(music) Accidental Inventions Trivia Tuesday LMBYTS #1341 29th April 2025

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is... it's not that time already is it? It's Trivia Tuesday! La la la. See, I do have energy in me.

Now that was energetic and enthusiastic. Come on, don't tell me otherwise. It's Trivia Tuesday.

I have just got out of bed. Don't expect too much from me. What have I got to say? Oh, the things I talk about in this podcast is not supposed to be factual.

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It's Tuesday, the 29th of April 2025. My downstairs neighbor is having a new bathroom installed. So at the moment, it's not like super noisy.

They're down there now. I don't know. I mean, I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of drilling and banging and stuff.

I don't know how much I'm going to hear of it. But bathrooms are quite echoey, aren't they? I never understood that. Why do you have like a toilet? It's an echo chamber, like the actual toilet itself.

Firstly, the one thing you don't want to exaggerate the sound, but a toilet does that, doesn't it? So you've got an echo chamber inside an echo chamber. So yeah, I emptied my echo chamber into an echo chamber inside an echo chamber. It's very strange.

And in England, I mean, not everywhere, but like so many places I know, still got the old fashioned light switches, which was a string or a cord that you pull down, clicks loudly. Instead of just having a little switch that makes no sound. So it's the one room you don't want that in because it echoes.

You can hear the neighbors turning their lights on and off. I'll leave mine on all night. It's the only light I generally leave on all night when I'm in bed.

But I just, you know, partly so I can see what I'm doing. Not in bed, but when I go to the toilet, it's nice to have a little bit of room to aim. Oh dear.

And I was saying, you know, if the lights off, I can't see where the sink is. But, yeah, that might give a weird idea of what I do when I go into the bathroom. What does he do? Why doesn't he use the toilet like everyone else? Shush.

So what we're going to do is talk about, this is the idea I've got today. Inventions. And I've been thinking about this, funny enough, not so much, well, inventions, but also thinking about, well, no, yeah, really, just things based on false beliefs, or it's something I'm going to look more into in the future anyway.

But let's say, for example, physics. And it's like, you know, maybe 100 years ago, there was a physics idea, which was cemented, it was like, this is it. There's nothing more to learn about this, that this is factual.

So things and I've, I remember hearing that a lot of things were invented based upon that idea. That work. But it turned out the idea that they were best based upon was false.

So this is, I suppose, a little bit of a, you know, like around the corner turn, going to focus on inventions that were accidental. And silly, potentially. So yeah, I know a few off the top of my head, actually.

Well, my medication I take is, well, it's not accidental, but it was for epilepsy. And the whole idea was to, you know, kind of calm, even out both sides of the brain, which is what I have, you know, epilepsy is kind of, it's, yeah, it's both sides of the brain shooting off and shooting off, not having a gunfight, but you know, it's trying to even out the electrical, I suppose, I don't know the scientific stuff of it.

But then they found that the doctors or whoever was giving people epilepsy, these tablets, that those with epilepsy, who also had other things, felt calm, felt calmer than they did before, which they weren't for.

I mean, they were calm, helped people keep calm, so they didn't have the, you know, the seizures and stuff. But this was, yeah. I mean, let me have a look.

I'll tell you exactly. So, Depakote Volproic Acid, it's a medication used for the following purposes, treatment of seizures in people with epilepsy aged 10 and older, prevention of migraine headaches, treatment for manic episodes related to bipolar disorder, and treatment for psychiatric illnesses. So, I'm trying to get the history of this.

Oh, Vinnie, but not to be used by people that are pregnant and childbearing potential. Very important. This is something that's relatively new, actually, because I didn't use to have that on the boxes until more recent years.

Okay. So, it belongs to a group of medicines called mood stabilizers. It works by stabilizing the levels of chemicals in your brain that affect your mood.

It can be used to... So, that controls for mania, and I'm on antidepressants to control the other side of things. There's a weird stuff going on. Anyway, this isn't about me.

It's always about me, isn't it, really? I just had the weirdest dream. So, I'm sitting there. Well, I'm not sitting, I'm standing there.

I'm having an argument with my little brother. And it's basically, I'm working for my dad. And I'm doing some kind of website thing, whatever.

I don't know. It was a little bit of a muddled dream, to be honest. But then, my little brother comes on to the phone and starts... My dad seems happy with what I'm doing.

And then my brother comes on and starts saying that I should be doing something different. And my dad's listening to him. And my little brother's... This is a dream, by the way.

