Four Brilliant Inventions Created Accidentally

Scotchgard

This stain resistant compound was invented when chemist Patsy Sherman accidentally dropped a splatter on her shoe. Over the next little while she noticed that while the rest of her shoe became dark and grimy with outdoor use, that one patch remained bright and clean. She retraced her steps, and discovered what we now call Scotchgard.

Corn Flakes

Kellogg's Corn Flakes were discovered when the Kellogg brothers John and Will accidentally left a pot of boiled grain on the stove for several days. The mixture went moldy, but the dough that resulted was dry and thick. The two tried rolling it out, and found that chunks of it formed themselves into flakes. After a bit more perfecting, they eliminated the mold part, and patented Corn Flakes.

Slinky

A nautical engineer named Richard James discovered the slinky toy by accident while trying to invent a device to keep ship's navigation instruments from bouncing around too much to be read while the ship was in motion. He was working with springs to create a shock system when a particularly large one fell off a shelf. James was surprised to see it slowly and gracefully “slink” from the shelf to a pile of books on the table, and slowly down from there. He marketed the giant spring as a toy, the Slinky, whose popularity took off in 1945.

Microwave Oven

The modern microwave oven was discovered with the aid of a chocolate bar and some popcorn in 1946 by British engineer Percy Spencer. Spencer's work was making radar sets for the British military, using a magnetron, a device which produces short radio waves. One afternoon he discovered a chocolate bar in his pocket had melted to goo for no apparent reason.

His gaze fell on the magnetron and be began experimenting with other food stuffs. A bag of corn immediately exploded into popcorn, and the next day the eggs he brought to work splattered into a baked scrambled mess when he directed the magnetron at them. After much more development and several more years, microwave ovens began appearing in homes for quick cooking and re-heating.