Serendipity describes an unexpected or coincidental finding that proves to be beneficial and helpful outcome. An example of serendipity is the invention of the microwave ovens by the engineer and inventor Percy Spencer while working at the Raytheon Corporation as an engineer. It is expedient to mention that the engineer – Percy Spenser attempting to develop a radar-related research project with a new vacuum tube when he realized the melting of the candy bar within his pocket. He did tested it with popcorn (Krueger, 2010). Spencer had the realization of a melting candy bar inside his pocket during his experimentation. He then decided to have the popcorn placed inside the machine and the popping of the corn immediately open up a new innovative and revolutionary device (Bih, 2003; Zhang, 2017).
Error inventions are generally discoveries or innovations that came to the limelight through an unintentional action. These often come as a result of a researcher or scientist making a huge mistake in attempt on creating something which then led to something else that become very beneficial and useful, though not their original intent. The invention of penicillin by the scientist Sir Alex Fleming in attempt to discover a disease curing drug (Krueger, 2010). After experimenting Fleming did not stumble on the outcome he anticipated, but after throwing away his experiments, then he spot what he was trying to uncover. Penicillin was created after Fleming realized that the contaminated Petri dish that was discarded by himself contained a mold that that dissolved all the bacteria surrounding it. He then proceeded to growing an investigating the mold by himself to ascertain and uncover the fact that the mold contained a powerful antibiotic – penicillin (Krueger, 2010; Ligon, 2004).
Exaptation describes the adaptation for usage or deviation of object usage from its itended original purpose as a result of changes to its characteristic features. The invention of Post-it notes, from an attempt in creating strong adhesive. The inventor by name Spencer Silver, was a researcher at the 3M Laboratories working on a project to create a strong adhesive tape (Krueger, 2010). His final product was an adhesive tape created that was less strong than the existing tape. Because, it was a tape, it actually could stick on different objects, though it could be easily pulled off. It was recorded that the actual idea came up when the less adhesive tape was utilized by a member of his choir to reserve as his place within his hymn book. The post-it notes were leveraged for a purpose other than the reason behind their original creation (Krueger, 2010; Fischel & Halskov, 2018).
References
Bih, J. Z. (2003). The microwave technology. In 13th International Crimean Conference Microwave and Telecommunication Technology, 2003. CriMiCo 2003. (pp. 15-21). IEEE.
Fischel, A. D., & Halskov, K. (2018). A survey of the usage of sticky notes. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-6). https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3188526
Krueger, A. (2010). 15 Life-Changing Inventions That Were Created By Mistake. Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/these-10-inventions-were-made-by-mistake-2010-11
Ligon, B. L. (2004). Penicillin: its discovery and early development. In Seminars in pediatric infectious diseases (Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 52-57). WB Saunders.
Zhang, H. (2017). The History of Microwave Heating. In Microwave Heating of Foods. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312192693_The_History_of_Microwave_Heating
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