My little brother's... I just had it about 10 minutes ago. My little brother said, oh, you're not doing it properly and all that stuff. And so I start having a go.

He's like, what are you talking about? Don't do it properly. All you do is cut and paste. I don't know why I said that.

And the fact is, he knows more about coding than I probably ever will. But it's a weird one of weird things. And I have this big argument.

And then my dad sort of says... And I quit. I said, oh, just go do one. And then I'm hugging my dad saying, oh, can you just please love me, though? It's just weird, really weird.

And then my brother appears out of nowhere. He's sitting down with the laptop, showing me what to do. He's like, I know what to do.

And then he goes out, he brings back a bowl, puts it on top of a book for me to do a wee-wee in. And that's when I woke up, realized I need to go to the toilet. Why does going for a wee always have to be incorporated into whatever dream I'm having? I realize, you know, it's better than wetting the bed.

But it's like, come on. It is... Oh, can you hear it? So the banging started downstairs, which is what I was expecting. I can't really... You watch your phone in the council.

There's a lot of banging going on in the flat downstairs. Oh, is there? Yeah. And it's disturbing me.

Okay. Right. Hold on a second.

I'll speak to my manager. Are you okay to hold on today? Yeah, it's fine. That's good today.

I'll be back in a second today. I like to say today after every sentence sometimes, don't I? How are you today? I'm fine, thanks. How can I help you today? It's like, why do you keep saying today? Then I'll come back.

I just spoke to my manager. I don't know if you're aware that downstairs they're having their bathroom refitted. I said, yeah, I know.

Well, there's going to be some sound from that, isn't there, today? And I was like, I'd look really silly, wouldn't I? I'd look really silly, that's what I'm saying. So an unexploded World War Two bomb found in an island near where I live. What? I didn't know it was an island.

Oh, Canvey Island. Is it really an island, though? I know it's called Canvey Island, but I don't know if it's really an island. The legend of Ochi.

What? The legend of Ochi. What is the legend of Ochi? But I've clicked on it and nothing comes up. That's strange.

Right. The legend of Ochi. The legend of a teenage girl befriends an injured mythical creature and embarks on a journey to reunite it with its family, challenging her father's beliefs and discovering her own strength along the way.

I mean, the way they've described it sounds really boring. I'm sure it's a really good film. But the way, like, challenging her father's beliefs and she discovers her own strengths along the way.

No one cares about that. It's her action. It's, you know, it's their monsters and action and good special effects.

I don't know how how she emotionally grows, you know, during the movie, how it transforms her life. Am I being shallow? Maybe. Chef George Crumb sliced potatoes thinly and fried them to appease a picky customer inadvertently inadvertently creating his this popular snack, potato chips.

Well, if a customer wanted them, then they'd already been created, surely. Popsicles. In 1905, 11-year-old Frank Epperson left a mixture of soda powder and water outside overnight, leading to the creation of the first Popsicle.

Number three, chocolate chip cookies. It's got me interested. Chocolate.

Ruth Wakefield intended to make chocolate cookies but ran out of baker's chocolate, substituting with chopped semi-sweet chocolate, which didn't melt as expected. Chopped semi-sweet chocolate doesn't melt as expected. Huh, what is chopped semi-sweet chocolate? I don't know what that is.

How can you have semi-sweet chocolate? I understand sweet chocolate because chocolate is sweet. This is interesting. Cornflakes.

The Kellogg's brothers accidentally left boiled wheat to sit, which became flaky, leading to the creation of cornflakes. Oh, but if they left it, why did they eat it though? When they say the Kellogg's brothers, what were they, adjoined twins? Does it take two people to boil some wheat? I don't know. Maybe it was a massive pot of wheat.

It might not just be in a little saucepan. Maybe it was a huge pot. But were they boiling the wheat to make breakfast cereal? Were they already breakfast cereal people? What's the irony? What's the chances of two brothers both being into making breakfast cereal, both being interested in the same thing? I mean, I like eating breakfast cereal, but I've never thought, never wanted it to be my hobby or my career.

I mean, I think back to my brothers, and we had nothing in common. And we all liked porn. After that, I was, we were boys.

That was weird. That was weird. My oldest brother used to get weird, sees adult tapes, and I'd be sitting there.

And we'd just take turns going to the bathroom. It was weird. It's like, I'd much rather be here on my own.

I actually had a friend. I lived in this place. I had a friend.

