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Accidental inventions are all around
us, and today we examine three popular products with interesting and
different backgrounds.
First up are the Post-It Notes®
from 3M. Art Fry was a researcher at 3M in the 1970s who specialized
in developing new products. One of his colleagues had developed a
certain adhesive for use in 3M's glues, but he just couldn't get it
to stick. Four years later, when Fry was trying to come up with a
way to bookmark certain pages in his song hymnal at church, he had a
"eureka" moment and thought that using the adhesive his colleague
had earlier developed just might work. It turned out that it was
strong enough to hold the bookmarks in place, yet weak enough that
it would allow them to be removed when necessary. The rest, as we
all know, is history. This was in 1980 and Post-Its were chosen as
3M's Outstanding New Product a year later. Millions of Post-It notes
have been sold each year since.
Back in 1944, during World War II, the
United States government asked several large companies to try to
make a synthetic rubber for airplane tires, soldiers' boots, etc.
James Wright, an engineer at General Electric, developed a new type
of rubber substance that bounced. After the war GE tried to find a
use for this gooey material but, unfortunately, they couldn't think
of any. Four years later, an entrepreneurial shop owner named Peter
Hodgson came up with an idea for it, bought the rights to it,
packaged it in an egg-shaped container, gave it a fun name and began
selling it by the truckload.
What was this accidental invention?
It was Silly Putty, and it has been a
big hit in the 50 years since its debut.
[to top of
second column in this article]
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Sometimes
it's better to be lucky than good
More than 100 years ago, another
invention with an interesting story behind it popped up in
Cincinnati, Ohio. While Ivory soap wasn't an accidental invention,
the characteristic for which it's known was an accidental discovery.
An employee who was in charge of the
soap-making machine forgot to shut it off one day before he went to
lunch. The additional mixing time caused the soap to become puffed
up with air. Since it didn't affect the soap, they decided to ship
it to their customers. Later, much to their surprise, they began to
receive requests from customers for more of "the floating soap." The
additional air made the soap lighter than air, causing it to float
in water.
These are just a few of the many
accidental inventions or discoveries that have become popular;
others include aspirin, X-rays, Frisbees, Velcro, penicillin,
Coca-Cola and the Slinky, according to the book, "Mistakes That
Worked." One thing that most accidental inventions have in common is
that people did not realize they wanted these inventions until they
actually saw them being used. They weren't created to solve a
specific need, but in the process they filled a need that people
didn't even know they had.
So the next time you see a product and
ask yourself what the inventor must have been thinking, keep in mind
that it might, with a little tweaking, someday become a great
invention.
Next week:
If necessity is the mother
of invention, then celebrate Father's Day with these "fathers of
invention"
[Paul
Niemann]
Paul Niemann is a contributing author to
Inventors' Digest magazine, and he also runs
MarketLaunchers.com, helping people in the marketing of their
new product ideas. He can be reached at
niemann7@aol.com.
Last week's
column in LDN:
"Find
out how golf was invented nearly 500 years ago"
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