College Football: Babes in Wonderland

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Necessity may be the mother of invention, but accident is the midwife. Take penicillin. Nobody could, if Alexander Fleming's staphylococcus culture hadn't spoiled. Crepes suzette would be only soggy pancakes if Chef Henri Charpentier's sauce had not caught fire. The X ray, vulcanized rubber, LSD—even America, for that matter—were all discovered by accident, and people might still be wondering why their feet are attached to the ground if an apple had not conked Isaac Newton on the head.

It was in that same grand tradition of scientific serendipity that a...