Introduction It was Thomas Edison that said, “everything comes to him who hustles while he waits”. There have been times in the past and the present when game-changing ideas were discovered strictly by accident or error. Sometimes, inventors, researchers, and scientists have come across ideas that were just not what they intended. For this paper, the researcher will discuss two game-changing ideas that were discovered by accident. The researcher also included a link to the blog page where this individual project paper was posted. Game-changing idea #1
The artificial pacemaker is the first game-changing idea that the researcher selected. The artificial pacemaker was accidentally discovered in 1956 by Wilson Greatbatch (Aquilina, 2006). At the time, Greatbatch was an assistant professor that worked for the University of Buffalo and his motivation behind this invention was to simply create a device that could be used to monitor and record the human heartbeat. So, it could be easily deduced that one of the forces behind the creation of this device was for a medical purpose. Greatbatch accidentally used a resistor that was much larger than he had anticipated on using, and it resulted in an intermittent electrical impulse that had a rhythm similar to that of a human heart (Jeffrey & Parsonnet, 1998). After Greatbatch realized the value and usefulness of his device, he tackled the first hurdle of reducing the size of the device. The device was first tested in a dog in 1958. The final hurdle was the 2-year battery life, but Greatbatch was able to overcome this issue with his acquisition of the rights a lithium iodide battery that extended the battery life of the device to 10 years (Greatbatch, 2000). Game-changing idea #2
The X-ray image is the second game-changing idea that the researcher selected. The X-ray image was accidentally discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen, who at the time was a physics professor. One of the forces behind this was the discovery of radiation and other invisible forces of nature such as radio waves. Röntgen performed various other laboratory and physics experiments in the hopes of finding other uses for the newly discovered invisible forces of nature (Panchbhai, 2015). It was an experiment that Röntgen conducted using cathode-ray tubes that eventually lead to this discovery. Once Röntgen discovered that there was invisible light coming from the tube that could pass through thick material such as cardboard, he also discovered that the light could be used to pass through the skin and capture images (Panchbhai, 2015).
Conclusion There are many times when a researcher will start of with a simple idea of what they want to accomplish and that same idea can result in the discovery of a game-changing idea that was far from their original idea or thought. Throughout history, we have seen game-changing ideas that were discovered by accident and some of those ideas have completely changed the way we live and function in society today. The artificial pacemaker and the X-ray image are just two of such idea that was discovered by accident. Even though Thomas Edison said that “everything comes to him who hustles while he waits”, sometimes things can come by the way of an accident or error.
Reference Aquilina O. (2006). A brief history of cardiac pacing. Images in pediatric cardiology, 8(2), 17– 81. DeWeaver, L. F. (2019). Symbolic reasoning and Artifical Intelligence [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://humanlikeartificialintelligence.blogspot.com/ Greatbatch, W. (2000). The making of the pacemaker: Celebrating a lifesaving invention. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Jeffrey, K., & Parsonnet, V. (1998). Cardiac pacing, 1960–1985: a quarter-century of medical and industrial innovation. Circulation, 97(19), 1978-199. doi:10.1161/01.CIR.97.19.1978 Panchbhai, A. S. (2015). Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and the discovery of X-rays: Revisited after the centennial. Journal of Indian Academy of Oral Medicine & Radiology, 27(1), 90-95. doi:10.4103/0972-1363.167119
Introduction
ReplyDeleteIt was Thomas Edison that said, “everything comes to him who hustles while he waits”. There have been times in the past and the present when game-changing ideas were discovered strictly by accident or error. Sometimes, inventors, researchers, and scientists have come across ideas that were just not what they intended. For this paper, the researcher will discuss two game-changing ideas that were discovered by accident. The researcher also included a link to the blog page where this individual project paper was posted.
Game-changing idea #1
The artificial pacemaker is the first game-changing idea that the researcher selected. The artificial pacemaker was accidentally discovered in 1956 by Wilson Greatbatch (Aquilina, 2006). At the time, Greatbatch was an assistant professor that worked for the University of Buffalo and his motivation behind this invention was to simply create a device that could be used to monitor and record the human heartbeat. So, it could be easily deduced that one of the forces behind the creation of this device was for a medical purpose. Greatbatch accidentally used a resistor that was much larger than he had anticipated on using, and it resulted in an intermittent electrical impulse that had a rhythm similar to that of a human heart (Jeffrey & Parsonnet, 1998). After Greatbatch realized the value and usefulness of his device, he tackled the first hurdle of reducing the size of the device. The device was first tested in a dog in 1958. The final hurdle was the 2-year battery life, but Greatbatch was able to overcome this issue with his acquisition of the rights a lithium iodide battery that extended the battery life of the device to 10 years (Greatbatch, 2000).
Game-changing idea #2
The X-ray image is the second game-changing idea that the researcher selected. The X-ray image was accidentally discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen, who at the time was a physics professor. One of the forces behind this was the discovery of radiation and other invisible forces of nature such as radio waves. Röntgen performed various other laboratory and physics experiments in the hopes of finding other uses for the newly discovered invisible forces of nature (Panchbhai, 2015). It was an experiment that Röntgen conducted using cathode-ray tubes that eventually lead to this discovery. Once Röntgen discovered that there was invisible light coming from the tube that could pass through thick material such as cardboard, he also discovered that the light could be used to pass through the skin and capture images (Panchbhai, 2015).
Conclusion
There are many times when a researcher will start of with a simple idea of what they want to accomplish and that same idea can result in the discovery of a game-changing idea that was far from their original idea or thought. Throughout history, we have seen game-changing ideas that were discovered by accident and some of those ideas have completely changed the way we live and function in society today. The artificial pacemaker and the X-ray image are just two of such idea that was discovered by accident. Even though Thomas Edison said that “everything comes to him who hustles while he waits”, sometimes things can come by the way of an accident or error.
Reference
ReplyDeleteAquilina O. (2006). A brief history of cardiac pacing. Images in pediatric cardiology, 8(2), 17–
81.
DeWeaver, L. F. (2019). Symbolic reasoning and Artifical Intelligence [Blog Post]. Retrieved
from https://humanlikeartificialintelligence.blogspot.com/
Greatbatch, W. (2000). The making of the pacemaker: Celebrating a lifesaving invention.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Jeffrey, K., & Parsonnet, V. (1998). Cardiac pacing, 1960–1985: a quarter-century of medical
and industrial innovation. Circulation, 97(19), 1978-199. doi:10.1161/01.CIR.97.19.1978
Panchbhai, A. S. (2015). Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and the discovery of X-rays:
Revisited after the centennial. Journal of Indian Academy of Oral Medicine & Radiology, 27(1), 90-95. doi:10.4103/0972-1363.167119