George Crum was a chef at Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York. On one fateful day, shipping and railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt stopped in for a bite. He quickly complained that his french fries were too thick and soggy. Crum disagreed with Vanderbilt, but he remade the french fries — slicing the potatoes very thin and frying them until they were crispy and golden brown. Vanderbilt loved the new creation. Potato chips became Moon’s Lake House’s specialty until Crum opened his own restaurant. The rest is history!
The proof? Three everyday items that are nothing more than happy accidents!
Play-Doh Before gas and electric heating became commonplace in homes nationwide, many people used coal to stay warm. Unfortunately, this left the walls covered in soot. Kutol Products produced a soft, pliable compound that acted as a wallpaper cleaner to counter this.
Was Singapore’s Gum Ban the Right Move? CHEW ON THIS
Have you ever walked through a parking lot and stepped on gum, causing your foot to stick to the pavement with every step? Or have you felt somebody’s disgusting, chewed gum on the underside of a table at a restaurant? Experiencing one of these situations is enough to make you wish gum were outlawed. While chewing gum will likely always be legal in the States, there is one country where you’d have difficulty finding a single citizen chewing gum. In 1992, Singapore officially banned the sale, importation, and manufacturing of chewing gum. To understand the reasoning behind the chewing gum ban, you need to go back to the mid-1960s. Singapore had just gained its independence and was trying to find a way to establish itself on the world stage. Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s first prime minister, designed a plan to make Singapore a “first-world oasis in a third-world region.” The country quickly became known for its cleanliness, but chewing gum remained a problem. While some argued that chewing gum stuck to the pavement outside a business might mean a new burst of creativity was taking hold, Lee Kuan Yew felt differently. He stated, “Putting chewing gum on our subway train doors so they don’t open, I don’t call that creativity. I call that mischief-making.” He had a good point. The Housing and Development Board reportedly
spent $150,000 in Singapore dollars each year solely to clean up gum litter. Furthermore, there were countless reports of vandals sticking chewing gum on the door sensors of trains, disrupting their services. While citizens were divided over the chewing gum ban, it proved effective. In February 1993, there were only two chewing gum litter cases per day, as opposed to the 525 daily cases before the ban. While the ban remains in effect today, Singapore’s government partially lifted it in 2004 to allow dentists and pharmacists to prescribe and sell therapeutic gum such as nicotine gum. Even so, you shouldn’t expect to see many people walking around Singapore chewing gum and blowing bubbles!
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