TURNING ACCIDENTS into PROFIT THROUGH CAREFUL OBSERVATION ALFRED M. EWING Texas Wesleyan College, Fort Worth, Texas
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HE June, 1933, number of THIS JOURNAL, page 379, carried a suggestion by the writer enlisting the help of teachers, students, and others to compile a list of: (1) discoveries or inventions made by accident; (2) examples to show the slowness of scientific progress; (3) incidents in which science has been too skeptical; and (4) discoveries that were made simultaneously and independently. One might add a fifth topic: a list of substances that once were nuisances but now are valuable; for example, coal tar, gasoline, sawdust, chloramine T, bagasse, etc.; and a sixth topic, a list of substances for which a use should be found. In connection with the fifth topic, it would be of interest and value to state the s~ecialturn of the chemical world or the turn of world affairs in general which caused the waste product to become of real worth. The examples submitted to date with references and name and address of observer are offered for publication. The writer is anxious that more examples be sent in, because such lists, when more complete, could hardly fail to impress upon the student (I) the value of careful observations in experimental work and (2) the fact that scientific discoveries are "in the air" waiting for someone to pick them out. Teachers looking for additional work for students who are ahead of their classes might use any one of the above ideas to good advantage. ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERIES
1. Laminated safety .glass was accidentally discovered when Edouard Benedictus observed that a flask which had dropped from the top of a shelf to the floor, although badly cracked, still retained its original shape (1). Mr. J. Wilson of the British Triplexsafety Glass Co., Ltd., King's Norton, Birmingham, Ensand, gives, in the Transactions of the Society of Glass Technolom, -.. vol. 16, pp. 67-79,1932, a summary from the original paper.
