3 ms·
> Why does it always have to be an accident? Because that's a surprisingly common way for things to be discovered. Saccharine? Somebody working in a lab didn'
by jyounker 2y ago
> Why does it always have to be an accident?
Because that's a surprisingly common way for things to be discovered.
Saccharine? Somebody working in a lab didn't clean their hands well, licked their fingers, and discovered it was sweet.
Aspartame? Somebody working in a lab didn't clean their hands well, licked their fingers, and discovered it was sweet.
I think this is true of basically every major artificial sweetener except invert sugar.
- rob74 2y agoSame as the famous discovery of Penicillin in a petri dish contaminated with a mold that killed off the bacteria? ...but now I'm starting to wonder how many people working in a lab didn't clean their hands well, licked their fingers, and died, because they had accidentally discovered a toxin?
- Eisenstein 2y agoExcept it happened to be in a petri dish and it happened to be observed at the time by a scientist. Total accident!
- bregma 2y agoSerendipity favours the prepared mind. That's all.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoDying is still a valuable scientific outcome, but few people become famous for it except maybe Marie Curie.