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Accidents Happen, Inventions Follow
Accidents happen all the time. Sometimes accidents are totally embarrassing. But other times they lead to something awesome. Check out three fortunate mistakes by your Fun Fact expert Smeeth.
“冰箱给我弄短路了，但是我却发明了微波炉！”
意外事故经常发生，有时候这些意外太让人难堪了，不过有时候也有一些有趣的意外收获。今天由冷知识砖家Smeeth为你带来三大“最意外”的发明。

The Invention: Microwave oven
“Opps I did it again!” Moment: Accidentally melting a chocolate in a pocket
Percy Spencer wasn't trying to find a quick way to cook food. It was the 1940s, and he was experimenting with radar - radio waves used to detect objects. But as he walked around the lab, he happen to step in front of a magnetron - a device in radar sets that makes short electron magnetic waves called microwaves. Spencer didn't think much of it until he reached into his pocket to take out a chocolate bar and found a gooey mess.
We now understand why that happened. Microwaves excite water molecules in food. This causes the molecules to vibrate and give off heat generated by internal friction. But Spencer had to find that out for himself. First he aimed a beam of microwaves at some cores of popping corn. The cores burst, with popcorn flying everywhere. Spencer then zapped in the face of one of his lab partners. All this proved that microwaves could heat food superfast and it does that from the inside. This discovery led to the first microwave oven- an enormous 750 pound gadget about a size of a refrigerator. Just imagine trying to put that on the kitchen counter.
发明：微波炉
尴尬时刻：巧克力熔化在口袋里
主人公玻西·斯宾塞当时并不是在研究怎么快速烹饪。上世纪四十年代，他正在用侦测物体的无线电雷达做实验，你在实验室正巧从一根电子磁控管前面走过：雷达正是用这根管子发射短波无线电波。他当时并未在意，后来伸手进口袋拿巧克力时，发现了一团黏糊糊的东西。（- - 我估计他伸手的一瞬间一定大叫了一声。。)
现在原因大家都应该知道了吧：微波激发了食物里的食物中的水分子，引起分子振动，使事物内部因摩擦放热，但是在当时斯宾塞得自己找到原因。首先他将微波束对准了一些爆米花核，爆米花核炸的到处乱飞，然后对准鸡蛋，结果鸡蛋在同实验前硬生生爆炸。这一切都可以证明微波可以加热食物。这一意外让地球上第一台微波炉问世！不过一开始那玩意重达340公斤,有冰箱那么大的说！把这玩意搬到灶台上是什么体验呢哈哈！

The invention: Durable rubber
“Opps I did it again!” Moment: A temper tantrum
First do yourself a favor, check out the markings on a tire from vehicles, any vehicles! You will find this name Goodyear on may of those tires. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is an American multinational tire manufacturing company founded in 1898, after the name Charles Goodyear, inventor of vulcanized rubber.
A rubber craze hit the the United States in the early 1800s. Trouble was, these objects would melt into a sticky pile of goo in heat and crack in the cold. Charles Goodyear was determined to figure out how to turn natural rubber into a material that could stand up to extreme heat and cold.
In 1839, after years of experiment, Goodyear had a new plan: add sulfur to rubber to change its properties. He went down to the local general store with a sample of this new rubber mixture, but people there laughed at what they figured was just a nutty idea about the rubber.
Goodyear got pretty mad and waved his hands as he shouted. The rubber flew out of his hands and landed on a hot stove. When he went to pry it off, he expected a sticky clump. Instead he found a substance that was hard like leather but still elastic- vulcanized rubber similar to what we use today to make everything from waterproof boots to bicycle tires. His temper accidentally found the key to a great discovery: by adding heat to his new mixture of rubber and sulfur, he created rubber that was elastic, strong, and stable.
发明：持久耐用性橡胶
尴尬时刻：一通狂怒吊炸天
首先你得下楼去看看汽车的轮胎上的字样，什么车的轮胎都可以，你会找到这样一行字Goodyear固特异（我自己车的原装轮胎就是固特异的，有车的朋友都知道固特易轮胎的特点就是坚固耐用，就是高速上有点吵啊。不得不说名字翻译的既音译又意译，又一神翻译手动点赞！）。固特异公司是美国一家轮胎跟橡胶制品的著名生产商，为了纪念我们的主人公而给公司取名“固特异”。
十九世纪初，橡胶热冲击美国。当时有个非常严重的问题，轮胎遇热就融化成一堆黏糊糊的东西，遇冷又会开裂。查尔斯固特异决心找到一种让天然橡胶既耐寒又耐热的方法。1839年，经过多年试验，固特异有了全新的想法：在橡胶中加入硫磺，改变其物理属性。他带着这种全新的橡胶制品来到当地一家杂货店，但是人们嘲笑他的这个疯狂的想法。固特异非常生气，一边喊叫一边挥舞双手，橡胶脱手掉在滚烫的火炉上。他上去撬，以为会撬出一堆黏黏的东西，不过相反，他却发现了坚硬却有弹性的东西，硫化橡胶，类似于我们今天使用的橡胶，用于制造防水靴子，自行车轮胎等等。他的暴躁脾气让这项重要的发明诞生：对橡胶与硫磺的混合物加热，使其变得强度更高且富有弹性，性能稳定。

