Is it Better to Be Lucky Than Good?

Let’s start with the tomb of King Tut. In 1922 Howard Carter, a famous archaeologist was digging in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt off and on since 1891 without success in finding that particular tomb. I think one would have to say looking for something for 31 years really shows how determined Carter was. In his case it was be careful what you wish for because when it was found Carter and others died a short time after. It looks so far that finding Tut’s tomb was not an accident, but nothing could be further from the truth. A boy stepped down and the ground gave way and a hole formed. The boy ran to Carter to tell him and Carter started digging there and found the tomb.

The story of penicillin is interesting. Penicillin has probably saved millions of lives so how was it discovered? Alexander Fleming was a Scottish physician and microbiologist. He was very interested in finding out why antiseptics were not curing infections. He made this his primary work. Working hard he felt he deserved a break and when on a vacation. Sometimes a break can help in one’s work more than anything else because when you get back you sometimes have a fresh perspective. For some reason Fleming decided to remove the lids off some old petri dishes. Perhaps he wanted to reuse them, but whatever the reason, he noticed there was mold in some of the dishes and it had killed the bacteria which caused infections like septicaemia. If he hadn’t decided to remove those lids, we may not have ever had our first antibiotic which was the penicillin.

Sometimes what is discovered is not as earth shattering as penicillin or King Tut’s tomb. Such was the case for Silly Putty. James Wright was working for General Electric during World War II. The company was under contract to develop synthetic rubber which the United States forces were in desperate need of. Its first name was Nutty Putty and was not a synthetic rubber, but Wright felt it was interesting. People began to play with it in 1943 and seeing the attention it was getting, Ruth Fallgatter who owned a toy store put it into the toy store’s catalog under “bouncing putty.” A marketing consultant bought the rights and renamed it “Silly Putty”, and the rest is history.

Speaking of toys, another toy which was discovered in World War II was what we call today Slinky. An engineer was working diligently trying to repair a stabilizer on a piece of naval equipment. As he moved around the engineer named Richard T. James banged into a shelf and knocked a spring off of it. As he watch the spring, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The spring was uncoiling and walking down the shelf. This induced him to work on springs until he got them to act the way he wanted. He sold 400 Slinkies to a toy store and when they demonstrated it, they all sold out in 90 minutes. The accident led to James becoming a very rich man.

Almost all of us in the United States have a microwave oven. It has become one of our most handy appliances, but if it wasn’t for an accident, it wouldn’t exist. There is an old saying, it is better to be lucky than good. Percy Spencer is said to have invented the modern microwave oven. Spencer was employed by Raytheon and was busy working on a radar set when he noticed a chocolate bar in his pocket melted from the microwaves from the radar. On October 8, 1945 a patent was filed and a microwave oven placed in a Boston restaurant for a test. In 1947 microwave ovens became available to the public but took a while to catch on.

A home in Tribeca, in New York City had a secret no one knew about at the time. The owners decided to take down one of the walls, I guess they like the open floor plan some homes have today. To their surprise there was a mural on a wall. They called in an expert who told them it was painted by Keith Haring, a famous painter. The value was listed at almost 14 million dollars. Some say today it is worth closer to 20 million dollars. Can you imagine renovating an old house or apartment and finding something like this?

One of the inventions which was discovered by accident was an artificial sweetener which I am totally against. Be that as it may, a chemist named Constantin Fahlberg was studying the properties of oxidized coal tar and was employed by Johns Hopkins University. He decided he was hungry and made a meal or purchased one, I am not sure, but this is not the point. As he ate, he was picking up food with his fingers and noticed the food tasted sweeter. He discovered the chemical he had worked with produced the effect. The chemical was Ortho-sulfobenzoic Acid Imide and the scientist went into business with the product and named it Saccharin.

We usually don’t think of different recipes being inventions but I would like to list one which is so universal today I think it deserves the honor of being an accidental invention. One day Ruth Graves Wakefield was making chocolate cookies. She was the owner of the Tall House Inn. When she went to get the bakers chocolate, she realized she had none. What was she to do, she had company coming? She looked around to see what was available and found she had Nestle semi-sweet chocolate and chopped it up and put it into the batter. She figured it would melt. Instead, the first chocolate chip cookies were born. The chocolate chip cookie was invented sometime in the 1930s.

As you can see, if it wasn’t for luck there are a lot of things we wouldn’t, and a lot we would not have discovered. Yes, I believe there is truth to the  saying it is better to be lucky than good, but I also believe in perseverance.