Lucky Accidents!

[Visalakshi Ramani]

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#18. DYNAMITE

Alfred Nobel accidentally discovered dynamite in 1833.

Nitroglycerin was becoming a widely produced explosive at that time - but it had some serious problems.

It was highly unstable and regularly blew up people, buildings, and everything else around - which were not even on the hit list!

The persistent problem was to find a way to stabilize the unstable explosive to make it safer to store and to handle.

One fine day, Alfred Nobel accidentally dropped down a vial of the highly explosive nitroglycerin - while working with it!

Surprisingly there was no explosion, and Nobel lived on unscathed by the accident.
What must have been a nasty, fatal, unlucky accident became a lucky and accidental discovery .

The nitroglycerin vial had landed on sawdust - which promptly soaked it up.

Alfred Nobel was later able to explode the sawdust as and when he wanted to. He concluded that mixing the unstable and explosive nitroglycerin with an inert substance like saw dust stabilized it - making the storage and handling of the substance very safe.

Thus the Dynamite was born!

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

That is NOT the end of the story!

Alfred Nobel resented being remembered as the inventor of the Deadly Dynamites

which can be used for both the constructive and well as destructive jobs.

He wanted to be remembered always in a pleasant and friendly way.

That is what made him think of giving away prizes in his name

to the people who excel in various fields of human endeavor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

#19. Safety Glass

In 1903 Edouard Benedictus, a French scientist, accidentally dropped a glass flask that had been filled with a solution of cellulose nitrate - a sort of liquid plastic.

The flask broke and the liquid evaporated. But it didn't shatter in to a hundred pieces.

The pieces of glass were broken, but they stayed in place and maintained the shape of the container. Upon investigation Benedictus realized that somehow, the plastic coating had helped the glass stay together.

This was the concept which lead to the development of a product which is now frequently used in car windshields, safety goggles, windows, vessels, bullet proof protection and much more.

Another name for Safety Glass is Laminated Glass.

 

[GANESH65]

Excellent informative posts. Please keep it up.

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

Excellent informative posts. Please keep it up.

Dear Mr. Ganesh,
Thank you for your feedback. ray2:
I was thinking of winding up this thread yesterday.
Luckily I stumbled up on some more Lucky discoveries.
So this thread will continue for some more months!
Just to make this thread last longer,
I am posting in this only once in 2 or 3 months
unlike the other threads where I post everyday!

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/showthread.php?t=5823

http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/showthread.php?t=5057

These two threads which belong to the same section

are treasure house of useful information.

 

[GANESH65]

Dear Mr. Ganesh,
Thank you for your feedback. ray2:
I was thinking of winding up this thread yesterday.
Luckily I stumbled up on some more Lucky discoveries.
So this thread will continue for some more months!
Just to make this thread last longer,
I am posting in this only once in 2 or 3 months
unlike the other threads where I post everyday!

Thanks a lot for changing your mind, Madam. Although I am a regular customer here, I am very lazy in reading lengthy threads. Some how I found these posts interesting and read it completely and now has decided to go through them in detail. Thank you for the enlightenment..

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

Thanks a lot for changing your mind, Madam. Although I am a regular customer here, I am very lazy in reading lengthy threads. Some how I found these posts interesting and read it completely and now has decided to go through them in detail. Thank you for the enlightenment..

Dear Sir,
I too am not very fond of very lengthy posts- more so when they convey very little info.
I believe that the posts must be written in such a way that even if one word is removed the essence of the post should get lost.
I LOVE words and they too have been very good to me!

 

[rgurus]

Respected Madam,
you have been writing about accidents. in this connection, i would like to say just one thing. every human being is an accident, some lucky, some unlucky; This is the greatest of all accidents which occur most frequently unlike the other accidents which occur occasionally!

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

Respected Madam,
you have been writing about accidents. in this connection, i would like to say just one thing. every human being is an accident, some lucky, some unlucky; This is the greatest of all accidents which occur most frequently unlike the other accidents which occur occasionally!

Respected Mr. Guru,
I beg to differ. All births are NOT accidents.
All births are merely incidents.
The unexpected ones may fall under the category of accidents -
like one of my acquaintances delivering a baby girl
when her first daughter was already a graduate.
Whether it was lucky or unlucky to the child and the parents is debatable!

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

Accidents are those which happen unexpectedly.
Surely no one will want to be part of an accident - whether lucky or unlucky!
Swami Dayananda Saraswati of Arsha Vidhya Gurukula used to define accidents in this way.
An accident takes place when A and B happen to be at the same point P at the same time T.
He would have been a wonderful Physics professor - if he had not become a swamiji first!!

 

[Visalakshi Ramani]

Lucky accidents are few and far between unlike the unlucky accidents.

Here is a list of lucky discoveries in the form of unusual treasures.

Bless those lucky devils who found them almost effortlessly

and often not knowing/ realising their real worth in money!


http://www.msn.com/en-in/money/tops...ent/ss-AAiamOj?li=AAgfW3S&ocid=wispr#image=19