91 Inventions That Almost Didn’t Happen

Clever, useful inventions come about because enterprising people look for real needs in society and then develop products that will meet those needs—right? Surprisingly, this is not always true. Some of the most basic, taken-for-granted products in our society exist by accident or because someone made a mistake on the way to developing something else.

For example, in 1970 a man named Spencer Silver, an employee at 3M laboratories, was trying to create a strong new adhesive but came up with a very weak one instead. Four years later one of his colleagues remembered Silver’s glue because the paper page markers he inserted into his hymnbook in church one Sunday morning kept falling out. Paper coated with a weak adhesive that stuck to things and yet could easily be removed clearly was a product with great potential. And so the Post-it note was born.

Another fastening agent, usually known by the brand-name Velcro, was developed because its inventor, George de Mestral, noticed that some burrs had accidentally caught on his jacket and were holding it together. De Mestral, an engineer, studied the structure of the burr and, after years of experimenting, came up with his own burr-like fastener.

As a final example, rubber had been around for centuries but had limited use: it melted in high heat and turned brittle in intense cold. Searching for ways to harden it, researcher Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped a rubber-sulfur mixture onto a hot stove, thereby discovering “vulcanization,” the process of making rubber firm and flexible.

91 险些夭折的发明

聪明实用的发明之所以出现，是因为有进取心的人会寻找社会的真实需求，然后开发出满足这些需求的产品——对吧？但令人惊讶的是，情况并非总是如此。我们社会中一些最基础、被视为理所当然的产品，是偶然出现的，或是因为有人在研发其他东西的过程中犯了错误而产生的。

比如，1970年，3M实验室的员工斯宾塞·西尔弗试图研发一种强力新粘合剂，结果却做出了一种粘性很弱的产品。四年后，他的一位同事想起了西尔弗的胶水，因为某个周日早上他在教堂把纸质书签夹进赞美诗集后，书签总是掉出来。涂有弱粘性粘合剂、能粘住东西又能轻松取下的纸张，显然是一种极具潜力的产品。便利贴就这样诞生了。

另一种固定用品（通常以“维可牢”这个品牌名为人所知）的研发，是因为其发明者乔治·德梅斯特拉尔注意到一些刺果意外粘在了他的夹克上，把布料粘在了一起。作为工程师的德梅斯特拉尔研究了刺果的结构，经过多年实验，做出了自己的刺果状固定件。

最后一个例子是橡胶：橡胶已经存在了几个世纪，但用途有限——它在高温下会融化，在严寒中会变脆。为了找到硬化橡胶的方法，研究者查尔斯·古德伊尔不小心把橡胶与硫磺的混合物掉在了热炉子上，由此发现了“硫化”工艺，也就是让橡胶变得坚固且柔韧的方法。