He used to come in and put on a dirty tape and sit there and watch it like we were watching EastEnders. It's like, you know what? And sometimes he'd start to talk. He'd say, I don't want your voice attached to these memories.

I was like, what a weird thing to do. This is before the internet, by the way. It's just, I don't want to watch stuff like, I didn't even like watching love scenes in movies when I was a kid.

And there was adults in the room and other kids. It's like, I'd never felt comfortable doing that. I always felt the need to, a bit of solitary time.

Just, yeah, it's just something. I don't think it's a sharing experience, necessarily. Okay, moving on from that, I don't know how I got sidetracked.

Coca-Cola originally formulated as a medicinal tonic. I knew this. The addition of carbonated water transformed it into the soft drink we know today.

So someone must have had that and thought, hmm, you know what? I like the taste of that. I like it a lot, but it's too thick. It's, you know, something needs to be added.

What about some milk? No. And, I mean, technically that's not really a mistake because they created, Coca-Cola was created on purpose. But, you know, by adding carbonated water, I don't think the original formulated medicinal tonic was called Coca-Cola.

But I might be wrong. I mean, by far the most popular drink worldwide, isn't it? I guess, through history, outside of water and milk, science and medicine. So penicillin, I hold yet, this is accidentally discovered.

It's not really by mistake, though, is it? Oh, accidental and silly. Accidental. I suppose, unless you're actually looking, you're scientifically looking for a particular discovery, then it's going to be accidental.

Like you had Edison with a light bulb and he, this whole thing, he did it like 10,000 times. Failed 9,999 times. A bit specific.

Bit exact, isn't it? And then on the 10,000th time, he found the right formula. So that wasn't accidental, was it? That's my point. So science and medicine, penicillin.

Alexander Fleming, he also wrote the Bond books, noticed mold killing bacteria in a petri dish, leading to the development of the first antibiotic. The amount of lives that man has saved through history. It's just phenomenal, isn't it? You never got to see quite what a difference he made in the world.

And how often do you hear his name mentioned? In fact, when you hear Fleming, I automatically go to James Bond. I don't go to James Bond and say, Hi, James. I don't, you know, but I do think of James Bond, not penicillin.

Al Fleming, Alexander, well, I mean, he's like, he has to be up there. If you're going to put heroes, people that have, for me, if anyone has saved lives, millions of lives, has to be up as a hero, you know, as I mean, at the top, for me. So x-rays, William Rontgen discovered x-rays when he observed a fluorescent glow from a cathode ray tube.

I've got nothing to add to that, because I have no idea what a cathode ray tube is, or x-ray, or fluorescent. I don't understand any of those words, what they mean, or observed, or discovered. So yeah, anaesthesia, the anaesthetic properties of substances like nitrous oxide were discovered when individuals noticed pain relief during recreational use.

Wow. In that sense, I'm about going, in that sense, you could like, I wonder if they ever used anything else. You know, they ran out of that, it's like, I suppose in the old days, it was alcohol, just thinking, just get drunk, because that's quite a good anaesthetic, isn't it? Viagra, Viagra, Vagra, Vagra, initially developed to treat angina, the drug's unexpected side effects led to its use for, you know, woolly dysfunction.

Okay, let's, let's break that one down. Viagra initially developed to help angina. Okay.

All right. Okay. So, I'm wondering, I mean, angina is not, you know, it's, I suppose it's, I'm not saying it's only elderly people that get it, but it's probably more prominently older people, as opposed to young people.

And I don't know what the ratio is. Should we just search, instead of me saying this, ages. Okay.

So, according to this, right, it's much, it's much higher in groups. Older. Okay.

Yeah. So, zero to 44, hardly anything. So, okay.

So, you got this elderly lady, so she'd been taken. Actually, it would be taken by both. I wonder if, I mean, this is just a thought, don't, don't shoot thought, don't, don't judge me for it.

I'm wondering what effect it has if a, a female takes it. Because we know what Viagra, well, I know, I suppose most people know what Viagra is for, for males. I was going to say, I didn't know that women benefit from it, but obviously they benefit from it, don't they? But not physically, well, physically as well, I suppose, but indirectly, well, directly, I suppose, you know, but you know what I mean.

I wonder, that would be awkward though, wouldn't it? Mr. Newland, go to the doctors. How, how, how is the new treatment going? What do you mean, doc? How's the, how's the treatment going for your angina, the new drug that we're using, Viagra? Is it helping, is it helping your chest? Is it helping the, you know, the stuff? I forget what it's used for. Is it helping your medical condition?

