ACCIDENTAL INVENTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18444, 4 January 1922, Page 6

ACCIDENTAL INVENTIONS

Is "necessity the mother of invention . This is one of the' most commonly accepted of our ancient saws. 1 But the inventors themselves do’rtiot < ‘all endorse it. "No such thing!” Louis Brennan, torpedo inventor, is-said to have, declared. "Accident is * the mother of invention in 99 cases out of 100.” The exact percentage would, perhaps, be difficult to reach with scientific precision, thinks Herbert W.' Htfrwill, writing on “The Parentage of Invention” in Discovery (London). Many instances might be quoted, he asserts, _to challenge the above dictum. Soviet Russia has been supplying some of them. Arthur Eansome has told of the manufacture of matches with waste paper as a substitute for wood, with wool grease as a substitute for paraffin. The brothers Chilikin have devised three; distinct processes for combining flax and cotton in such a way that the mixture can be worked in machines intended for cotton only. Mr Horwill continues: "Mr Brennan’s, generalisation,- no doubt, was largely inspired by his own experience in the matter of the torpedo. He did not start by saying, ‘ Go to! / Let ns find out how to make a torpedo that will beat anything of the kind *)Ow on the market!’ Through his observation, in an engineering workshop, of the behaviour of a frayed s driving belt that was working a planing machine, he stumbled upon the mechanical paradox that it was possible to make a machine travel forward by pulling it backward. Having discovered the principle, he cast about for some object in connection with which it could be practically utilised, ai.d it was not until he had thought of almost everything else i that the idea of a torpedo entered his head. Once the idea did enter his head, the thing was as good as done.

“The history of the Brennan torpedo might be ' paralleled in the career of numerous inventors. First there was the, observation of something that was either unusual or commonly overlooked, and I then the illuminating 1 flash that revealed how it might be turned to practical account. Often the accident itself is in the nature of a blunder or a misfortune. Careless workmen in a paper mill omit to add any size to the ' pulp, and the result is a parcel of paper that is thrown aside as waste. Someone, happening to use a scrap of this ‘waste’ to, write a note, discovers its absorbent character, and straightway blotting-paper is invented. The feeder of a lithographic machine fails to place a sheet of paper in position at the right moment, and consequently it does not pass through the/machine. But the work on the printing surface leaves its full impression upon the. covering of the printing cylinder, and when the next sheet passes through it receives the direct impression from , the printing surface, while an indirect or set-off print is made from the back upon the paper. 1 Mr Ira W., Rubel happens to be standing bvy and tho < accident starts him on experiments which lead to the invention of the, off-set method of printing. . , f * ■ “The burning of . a starch factory on the banks of the Liffev reveals the adhesive qualities of scorched starch, mixed with water, and introduces to the world a new and cheap gum;,. A glass-cutter at Nuremberg accidentally lets some aquafortis drop on his spectacles, and etching on glass soon _ follows. While researches are being carried out in a German laboratory a thermometer breaks, and the mercury runs out.into a heated mixture of naphthalene. The oxidation completed by the catalytic action yif the culfate Of mer■cury resulting, shows a method of overcoming the 'one Hindrance in the-way of making the manufacture of synthetic indigo a commercial success. A laboratory attendant supplies antifebrin in place of naphthalene, and his blunder leads to the discovery of the antipyretic properties of the former substance.

“The history is full of oversights. Daguerre is careless enough to lay down a silver spoon upon a plate that he has treated with iodine. Ho notices that the image of the spoon is retained, and thus, learns that a plate so treated sensitive, to light. Through putting aside one of his silver plates in a cupboard overnight, he discovers the effect of vapour of mercury on a sensitive plate. Mr Fox Talbot accidentally lets one of his exposed papers come in contact with a solution of nutealls, and thus ascertains the virtue of gallic acid. That uranium gives off invisible rays is discovered be Becquerel through putting some of it bv in a drawer with a photographic plate, and finding an image formed upon the plate though it has not been exposed to sunlight. “This brief selection of items from the history of photography is a reminder that not all mentally stimulating accidents are associated with breakages or blunders. The part that 1 accident plays in ■ the process is the casual bringing together of circumstances in which the alert and observant mind discerns possibilities hitherto unrecognised. The point is that the opportunity of observation comes by accident. It was not from any set purpose of forwarding his own scientific experiments that Montgolfier one day undertook the responsibility of airing his wife’s gowns, when she was called to leave the -hones. He observed, while engaged , on this task, that the gowns became inflated and tended to rise when filled with heated air; and Madame Montgolfier, on .her return, found her husband sending lip little paper balloons and thus originating the invention which made him famous.”

In such instances, wo are reminded, the essential, if there is to be any result of value, is that the observer shall have what ,Professor Bain described as “‘the intellectual power of similarity” between processes that seem to have no connection whatever. To quote further; 1 ■ “Some years ago an Ohio business man had a shop in a * good situation, and many customers, but somehow it was not profitable. There was evidently something lacking in his methods, and he worried so much on the subject that he found it desirable to take a holiday. -While on his way to Europe he was standing one day in the ship’s engineroom, when his attention was attracted by the automatic indicator of the propeller shaft’s revolutions. The question suddenly occurred to him": ‘ Why not devised a machine for recording salee in a shop V Hence the invention of the cash-register. At the hearing of a Dunlop appeal case in the House of Lords in December, 1920, it was mentioned that the idea of teh pneumatic tyre aws suggested by the'tying of a piece of waterpiping around the wheel of a wheelbarrow. The use of a stiff collar is due to the mental alertness of a blacksmith’s wife in Troy, New York, who, somewhere about the year 1825. was washing her husband’s shirts, which, according to tho unvarying custom of those days, had the collars attached to them. It occurred to her that a shirt lasted clean longer than the collar. She started making coital's separate from shirts and selling them to her neighbours. The idea caugnt on, and before 1840 several collar-making com [Janies were doing a good business. When one is talking about callars, one. recalls another device which ,is due to the forethought of a British officer’s wife for the safety of her husband. As Sir George Lusk was about to start on one of his Indian campaigns Lady* Lusk sewed some strips of ohain under the cloth between the collar and the shoulder of his %unic as & protection against chance sabre cuts. This answered so well that drain shoulder-straps were afterwards officially adopted for all ranks in the British army, j It was quite another type of accident that put George Westinghouse on the track of his chief invention. While on , a railway journey in America he was aroused to compassion by the quiet persistence of a tired-looking young woman who was trying to sell magazines to the passengers. Out of sheer pity he bought one of her wares. His charity was amply rewarded. In the magazine he happened to buy was an article describing a compressed-air borer in the Mont Oenis tunnel, which gave him the duo for his pneumatic brake. “At least one valuable invention was the offspring of sheer laziness. In 1846 « railway pointsman, who bad to attend

to \two station signals some distance apart; decided to save himself the trouble of walking to and fro between them by] fastening the two levers together with si long piece of wire. A broken iron chair served as counter weight. The wire ran on into his hnt, where he sat nightly by his fireside and worked the two signals without setting his foot outside. Presently the railway authorities found it out, reprimanded the , lazy pointsman for bin indolence, promoted and rewarded him for his ingenuity, and adopted his invention.**