15 Amazing Science Discoveries Inspired By Complete Accidents

Some scientific discoveries come about after painstaking, goal-oriented lab work finally yields the result that a researcher is trying to find.

But frequently, some lucky accident leads to a transformative finding, provided the right person is there to realize the potential implications of that accident.

Then, in the part that isn't an accident, they turn that observation into something useful.

All of these discoveries began with an accident.

In some cases, a clumsy spill or drop led to the creation of some new substance. In others, unclean or unsafe lab practices revealed the hidden properties of something. And sometimes, a researcher (or even a schoolteacher) looked at something in the world around them and realized that it could be repurposed to great utility and frequently, great profit.

Here are 15 of those discoveries.