No, doc, no.

Well, it's, it has, but I'm not sure really. So we stop, we'll stop the treatment, we'll stop the treatment. No, no, no, that's fine, that's fine, we'll keep the treatment going.

What do you mean if it's not really helping the angina? That's all right, it's okay. I mean, it might be really good for angina, I don't know. Why are you hassling me, Vinnie? Trying to do something while there's no sound downstairs.

So I'm trying to do this recording and Vinnie's like, and we've had like five minutes of our banging and stuff and downstairs. Ah, warfarin, originally used as a rat poison. Its blood thinning properties were later harnessed for medical use.

Wow. Everyday items. So a microwave oven.

Here we go. Percy Spencer noticed a candy bar. That would be like chocolate bar, I think for anyone outside of, a candy bar melting in his pocket while working with radar technology, leading to the invention of the microwave oven.

Wow. So I'm guessing, I'm just going to, I'm going to skip, I'm going to skip to this. I'm going to put down his name and see what happened to him.

So he invented, right, let's have a look. Right, I'm just thinking, I wonder if it's telling anything about, so he invented the microwave oven. $495.

Wow. The first commercially produced microwave oven was about six feet tall, weighed 750 ips and cost around $5,000, equivalent to today of over 70,000. In 67, he did a smaller one at $495 and that's equivalent to about nearly $5,000.

Wow. That's just, for his invention, he received no royalties, but he was paid a one time $2 gratuity to Raytheon, from Raytheon, the same token payment the company made to all inventors on its payroll at that time for company patents. So he's working for a company.

How? How would you, how? That was weird. So he worked for a company and then ended up coming up with an idea and they give him $2. I mean, you know, the kids, I don't know, it just seems wrong, doesn't it? It seems wrong.

Wrong, man. Yeah, it does. Just like, I mean, technically, so he didn't invent the microwave oven.

The company probably invented the microwave oven, but he, he's the one that discovered that his pants were getting warm from being too close to the microwave. And maybe he's told someone and they said, oh, Velcro. George DeMestral observed burns sticking to his dog's fur, inspiring the creation of Velcro fastness.

Cool. Well, Mr. Newland, we can try some new different medication. No, no, no.

I'll stick with a Viagra. Superglue, discovered by Harry Coover while attempting to create clear plastic gun sights. It was found to be a powerful adhesive.

Wow. So he was trying to basically create a plastic gun sight. Now let's have a look at what he went on to do.

I mean, was he working for a company and they just stole it off him and he ended up with no money. Come on. Let's have a look.

Harry Coover. Commonly known as Superglue, he was an inventor of Eastman 910. So he was an inventor.

Wow. So 1942, while searching for the materials to make more secure cockpit covers for military planes. So this is OK.

This is different from what they're saying there. Cockpit covers is different to a. So Cyanococcyanoacrylate was discovered. At this time, they were deemed too sticky to be of use and was set aside.

In 1950. OK, right. In 1951, Coover and his team at Eastman Kodak examined Cyanococcyanoacrylate again.

Coover was overseeing Kodak chemists investigating heat resistant polymeters for jet canopies when. Anyway, it was too sticky. When a chemist in the group informed Coover that he had permanently damaged an expensive refractometer by gluing it together, Cooper recognized that he had discovered a unique adhesive.

In 1958, the adhesive marketed by Kodak as Eastman 910 and then as Superglue was introduced for sale. So Kodak marketed it. So Coover was also the first to recognize and patent Cyanococcyanoacrylate as a tissue adhesive.

After his eldest son cut open his finger while making a model and glue to cut clothes with the glue. He had samples off from the lab. I don't know if I would do that person.

I don't even still do that. I don't know. So Coover held 460 patents and Superglue was just one of his many discoveries.

He viewed programmed innovations and management methodology, emphasizing research and development among his most important work. Implemented at Kodak, programmed innovation resulted in the introduction of 320 new products and sales growth from 1.8 billion to 2.5 billion. Coover later formed an international management consultant in practice, advising corporate clients around the world on programmed innovation technology.

I don't know what that is. What programmed innovation technology? That's gonna bug me. I'm gonna have to look it up.

Sorry. Programmed innovation. So okay.

Programmed. Oh, what are you doing? Programmed information technology. Did I say technology? I meant methodology.

