Eureka! ... But What Is It?

Why should governments or companies fund open-ended scientific research? Because the history of innovation is filled with accidental discoveries that changed the world. Think about that next time you eat some microwave popcorn

MICROWAVE OVEN
In 1946 Percy Spencer, a Raytheon Corp. self-taught engineer studying radars, tested a vacuum tube called a magnetron, and something unusual happened: a candy bar in his pocket melted. The intrigued scientist placed popcorn kernels near the tube and then an egg, watching in amazement as the kernels popped and the yolk splattered. Spencer realized that exposure to low-density microwave energy could cook food quickly, and he created the first commercial microwave a year later. Smaller models followed, revolutionizing a certain kind of cooking.

ARTIFICIAL HEART
David Saucier, a NASA expert researching rocket-engine fuel pumps in the 1980s, was recovering from heart surgery by renowned surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey when he had an idea: What about using the technology in the pump that powers the space shuttle to create a heart pump for patients? Saucier talked to Baylor College of Medicine physicians, and for almost two decades NASA and DeBakey worked on a mini ventricular device. The size of a pink beveled eraser, it helps adults and children survive for up to two years while awaiting a transplant.

SCOTCHGARD
In 1953 Patsy Sherman, one of the few women chemists at a major corporation, was researching in 3M's labs ways to create a rubber material that aircraft fuel couldn't destroy. Her assistant accidentally knocked over a bottle of synthetic latex onto her new sneakers. Soap, alcohol and solvents couldn't remove the compound, but Sherman also noticed it resisted dirt. So she and a colleague improved its liquid repellency, and three years later 3M sold it on the market as a suede protectant. In 1973 Sherman obtained a patent for it to preserve carpets.

TEFLON
In 1938 Roy Plunkett, a young Du Pont chemist, was trying to find a new kind of refrigerant for manufacturers and filled a tank with a gas related to Freon. When he opened it later, he found he had accidentally created a slippery white powder. General Leslie Groves, heading the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb, heard about the substance from a Du Pont friend when his scientists were looking for a material for gaskets that could resist the bomb's corrosive gas, uranium hexafluoride. Groves had Du Pont make Teflon for the bomb, but it wasn't until 1960 that it coated pans and muffin tins. Today pacemakers and other devices use it, as it's one of the few materials the body doesn't reject.

INTERNET
After the Soviet Union beat the U.S. into space with the launch of Sputnik I, the first satellite, in 1957, the Department of Defense created the Advanced Research Projects Agency to kick-start innovation. It named Joseph Licklider to find ways to protect the U.S. against a space-based nuclear attack, and he believed a communications network was key to those efforts. The first Net went live in October 1969 with the University of California, Los Angeles, talking to the Stanford Research Institute. In 1990 the National Science Foundation expanded the system connecting university networks. It reached the public in 1992.

KRAZY GLUE
Harry Coover accidentally discovered cyanoacrylate, the substance in Krazy Glue, on two different occasions: first when trying to create a see-through plastic for gun sights during World War II and then years later, in 1951, when at Kodak attempting to develop a heat-resistant polymer for jet canopies. Both times the new substance was too sticky for his needs. Kodak marketed it in 1958 as an all-purpose, supersticky glue. In Vietnam, medics used it to save lives, sealing cuts before injured soldiers reached a hospital.