Inventions that changed the world
The Popsicle
 In 1905, 11-year old Frank Epperson tried making soda pop, then a
popular drink, by mixing soda water powder and water. Accidentally, he
left the soda out on his porch all night. Temperatures dropped so low
that the next day, young Epperson found his soda pop had frozen with the
stirring stick in it! He didn't know it then, but he had accidentally
concocted the very first Popsicle! It wasn't until 18 years later, in
1923, that Epperson remembered his invention, applied for a patent and
started selling "Eppsicle" ice pops in different fruit flavours. Later
on, his kids started referring to it as the "Popsicle" and ever since,
it's been hard to resist the refreshing allure of this tangy summer
treat!
Modern fingerprinting
 Although the science of fingerprinting began with the work of Francis
Galton in the nineteenth century, detectives still had trouble locating
the tell-tale marks.
Then, in 1982, some researchers at the US Army Criminal Investigation
Laboratory in Japan cracked a fish tank. When they patched it together
with superglue (cyanoacrylate), they noticed the fingerprints on the
glass standing out in proud relief. The fumes from the glue had
condensed on oils in the prints, rendering them highly visible.
Cyanoacrylate is now an important weapon in the forensic scientist's
armoury.
Superglue
 Superglue came into being in 1942 when Dr Harry Coover was trying to
isolate a clear plastic to make precision gun sights for handheld
weaponry. For a while he was working with chemicals known as
cyanoacrylates, which they soon realized polymerized on contact with
moisture, causing all the test materials to bond together.
It was obvious that these wouldn't work, so research moved on. Six
years later, Coover was working in a Tennessee chemical plant and
realized the potential of the substance when they were testing the heat
resistance of cyanoacrylates, recognizing that the adhesives required
neither heat nor pressure to form a strong bond.
Thus, after a certain amount of commercial refinement, Superglue (or
"Alcohol-Catalyzed Cyanoacrylate Adhesive Composition", to give it its
full name) was born. It was later used for treating injured soldiers in
Vietnam - the adhesive could be sprayed on open wounds, stemming
bleeding and allowing easier transportation of soldiers; adding a
delicious layer of irony to the story in that a discovery made during an
effort to improve the killing potential of guns ended up saving
countless lives.
Ice cream cones
 This story is a perfect example of serendipity, and a single chance
encounter leading to worldwide repercussions. It’s also rather sweet.
Before 1904, ice cream was served on dishes.
It wasn’t until the World’s Fair of that year, held in St Louis,
Missouri, that two seemingly unrelated foodstuffs became inexorably
linked together. At this particularly sweltering 1904 World’s Fair, a
stall selling ice cream was doing such good business that they were
quickly running out of dishes.
The neighbouring stall wasn’t doing so well, selling Zalabia – a kind
of wafer thin waffle from Persia – and the stall owner came up with the
idea of rolling them into cone shapes and popping the ice cream on top.
Thus the ice cream cone was born – and it doesn’t look like dying out
any time soon. |