Whoops. Why is it taking me to a different page? The four most common innovation methodologies. Six Sigma, Agile, Design Thinking, Global Innovation.

I don't know what it means. Innovation methods. Discover the best innovation methods to drive success.

Programmed innovation. An innovation program is a portfolio of initiatives built around an innovation strategy aligned with the program's business goals. To pursue an innovation program, the portfolio should adhere to a set of policies and actions aimed at achieving your goals.

Okay, so it's kind of like you're looking for something and you agree with what you're looking for. And you kind of agree with what you're planning to do to get there, I guess. A set of steps, but not the ones that you use to clean your windows.

Not that you would use when you wouldn't use steps to clean the windows, you'd probably use a cloth, but you know what I mean. Teflon. Roy Plunkett.

I love that name Plunkett. Great. Roy Plunkett discovered Teflon when a gas he was experimenting with solidified into a slippery substance.

Wow. Cool. Safety glass.

Edward Benindictus accidentally dropped a glass flask coated with plastic cellulose nitrate, which cracked but didn't shatter. Oh, so safety glass was created. See, just things like this.

It's quite amazing, isn't it? So a glass flask, I suppose it's like for coffee or whatever. He just shows you sort of, oh, like, oh, toys and entertainment. Slinky.

The Slinky. Naval engineer Richard James was working with tension springs when one fell and walked across the floor, inspiring the toy. And then it just wandered down the stairs.

Blimey. It's quite weird. I used to, I don't remember them being called slinkies.

Honestly, when I was a kid, I'm sure they were, but I had one and it was just like, it was so much fun. Come on. And I used to invite my friends, like, try and get them to come round and would go down the stairs and each one, as I spent all week trying to get one of my friends to come round and each one of them said, no, he's like, no, no, no, no explanation.

Nothing. No explanation. Come on.

He's going to let it go. Stop the stairs all the way down. I haven't got to touch it.

It does it on its own. It moves on its own. It's like magic.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I asked, I probably asked about 20 friends. Okay.

Um, two friends and 18 kids that were at school all said no. And in the end I thought, okay, the last person I asked said no. I thought, I'm going to ask why.

And he said, actually, we all got together. So what do you mean you've all got together? He said, we just need to let you know. Let me know what? I said, why we don't want to come round.

I thought, oh no, it's the farts, isn't it? It's all the farting. I said, is it the farting? He said, well, that doesn't help, but no, it's not the main thing. I said, what's the main thing? He said, you live in a bungalow.

I said, so? The fact that you live in a bungalow and you don't know what the problem could be about letting a slinky go down the stairs. No. Oh, never found out the real reason.

I think it was the farts. Silly putty. James Wright was attempting to create synthetic rubber when he produced a bouncy, stretchable substance.

Silly putty. I love silly putty. So he was trying to create synthetic rubber.

I wonder if it was one of those synthetic rubbers that he was trying to create. Because silly putty definitely is not the right thing, is it? Play-Doh. I didn't know it spelt D-O-H.

Dool? Right, what's his name? Simpsons. Originally a wallpaper cleaner, its pliable nature made it a favourite among children for modelling. Oh, a wallpaper cleaner.

Play-Doh. I used to love Play-Doh. Bubble wrap.

Initially intended as textured wallpaper, its cushion properties led to its use in packaging. So it was initially intended as textured wallpaper. Can you imagine bubble wrap on the wall? Yeah, it'd be a bit weird.

So it went from being the world's most unpopular wallpaper to being really popular for other things. The pacemaker. This is interesting.

Wilson Greatbatch accidentally installed the wrong resistor into a device, leading to the development of the implantable pacemaker. And that stuff is just phenomenal. It is, isn't it? It's absolutely just an accident which has led to just medical help for millions of people.

So all of these things are just, it's amazing. I don't know, I just find it exciting. Sakharin.

In 1879, Konstantin Farberg, while working on coal tar derivatives, oh, interesting job, forgot to wash his hands before dinner and noticed a sweet taste, leading to the discovery of this artificial sweetener. Do you know how Marmite was invented? Maybe someone worked in a sewer. Teflon.

In 1938, Roy Punkett was attempting to create a new refrigerant when he accidentally polymerized, really, expect me to read this out, polymerized tetrafluoroethylene, resulted in the nonstick substance we know today. And why create words that are impossible to say? Well, for me, anyway, what it's like, they're showing off, isn't it? I mean, really, basically, why? Things don't stick on me. Safety glass.

