Be optimistic. Better days are ahead-more advancements will emerge whether consciously and unconsciously.
Be optimistic.
By: N. George
Worth Noting:
- A Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg in 1878 discovered saccharin, which was the first artificial sweetener by tasting some of the chemicals that he was working with only to realize that they formed a sweet substance called saccharin. This was done through the reaction of o-sulfobenzoic acid with phosphorus (V) chloride and ammonia to create a saccharin or benzoic sulfinide.
- In 1953, customer complains claiming that the french-fried potatoes were both thick and mushy at the Moon Lake Lodge Resort in Saratoga Lake, New York made George Crum, a chef in that restaurant to find a different way of frying potatoes to satisfy the customer needs.
In the next six months, will there be a permanent cure for covid-19? If yes, there is a reason to smile, if no how will the world be? What will happen to the world when fossil fuels will be exhausted bearing in mind that most of the industries and locomotives are run on petroleum products. What will happen to my under five year’s son and daughter in the next thirty years? Will the competence-based curriculum in Kenya succeed? If yes well and good, if no when will its revision be done whether due to inefficiencies or changes in environment that will necessitate changes? What is the average success rate per hundred couples for the marriages that started in year 2020?
All the questions above are valid, they relate to future but their answers are not certain, they are conditional.
There have been a lot of inventions and innovations since the creation day of this world. All these developments have made life easier. They cannot be attributed to just one person but different people have come up with them. The pattern of these inventions and innovations is not regular so we cannot talk with certainty about the time interval that it takes one to discover or innovate something. Currently as we communicate, we cannot predict with specificity what is the next innovation will be or when it will be innovated, all we know is that we keep innovating. Life keeps changing for better due to these advancements. Below is a list of some of the inventions that happened accidentally.
Penicillin an antibiotic discovered in 1928 by Dr. Alexander Fleming when he left out the cultures of Staphylococcus aureus in his laboratory for a fortnight only to return and realize that they did not experience growth only to learn that it a mold known as penicillium notatum had inhibited it.
In 1930 an American chef, Ruth Jones Graves Wakefield who was a co-owner of the Toll House Inn discovered chocolate chip cookies as she was preparing chocolate cookies for her guests but ran out of baker’s chocolate. Thereafter she decided to chop up a block of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate that she thought would melt and spread evenly throughout the batter and the resultant food product was Toll House chocolate crunch cookies. The chocolate did not melt or got absorbed but the guests liked it.
A Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg in 1878 discovered saccharin, which was the first artificial sweetener by tasting some of the chemicals that he was working with only to realize that they formed a sweet substance called saccharin. This was done through the reaction of o-sulfobenzoic acid with phosphorus (V) chloride and ammonia to create a saccharin or benzoic sulfinide.
In 1953, customer complains claiming that the french-fried potatoes were both thick and mushy at the Moon Lake Lodge Resort in Saratoga Lake, New York made George Crum, a chef in that restaurant to find a different way of frying potatoes to satisfy the customer needs. He thinly sliced and fried some potatoes until their colour turned brown then served them to his customers and they appreciated his art. In this process, he invented potato crisps.
In 1905 at San Francisco, Northern California, USA an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson mixed some soda powder with water and left it overnight. The night was cold and this made the mixture to freeze. On waking up the following morning, he decided to lick it only to realize that it was highly delicious. Ice pop was discovered.
In 1826, John Walker a chemist accidentally scrapped a stick coated in chemicals across his hearth and it caught fire which he referred to as Walker’s friction lights later to be renamed as matches and replaced cardboard with wooden splints and sandpaper.
Sildenafil was developed to dilate the heart’s blood vessels by blocking a protein by the name PDE-5 thereby treating cardiovascular illnesses. When testing it in animals the results were good, then it was tested on humans and it was found to cause erections on all men who underwent the test. The US Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra for use in 1998.
In an attempt to make the transportation of wine easier in the 16th century, a Dutch shipmaster decided to concentrate the alcohol through heating it only to add water upon reaching the transport destination. When he took a sip of the dehydrated wine, he discovered that it tasted better compared to the hydrated one, this observation made him forego addition of water. He gave his new alcohol a Dutch name brandewijn meaning burnt wine.
Quinine an anti-malaria drug was derived from cinchona tree bark, which was originally used by natives of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador called Quechua people as a muscle relaxant. The bark is bitter so they mixed it with sweetened water to dilute the bitterness. A person suffering from malaria accidentally consumed cinchona bark and he was healed thereby discovering that cinchona heals malaria.
A maid to Jean Baptiste Jolly unintentionally knocked a kerosene lamp, it fell on a tablecloth, upon looking at the tablecloth Jean noticed that the kerosene, which fell on it, cleansed it and the idea of dry cleaning clicked in his mind. In 1945, he opened the first dry cleaner in Paris.
In 1839, Charles Goodyear as he was trying to create a weather proof rubber accidentally dropped some regular rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove and observed that it maintained its structure. The newly found product of vulcanized rubber is used to make durable items like car tires.
Robert Augustus Chesebrough a 22-year-old chemist appreciated the wide range of products that were derived from petroleum products and this led to his decision to visit Titusville town and play around with petroleum. Upon his visit, he saw men who were drilling the petroleum using it to soothe their skins in case they got burns or wounds. The byproducts would cure the burns and sores completely. It was there that he got the idea of Vaseline jelly.
In 1886, a pharmacist named Dr. John Stith Pemberton was doing trials to create an alcoholic drink filled with cocaine and caffeine to remove morphine and other drugs from people suffering chemical addiction. The local authority introduced a law that banned the alcohol in the year 1886 this forced him to remove alcohol from his products and the resultant mixture become a soft drink known as Coca-Cola. It contained cocaine and kola nuts.
Pemberton was a confederate army for almost the entire civil war. In a battle involving a sword fight on horseback, he was shot and slashed by a saber. To reduce pain resulting from injury he used morphine. Fully aware that morphine was both addictive and dangerous not forgetting that cocaine could cure opium habits, he sought for medicine without opium but containing cocaine, this made him to come up with his own concoction a mixture of coca leaves and kola nuts.
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