Examples of scientific discoveries made by trial and error?

S

Stephen S

New member
has anyone got some examples of important discoveries that have been made by trial and error, or simply by accident?

The only ones I have so far are penicillin, and the rutherford model of the atom.

Any help is really appreciated!
 
To the best of my knowledge penicillin was found by chance, not trail and error. (A scientist left a petri dish of bacteria over night to test something, but when he came back in the morning the bacteria was dying due to penicillin g being present.)

Relenza, which helps cure influenza, was made by trail and error as far as I know.

Another one, although i'm not too sure of this, was nuclear fission. However you may want to research this before you accept it as fact.
This article seems to imply that it was found by chance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission#Discovery_of_fission
 
The alchemist worked with 14 elements: sulfur, mercury, carbon, iron, lead, copper, tin, silver, gold, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, bismuth and zinc. Although the failed to transform lead into gold and met with limited success in their other endeavours, they accumulated a body of knowledge of how different chemicals react and developed a range of experimental techniques
 
Back
Top