In 1903, Edward Benedictus. See, this is the same, it's copying now, copying. It's copying Velcro.

So it's giving me more, this is, I'm using chat GBT, I did specifically say do not copy, do not repeat. Safety glass, so I'm going to move away from that. Matches.

In 1826, John Walker was stirring a chemical mixture when a stick he used ignited upon scraping, leading to the invention of the friction match. I thought matches had been around for centuries, like century centuries, like 1600s. Because how else did they light stuff in the 16th century? If it wasn't for matches, I mean, did they use lighters? I mean, come on, what did they use? Matches must have been around.

When were matches invented? 1826. So what came, what was used before matches? I mean, come on. See, this is just, this is absolutely rubbish.

What was used before matches, rubbing sticks together or striking flintstones. So that's just, don't, it's ridiculous. It's telling me, right, 1826, like 200 years.

So just over 200 years ago, people had to rub sticks together in order to light a cigarette. And tobacco was around long before 1826, I'm pretty sure. And I'm pretty certain people used to cook and had ovens inside those kitchens and stuff.

It must have been there must have been how I know it means how, how that doesn't I can't get my head around this. Right. Tobacco was introduced to the UK in 1587.

So how did they light it? If there was no matches? Lit. So how, because candles, they had candles, how did they light a candle? How was cigarettes lit in 1700s? Unless lighters were around before then. When was the first lighter? The first lighter 1823.

One of the first lighters invented by a German chemist named Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner, 1823. Oh, that's interesting. So and what when was the matches 1826.

So lighters were around before matches. But tobacco has been around, it was around, well, 300 years before that. So people in the street like rubbing sticks together, trying to light a cigarette.

I mean, come on. No, no, you can't. No, I've seen.

No. No, because I see, oh, I'm just thinking. And there's depictions of people in the Westerns.

And in I'm confused now, this is really confused me. Yeah, it doesn't always take a lot, but right. So, okay.

So how did people light pipes? In 1700s. The light. Okay.

Wow. So to light a pipe back then the best way to light up was with a spill, which is a thin strip of wood that may be ignited in a lamp or fireplace and use a transfer flame to pipe. How did people light by candles, lamps, etc.

Before the invention of matchsticks. You'd keep a small fire as long as possible, because lighting something with a bow and a drill or with a flint and a steel is really annoying. If you don't have a personal fire, you bring a stick to a night.

So that's not funny, really. It's just this funny. It's really, you bring a stick to a neighbor and ask if you can get a light.

The amount of people when I was young, I was like, can I get a light? And like, but that was happening hundreds of years ago. Can I get a light? What I mean literally is, can I, is that if I stick my stick in your fire? In practice, you'd be lighting lamps from candles, or candles from cooking fires, and just transferring the flame to where you need it.

That kind of explains the Great Fire of London, doesn't it really? I mean, you imagine the amount of, let's say, oh, it was the bakers, but imagine how many, how many fires there would have been going at that time.

Is it 1666 or something, wasn't it? It's like, that was, there'd be little fires all around the place. And everything was made of wood, wasn't it? Wow, that's interesting. I never even thought about this.

This is probably something that everyone learned in history, but I don't remember hearing about it before. I've been so excited. So, bubble wrap, got that, ice cream, silly putty, play-doh, bubble wrap, ice cream cone.

At the 1904 World's Fair, an ice cream vendor ran out of dishes, and a neighbouring waffle vendor rolled waffles into cones to hold the ice cream, creating the ice cream cone. Wow. So, that was, that's a good idea, wasn't it? I mean, to be fair, I think it would taste a lot better with a waffle than with the ice cream cone they use now, the dry old flaky tasteless thing that they sometimes use.

A waffle, oh, that'd be perfect. Messy, but perfect. Scientific breakthroughs, x-ray in 18, okay, so got that one already.

Penicillin, it's just repeating itself now. Anesthesia, Viagra, Warfarin, they're just repeating themselves. I've already told you all this stuff.

I think it's run out of ideas. It's run out of ideas. Any, any other ones? Any inventions based upon wrong facts? Okay, I kind of know what I mean when I say this, but I don't know.

Yes, Jason, there are definitely inventions and scientific breakthroughs that happen because the inventor was working off incorrect assumptions or wrong facts, yet we still ended up creating something useful or groundbreaking. Here are some great and quirky examples for you, for your podcast. Oh, thank you.

