ceptimus
03-20-2005, 10:26 PM
Some of you will already know about about the accidental invention of the Post-It note:
A guy named Spencer Silver, working for 3M, was trying to invent a new super strong adhesive. He came up with the stuff we now have on Post-It notes in 1970. It turned out to be much weaker than expected - and weaker than other adhesives that 3M already manufactured - so it was quickly shelved. What possible use could there be for a puny adhesive that refused to even set properly? A few years later, a colleague of Silver named Arthur Fry was trying to keep markers in place in his hymnbook, and hit on the idea of using Silver's dud adhesive to hold them temporarily in place; that way they could later be removed without damaging the book.
3M began selling Post-It notes in 1980 - they wasted ten years before launching one of their most successful products because no one even realised that they had a new product for most of that time! The rest, as they say, is history (not to mention huge profits).I wonder if Freethoughters can think of any other examples of accidental inventions? I think it's nice that some of our best ideas are actually cock-ups in disguise, and often solutions to problems that no one even realised existed in the first place.
A guy named Spencer Silver, working for 3M, was trying to invent a new super strong adhesive. He came up with the stuff we now have on Post-It notes in 1970. It turned out to be much weaker than expected - and weaker than other adhesives that 3M already manufactured - so it was quickly shelved. What possible use could there be for a puny adhesive that refused to even set properly? A few years later, a colleague of Silver named Arthur Fry was trying to keep markers in place in his hymnbook, and hit on the idea of using Silver's dud adhesive to hold them temporarily in place; that way they could later be removed without damaging the book.
3M began selling Post-It notes in 1980 - they wasted ten years before launching one of their most successful products because no one even realised that they had a new product for most of that time! The rest, as they say, is history (not to mention huge profits).I wonder if Freethoughters can think of any other examples of accidental inventions? I think it's nice that some of our best ideas are actually cock-ups in disguise, and often solutions to problems that no one even realised existed in the first place.