Last month's Quest asked to identify what nine of ten items have in common. The answer is that nine were discovered serendipitously, that is, by accident. The one item not discovered by accident was curium, an element purposely sought for to fill out the periodic table, using a particle accelerator. I omitted some more obvious serendipitous discoveries, penicillin, dynamite and rubber vulcanization. There are lots of "senendipity" sources on the net. One good book source is by Alfred Garrett, former Chairman of Chemistry and Vice President of Research at OSU, The Flash of Genius (1963).
A few interesting examples from the list: Nutrasweet (aspartame) sweetness was discovered when a chemist licked a finger to turn a page in 1965 (saccharin and cyclamates were also accidentally discovered); post-it notes, a batch of adhesive that didn't stick well; ice cream cone, a wafer-like pastry coiled to hold ice cream when dishes ran out; Slinky (1943), a spring that was knocked over and "walked" down a set of stairs; safety glass (1903), from a dropped bottle of evaporated cellulose nitrate (the resultant film held the glass together). Alma Litten sent several alternative suggestions, but not as definitive: (1) all are composed of atoms, except radioactivity, and (2) all are found on earth except pulsars.
For the September Quest, consider this list:
- The Wilson Dinosaur
- The 21-foot Magellan Dinosaur
- Southern African Large Dinosaur
- California Extremely Large Dinosaur
- Giant Segmented Dinosaur
- Overwhelmingly Large Dinosaur
- The 21-foot Magellan Dinosaur
An impressive list of monsters, except they are not the names of dinosaurs,
they are ... what?
Send me your answers (see
puzzle page
for contact numbers).
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