Big Mistake or Big Discovery
what
drives success well believe it or not
success is often driven by mistakes
sometimes the consequences are small and
go unnoticed
while other times they are monumental
and can
even change the world yes you heard me
right
they can even change the world for
instance
alexander fleming mistakenly soiled his
bacteria sample with mold
a careless mistake but the result
penicillin which has saved millions of
lives then there’s jon hyatt’s famous
bill of collodion
that dried to form what we know today is
plastic
to really see these mistakes more
clearly let’s look at french chemist
eduard benedictus
mr benedictus was born in 1867 and
passed away in 1930
his profession was not only being a
chemist but also a painter
his career commenced in the nouveau arts
period and he is well
known for his art deco images
one day in 1903 while pursuing one of
his many projects
an accident occurred involving a glass
flask
being knocked onto the floor of his
laboratory
big mistake or big discovery
well it’s the latter you see
inside the flask he had put cellulose
nitrate
a type of liquid plastic this solution
had evaporated into an invisible film
so when the flask fell the glass
shattered
but the pieces hung together in the
shape of the flask
due to the evaporated film
why is this glass shatterproof you may
ask well
this is due to the fact that it is
assembled of two or more sheets of glass
bound together by plastic polymer when
this type of glass is broken
instead of shattering it is designed to
stay put
this prevents people from being harmed
by the threatening edges
many of us in this room including myself
probably didn’t even know
that the windshields of all our cars are
constructed of safety glass
keeping us safe whilst driving today
we refer to benedictus’s mistake as
safety glass otherwise referred to as
shatterproof glass
this revolutionary discovery had a huge
impact on the world
for instance in world war 1 it was used
in gas mask lenses
today safety glass is used in all kinds
of windows
glass tables as well as glass doors
you’ll also find it in refrigerator
trays bulletproof glass
and diving masks to name just a few of
its uses
countless lives have been saved by
safety glass such as the unfortunate
chelsea bombings
in 2016 in manhattan where the lower
windows of buildings
were fitted with safety glass this
prevented glass from blasting out of the
windows
into the people on the streets
so benedictus’s clumsy mistake paid off
not only for him
but for the entire world as most of the
glass we see through today
is made of his safety glass
even though many disregard the
significance of safety glass
let’s recognize its many benefits as
listed above
and how it is key to our everyday lives
just like penicillin and plastic
and that my friends concludes just a few
examples of great
big revolutionary mistakes