Discoveries of the 20th Century: Chance or Pattern

In discussing serendipitous discoveries, as revealed in one of our previous articles, it's worth noting that an incredibly large number of things we use in our daily lives were invented unintentionally and purely by chance. Today, we'll delve into 5 more creations of humanity.

Shopping Cart

The first shopping cart was created in 1936 by American merchant Sylvan Goldman, who noticed that many shoppers were refusing certain groups of products due to their weight and the inability to move around the store and beyond with them.

The idea of developing a wheeled cart for goods was inspired by a funny incident where a woman placed a heavy bag of groceries on her young son's toy car, which he was pulling with a rope. In 1947, mass production of carts based on the modern prototype began.

Sandwiches

This type of snack, resembling our closed sandwiches, became very popular in the West thanks to the British Earl of Sandwich, who was known for his gambling habits and reluctance to leave the card game even for lunch or dinner.

Inventive servants decided to cover the dish's contents with another piece of bread so that small sandwiches could be conveniently eaten without dirtying hands or getting distracted.

Ice Cream Cone

Previously, ice cream was served in special bowls or on regular plates. However, such serving was not very convenient or aesthetically pleasing. In 1904, Ernest Hamwi, a Syrian by origin who sold waffles near an ice cream kiosk, came up with the idea of wrapping ice cream scoops in waffles.

After the idea was embraced by the public, the merchant established his company, producing waffle cones as a container for ice cream.

Hook-and-Loop Fastener

The well-known hook-and-loop fastener, widely used today for various types of everyday and specialized clothing, as well as a plethora of devices, was invented in 1941 based on the principle of the common burdock plant! Its inventor, George de Mestral, developed a prototype of the modern hook-and-loop fastener after a walk with his dog, whose fur was full of these hard-to-separate plants.

After examining the structure of the burr under a microscope, the Swiss inventor independently created a hook-and-loop fastener consisting of two parts that adhered to each other through special hooks.

Mass production of this type of fastener began in the 1950s, and astronauts were among the first to use it for their spacesuits.

Triplex Glass

This material was also invented entirely by accident. Once, French researcher Eduard Benedictus dropped an empty glass flask on the floor of his laboratory. To his immense surprise, the vessel did not break but only formed a network of small cracks. It turned out that the flask contained leftover collodion solution, which prevented the thin glass from shattering into pieces. After several experiments, triplex (shatterproof glass) began to be used in car manufacturing, significantly reducing the risk of injury in collisions between cars and other objects during serious accidents.