BY CHANCE
So often we read of great inventions and discoveries coming about by accident.
It does happen that way, of course, but if you feel you are of the inventive type, I don't believe it would be wise to sit around waiting for such a fortunate accident to happen in course life.
Inventing is hard work. Discovery comes from dreams and much anticipation of some special benefit to be achieve.
A number of caverns and less glamorous caves are said to have been discovered when a hunter noticed a rabbit which disappeared into a half-hidden hole on a brushy hillside. Upon investigation, he found a fantastic world of underground tourist bait ingredients carved by Mother Nature in the hulk of earth on which he stood.
Or, maybe you remember the story of the primitive man, said to have been in the area we now call France, many centuries ago, who sought refuge fro a heavy storm in a small cave. When the rain stopped, he hurried forth to find the prey he had been following. Later he realized he had left his lunch behind in the cave. When he re-visited the same cave weeks later,he found his lunch readily enough enough, and either he did not notice that the cheese had become blue and green with some streaks of mold though its body. In the shadowy darkness of and the cave he only knew his cheese tasted better than any chess he had ever tasted before! He saved a sample to take back to his village and from that time the villagers took their fresh cheese to the cave and left it there for weeks until it turned green and blue. The nearest town of any consequence to profit from the discovery was named Roquefort.
We have all hear stories of paint and pigment b e discovered by actual, mismanagement of standard experiment by lab workers the wrong ingredients at the right time to create a great new product. One such discovery was found because worked failed to clean a tank where another product had been stored. Slow dried - it had become a new product for the same company.
Even today we fail to make proper use of discoveries at times. As a child I remember hearing the story of a Chinese family who lost their small house to fire. Their only pig killed in the blaze and the owner picked up the remains of the pig too soon and the heat from the roasted pig and burned his finger tips. He put them hastily to his lips and tasted his first morsel of roast pig. He deemed to be very was good but it caused a problem. One by one, the other villagers started shutting pigs up in their houses and setting fire to them to get delicious pig meat.
We act pretty much the same way at times. Check the present cell phone craze, for example.
A.L.M. November 11, 2003 [c432wds]