The invention: Artificial sweetener
“Opps I did it again!” Moment: Dirty hands
Everybody likes sweet treat. But sugar can’t be too much of a good thing. That’s why a lot of good foods - from soda pop to cereal - contain artificial sweeteners. The first one was actually a tasty surprise.
In the late 1870s, Constantin Fahlberg was hard at work in his lab when a beaker of chemicals accidentally tipped over. He cleared away the mess but the harmless chemicals spilled all over his hands. Without pausing to wash, Fahlberg went on with his work. When he went home to eat, the chemical residue was still on his fingers. Sitting down at the table with his dirty hands, Fahlberg began to eat. When he bit into a piece of bread he'd picked up, it tasted strangely sweet. It wasn't the bread. It was something on his hands that got into the bread. What exactly was that? Fahlberg rushed back to the lab, and licked and tasted everything in sight. ( Not exactly the smartest idea in a lab). But the chemist found what he was looking for: the substance in a beaker that had spilled was sweet. And much sweeter than sugar. He named his discovery saccharin, the first artificial sweetener ever in human history. Dirty? Yummy!
发明：人造甜味剂
尴尬时刻：手脏怪我咯？
大家都喜欢甜的东西但是糖太多不是什么好事。所以很多食物，包括汽水，麦片里都有人造甜味剂。第一次发现人造甜味剂的过程绝对是个意外。十九世纪七十年代的某天，康斯坦丁·法堡在实验室努力工作。突然一个装化学品的烧杯里被打翻。他清理好残局，但是无害化学品弄得他手上都是。无暇洗手的他继续工作。回家吃饭的时候，手指上仍然占着化学品。他没洗手就开始吃饭，但是这位化学家发现一块面包变得非常的甜。甜味来自与他的手，但是到底是什么？
法堡急忙回实验室开始试吃所有化学品（正所谓不作死就不会死，不过这次他是非常走运，不仅没出事还发明了甜味剂），直到他找到了答案：烧杯里打翻的化学品。这玩意比糖还要甜，是世界上的第一种人造甜味剂，取名：糖精。脏不脏？好吃不就好了么哈哈！

What can we apply from these stories?
If these inventions show us anything, it's that we all make mistake - and that's not always a bad thing.
Mistakes often take us in new directions - and help us learn new things. People who say something is impossible ain't always right. A lot of things were impossible before someone figured out how to make it real, and people don't believe a lot of things could happen before they did, I mean like a hundred years ago people didn't believe in sitting at home listen to people from the other side on the planet speak real time, but now it's really happening.
A sincere advice from Smeeth right here: whatever you are doing, if you don't succeed right away, don't be afraid and give it up, just try again and again and again.

这些发明给我们的启示是：人人都会犯错，不过有时候犯错并不是坏事。错误发生会让我们找到新的方向前进，让我学到新的东西。“不可能”的事情有些是“可能”的，只要有人找到方法。比如一百年前大多数人都不会相信有一天你能实时收听世界另一边的人的讲话，但在现在是很正常的事情。
Smeeth真诚给你的一条建议：如果现在遇到瓶颈没有立即成功，不要害怕，不要放弃：接着尝试，再尝试，再尝试，再尝试。

（老夫就在不停尝试中。。）

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Smeeth over and out.