this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
1178 points (99.2% liked)

Science Memes

10023 readers
2964 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

Sister Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
1178
Progress happens with every death (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
57 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Also a ton of discoveries and inventions are on accident while looking for completely different things.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

One of my favourite stories is the accidental discovery of synthetic purple dye. IIRC there was a chemist researching something completely unrelated and when he disposed some assorted chemicals down a sink he noticed they turned purple.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Also, I believe the rubber was discovered by a scientist accidentally dropping a mixture of a bunch of materials like resin onto a burner, which made it volcanize (man I hope I got the word right) into a layer of rubber in the middle

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Vulcanize, haha. All good, though!

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)