EYPEKA!!.................by Vic Davey

A cold wind off the Ionian Sea had been blowing all day, sweeping through the Port of Syracuse as fishermen huddled in their boats, repairing nets and preparing for tomorrow`s early start.

Archie was looking forward to his hot evening bath, his head still full of the problem set him by the King. As he lowered his nether regions into the water, he found it. No, not the soap, the answer to the puzzle he had been wracking his brains over for days. Scrambling out of his bath, legend has it he proceeded to run down the street naked, screaming “Eureka!”  whilst waving  his loofah in excitement, much to the consternation of old ladies and young children!  

Archie, of course is Archimedes whose discovery led to his Principle concerning the amount of water displaced when an object is placed in it, in this case, his body. And it got him out of hot water with the King…..

This got me wondering how many other well known things were discovered or invented by accident. I thought I remembered something from my schooldays about the discovery of Penicillin. A Scottish biologist, Alexander Fleming, decided to take a holiday for the whole of August in 1928. He left behind some cultures in his lab and when he returned on the 3rd September, he found a strange fungus on them which wasn't there before. However, more importantly, it had killed off all the surrounding bacteria. I am pleased to say, modern medicine was never the same afterwards. 

Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, was an outdoor type of guy, he loved walking and hiking through woods and forests. On one particular day in 1941, he noticed his dog´s fur was covered in burr´s which were also clinging to his hiking trousers. On further examination, he found these burrs would attach to  any material which was loop-shaped. After a number of experiments, he was able to artificially re-create the loops and thus ” VELCRO” was born, the name being a combination of “velvet” and “crochet”.  Although the fashion industry appeared pretty disinterested at the time, in 1960, NASA became a client and Velcro was used in flight suits and also to secure items in weightless environments. 

I have often wondered about Teflon, the anti-stick coating for saucepans and cooking implements. If it is as good as they say, how do they manage to get it to stick to anything in the first place?? Again, it was discovered by accident by an engineer working for Dupont Chemicals in the US in 1938. He was working on a new refrigerant gas for refrigerators when he found that the inside of a pressure bottle he was using had become coated in a white, waxy material which was very slippery and resistant to high heat. 

The brand name Teflon was registered in 1945 and became used in the Motor Industry and to coat valves and seals in pipes holding very reactive uranium in Power Plants. Pots and pans became coated in the early fifties and Teflon now has a multitude of uses. However, it is not without its critics, particularly those who believe it contains carcinogenic chemicals. So much so that a number of manufacturers are phasing out its use in products.

Anyone like myself who has suffered from Angina Pectoris will know how painful this condition can be. It is caused by spasms in the heart´s coronary arteries and led to me needing the insertion of a stent. However, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer (sound familiar?) developed a pill to help constrict the arteries and relieve pain.

 Unfortunately it failed in its purpose but it had a startling side effect. The drug became known as Viagra! “From tiny acorns mighty oaks may grow” is very true in this case since in the first quarter of 2013, Pfizer sold $288 million dollars-worth of the pill. Some accident and some side effect!

Back in the day when I was gainfully employed, my Computer monitor, office walls and white boards were covered in bits of paper, yellow sticky ones, some of them strung together like fly paper. They were invaluable reminders. They were, of course, ¨Post-It” notes, another product which came about by accident. Back in 1968, a scientist working for 3M in the US was trying to come up with a new super adhesive, a kind of super glue. What emerged was a ¨pressure sensitive¨adhesive which had properties which made it reusable. 

Dr Spenser Silver tried for the next 5 years to gain its acceptance. It wasn't until 1974 when a colleague of his, Arthur Fry, came up with an idea. He needed a secure way to keep his bookmark in place in his Hymn Book of all things. Until then it kept slipping out of place, as they do. With 3Ms approval, he began to develop the idea and so " Post-It” notes were born. Why yellow? Well, the lab next door to his team had only yellow scrap paper which they borrowed for their experiments and the colour stuck, literally!

The rest, as they say is history. In 2018 3M launched the “Post-It Extreme Notes” which were more durable, water resistant and would stick to a variety of surfaces which the original notes failed to do. They were marketed with the Construction and Manufacturing industries in mind.

 Now, of course, we have “Virtual Post-It Notes”, software for PC desktop applications. I have one on my laptop, so it is kind of full circle from my untidy office scraps adorning walls and PC Monitor to something which I wish I had had back then, the Office Cleaner´s nightmare! They served their purpose but only when I could decipher my hastily scribbled scrawl and remember why I had scribbled it in the first place.. ……those were the days!