serendipitous innovations
examples of innovation happening serendipitously
- high speed photography from the manhattan project. in 1944, scientists at los alamos needed to study nuclear explosions frame by frame - but the cameras were not fast enough. the techniques they developed revolutionized high-speed photography, leading to capabilities we now use in everything from scientific research to sports broadcasting.
- gps from tracking soviet satellites. when tracking sputnik in 1957, researchers william guier and george weiffenbach discovered they could determine satellite locations from radio signals. they realized this could work in reverse to find locations on earth, leading to modern gps.
- scratch resistant lenses from nasa. nasa scientists developed scratch-resistant coatings to protect spacecraft equipment and astronaut helmets in 1972. foster-grant licensed this technology in 1983, and it became standard in eyewear manufacturing.
- nba analytics from missile defense. the tracking technology developed for israel's iron dome missile defense system was adapted by sportvu to create player tracking systems in 2009. they mounted six cameras in the rafters of nba arenas, and created the first system to capture every player's movement on the court to help teams get an edge.
- lsd from a lab cleanup. in 1938, albert hofmann had synthesized lsd-25 while searching for medicines from fungus in a lab. it was filed away as useless after initial tests. five years later, while cleaning up his lab equipment, he absorbed a tiny amount through his skin and went through the first ever acid trip and changed our understanding of brain chemistry.