BobRingReflections

Introduction On April 18, 2023, I posted a blog on the “Top 10 Inventions that Changed the World.”   The inventions I talked about there were all “on-purpose” inventions, where the inventors directed their efforts to invent a specific item.   But what about accidental inventions?   There have been many over the years, some that were life changing, and others that found their way into household use by all of us.   Accidental inventions that were important life changers include penicillin, the x-ray machine, dynamite, implantable pacemakers, the blood thinner Warfarin, Viagra, the pap smear, Botox, safety glass, smoke detectors, and perhaps a few others.     I might write about those inventions someday, but what has caught my interest first are the numerous accidental inventions that are now common household items that we use every day.   I selected ten of these accidental inventions to discuss in this blog: microwave oven, Teflon, post-it notes, safety pins, Velcro, Vaseline, tea ba