In the history of science, especially in the history of chemistry, there are many inventions and discoveries that are thought to have originated from accidental factors, but they also changed the course of the world.

Below are a few chemistry experiments that changed the world.

1. Litmus indicator

One summer in the 17th century, Boyle, a famous British chemist, was hurrying to his laboratory. He just stepped through the door of the laboratory, while an intoxicating fragrance was wafting in his nostrils.

He realized that the roses in the flowerbed were blooming. He wanted to enjoy the charming fragrance of flowers, but there was an experimental arrangement for the day, so he carefully picked a few roses and inserted them into a flask containing water, and then started to conduct experiments with his assistants.

Unluckily, an assistant accidentally splashed a large drop of hydrochloric acid on the rose. Boyle didn’t want to just throw away the flower, so he decided to rinse the flower with water.

Unexpectedly, when the water touched the petals, the part that was splashed with hydrochloric acid miraculously turned red, and Boyle immediately became sensitively aware that there was an ingredient in the rose that would turn red when exposed to hydrochloric acid.

After repeated experiments, an indicator extracted from roses, violets, and other herbs - litmus was born. In the following 300 years, this substance has been widely used in different fields of chemistry.

2. Bordeaux mixture

In the fall of 1882, the Frenchman Milad noticed that the vines around the city of Bordeaux were attacked by germs, and only a few rows of vines on both sides of the road were still full of fruits and without any damage.

He felt strange and went to ask the gardener who was in charge of the vines. It turned out that the gardeners sprinkled white lime water and blue copper sulfate on the vines, leaving white and blue marks on the grape leaves.

Passers-by thought that they had sprayed poison after seeing it, thus dispelling the idea of stealing grapes.

Milad was Inspired, and after repeated trials and research, he finally invented a fungicide that is effective against almost all plant pathogens - Bordeaux mixture.

3. Nitrocellulose

In 1845, in a city in northwestern Switzerland, Basel, chemist Seinber was doing experiments at home when he accidentally encountered concentrated sulfuric acid and concentrated nitric acid on the table.

He picked up his wife's cloth apron in rush to wipe the mixed acid on the table. After the incident, he hung the apron to dry by the stove, but the apron caught fire, and it was completely burnt in an instant, which surprised Seinber.

Seinber took the problem back to the lab, he then repeated the "accident" that happened by mistake.

After many experiments, Seinber finally found the reason. The main component of the original cloth apron is cellulose. It is contacted with a mixture of concentrated sulfuric acid and concentrated nitric acid to form cellulose nitrate.

Among them, those with a nitrogen content of more than 13% are called "hot cotton", and those with a nitrogen content of about 10% are called "low-level nitrocellulose". This accidental discovery then turned into the birth of the widely used nitrocellulose.

4. Anesthetics

In 1772, the British chemist Priest prepared a gas, kept it in the laboratory, and labeled it O2. The young experimenter David inhaled a few breaths of this gas by accident, and then he started to laugh and dance in the laboratory.

Later, David found out the composition of this gas and named it "laughing gas". Coincidentally, David had just had his decayed tooth pulled out, and the pain was unbearable.

After inhaling the laughing gas, the pain was relieved right away. He was keenly aware of the effect of "laughing gas", and an anesthetic was born.

The anesthetic effect of chloroform was also born from an accident. In 1847, British doctor Simpson and his two assistants were chatting during experiments.

After a while, their words gradually became a little awkward, and after a while, they could not move one by one. When they woke up, Simpson carefully searched for the cause and found that "chloroform" can make people drowsy, and thus, a new anesthetic was born.

Although it was later discovered that chloroform anesthetic was harmful to humans, it contributed to the relief of patients' suffering for a long time.