Inventions based on wrong assumptions. Phlogiston theory, so discovery of oxygen. In the 1700s, scientists believed in Phlogiston, a fire-like element released during combustion, and Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen while trying to prove this theory, ironically disproving it entirely.

N-rays, what's an N-ray? In 1903, scientist Blomblot claimed he discovered N-rays, a new form of radiation. It was later revealed to be entirely imaginary, but the instruments and techniques he developed influenced future optics research. So that's what I'm looking for.

So he thought he discovered something, and he hadn't. But what he built and created and invented, based upon that assumption, based upon that belief, did work. Wow, see, that's phenomenal, really.

Galvani's animal electricity. So Luigi Galvani believed frogs' legs twitched because of animal electricity. His mistaken conclusion inspired Alessandro Voltra, or Volta, who created the first battery, providing, proving it was a chemical, not biological reaction.

So again, so batteries were invented based upon the idea that, a false idea. Alchemists searching for gold created porcelain and gunpowder. So in China and Europe, alchemists trying to turn base metals into gold accidentally invented useful things like porcelain, gunpowder, and even phosphorus.

Geocentric molecules, imagine if that's your job, that's your entire career as an alchemist. And the only thing you're doing is trying to get to gold. And they probably got no recognition for all the stuff they did invent.

So, oh no, porcelain, oh not another useful chemical compound that can change the world and make it safer and better and healthier for millions and billions of people. We want gold, give me some gold. Geocentric model, accurate star charts.

Ancient astronomers like Ptolemy believed Earth was the center of the universe. Despite the wrong model, their meticulous charts were surprisingly accurate and useful for navigation. See, so it's interesting, isn't it? Something even based upon a wrong, a wrong idea or wrong model, something can still turn out quite well.

Spontaneous generation equaled pasteurization. Is that supposed to be a rhyme? Scientists once believed life came from non-living matter, like maggots from meat. Oh, okay, disprovenness.

I guess in them days, there was a time when they thought maggots, meat produces maggots. Rotten meat, which it doesn't. It's the flies, isn't it, that lay the eggs.

But they wouldn't know that. It probably didn't connect that. It's like, oh, there's maggots coming out of the dust.

This black bag full of rubbish is producing maggots. It must be the black bag. And then science said, don't be ridiculous.

It's obviously, it's the rubbish, isn't it? Then science said, no, it's obviously not the rubbish, because there's a mixture of rubbish. It's going to be certain aspects of the rubbish. Well, I think it must be the cornflake boxes.

How can a cardboard box produce maggots, produce life? It's got to come from something that once was life. Oh, so you're talking about the meat. Yeah, it must come from the meat.

And then they examined the meat, and they saw that there was actual things growing out of the meat. It's like, see, it's the meat that's growing. That's what's producing the maggots.

When all along, it wasn't. It was the flies. So disprovenness led Louis Pasteur to discover pasteurisation and revolutionised germ theory.

Flat Earth beliefs, detailed maps. While Earth mappy makers or map makers used flawed models of Earth, the challenge of fitting everything in spurred incredibly artistic and informative atlases, many of which are still admired today. Okay, so I like those maps that are kind of artistic.

Perhaps not perfect if you're travelling, but just they look nice, don't they? Like those old maps. Neptune's discovery via incorrect orbit math. Maths, we call it maths in this country.

Urbane Leveria's maths predicted Neptune's location was slightly off, but still close enough to accidentally help astronomers spot the planet. Okay, that wasn't quite as interesting. Cold fusion announcement, 1989.

Though it turned out to be bad science, the attempt to achieve cold fusion led to renewed interest and funding in alternative energy research. And so the discovery of insulin, dogs and pancreas confusion. So early diabetes researchers misunderstood the pancreas' function, but in their flawed experiments on dogs, they accidentally isolated insulin.

Blimey. It's, yeah, it's amazing, really. I don't know.

I was not going to be, it might not be super excited for everyone that's listening, but I found it quite exciting, quite interesting. And Vinnie's still kind of a little bit hassling me, wanting to go out. What did you look at me for when I said that? Did you feel I said, go out for a walk? Is that what you thought I said? Go for a walk.

That fly, you know, now I've got two flies, one in the kitchen and one in the living room. Either that, or it's invited, I don't know. It might just follow me.

Anyway, the noise downstairs has got a little bit noisier. So I'm going to go. Thank you for listening.

And remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy. And be gentle with yourself. You deserve to feel safe.

Lots of love. Bye. Bye.