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Allow for the law of unintended consequences
Vain inventors may not always admit it, but some of the greatest inventions have come about by accident.
A research scientist had the less-than-stellar achievement of inventing a glue that wasn’t particularly glue-y. Commiserating, a colleague asked if he could use it to pin notes to his hymn book in church. And thus the Post-it note was born.
Pfizer researchers noticed that their drug Sildenafil wasn’t much use at treating angina. But they noticed it had dramatic effects on other parts of their subjects’ anatomy. And thus Viagra was born, and became one the most profitable prescription drugs in history.
A Finnish engineer added a ‘throw-away’ function to allow mobile phones to send messages ...
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