那些偶然誕生的偉大發明

生活中處處存在偶然，科學研究也不例外。然而，只有擁有一雙發現的眼睛和一顆追求科學真理的心，才能看到偶然背后的不凡。歷史上有很多科學家便是如此，他們在陰差陽錯之中發現了很多造福人類的事物。

Louis Pasteur once said， \"Chance favors the prepared mind.\" That's the truth behind all these accidental inventions—the scientists were prepared. They did their science on the brink and were able to see the magic in a mistake， set-back， or coincidence.

路易·巴斯德曾經說過：“機會垂青有準備的人?！边@正是所有這些偶然發現背后蘊藏的真理，而做出這些發現的科學家們就是那有準備的人。他們的研究處于科學前沿，而且他們能夠從錯誤、挫折或巧合中發現奇跡。

No.1Penicillin1） 青霉素

Alexander Fleming didn't clean up his workstation before going on vacation one day in 1928. When he came back， Fleming noticed that there was a strange fungus2） on some of his cultures3）. Even stranger was that bacteria didn't seem to grow well near those cultures. The fungus became known as Penicillin. It became the first and is still one of the most widely used antibiotics4）.

1928年的一天，亞歷山大·弗萊明在出發去度假之前忘了清理工作臺。度假歸來后，他發現自己的一些培養基上長出了一種奇怪的霉菌。更加奇怪的是，細菌似乎不易在這些培養基附近生長。這種霉菌就是后來廣為人知的青霉素。青霉素是人類最早發現的抗生素，并且至今仍是使用最廣泛的抗生素之一。

No.2Mauve 苯胺紫

In 1856， 18-year-old chemist William Perkin was trying to come up with an artificial quinine. Instead of a malaria5） treatment， his experiments produced a thick murky6） mess. But the more Perkin looked at it， the more he saw a beautiful color in his mess. Turns out he had made the first-ever synthetic7） dye.

His dye was far better than any dyes that came from nature； the color was brighter， clearer， and didn't fade or wash out. His discovery also turned chemistry into a money-generating science—making it attractive for a whole generation of curious-minded people.

But the story is not over yet. One of the people inspired by Perkin's work was German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich， who used Perkin's dyes to pioneer immunology8） and chemotherapy9）.

1856年，18歲的藥劑師威廉·珀金正在嘗試人工合成奎寧（編注：一種抗瘧藥）。不過，他的實驗得到的卻并不是治療瘧疾的藥物，而是一團黑乎乎的黏稠物質。但珀金越看越覺得這團物質中透著一種美麗的色澤。原來，他已經制成了歷史上第一種人工合成染料。

這種染料遠勝于任何一種天然染料，用它染出的顏色更為鮮亮、清晰，而且不會褪色，水洗也不掉色。他的這一發明還使化學成為一門 “錢”途光明的科學，吸引了整整一代富有好奇心的人們投身其中。

不過，事情并未到此結束。很多人受到了珀金研究的啟發，其中便有德國細菌學家保羅·埃爾利希，他利用珀金的染料開創了免疫學和化學療法。

No.3Radioactivity 放射現象

Back in 1896， physicist Henri Becquerel was fascinated by two things： natural fluorescence10） and the newfangled11） X-ray. He ran a series of experiments to see if naturally fluorescent minerals produced X-rays after they had been left out in the sun.

There was one problem： he was doing these experiments in the winter， and there was one week with a long stretch of overcast skies. He left his equipment wrapped up together in a drawer and waited for a sunny day.

When he got back to work， Becquerel realized that the uranium12） rock he had left in the drawer had imprinted itself on a photographic plate13） without being exposed to sunlight first. There was something very special about that rock. Working with Marie and Pierre Curie， he discovered that that something was radioactivity.

1896年，物理學家亨利·貝克雷爾對兩個事物很著迷：一個是自然熒光現象，另一個就是新奇的X射線。他進行了一系列實驗，想看看有自然熒光屬性的礦物質在經過日照后能否產生X射線。

不過他遇到了一個問題：他做這些實驗時正值冬季，又趕上一周持續都是陰天。于是，他把實驗器材全部打包在一起放進了一個抽屜，等待晴天到來。

當貝克雷爾再繼續這個實驗時，他發現被他放進抽屜的鈾礦石在事先未經日光照射的條件下就在攝影用的感光板上成像了。這塊礦石有些不尋常。貝克雷爾與居里夫婦瑪麗和皮埃爾共同進行了研究，最終發現這種不尋常的現象正是放射現象。

No.4Plastic 塑料

In 1907， shellac14） was used as insulation15） in electronics. It was costing the industry a lot of money to import shellac， which was made from Southeast Asian beetles， and at home chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland thought he might turn a profit if he could produce a shellac alternative16）.

Instead his experiments produced a moldable material that could take high temperatures without distorting.

Baekeland thought his \"Bakelite\" might be used for phonograph records， but it was soon clear that the product had thousands of uses. Today plastic， which was derived from Bakelite， is used for everything from telephones to iconic movie punch lines17）.

1907年，蟲膠被用作電子工業中的絕緣材料。由于蟲膠來源于東南亞的一種甲蟲，電子工業界為了進口蟲膠所費不貲，因此，國內（編注：指美國）一位名叫利奧·亨德里克·貝克蘭的化學家就想，如果他能夠生產出蟲膠的替代品，就可能會獲得不菲的收益。

然而，他多次實驗得到的卻是一種能耐高溫而不會變形的可塑性物質。

貝克蘭原本以為他發明的這種“酚醛樹脂”可以用來制造唱片，但不久就發現這種物質其實有無數種用途。如今，從電話機到經典電影臺詞，都離不開這種從“酚醛樹脂”發展而來的塑料。

No.5Teflon18） 聚四氟乙烯

Back in the 1930s， CFCs19） were the hot new thing in the science of refrigeration. Young DuPont chemist Roy Plunkett was working to make a new kind of CFC. He had a theory that if he could get a compound called TFE to react with hydrochloric acid20）， he could produce the refrigerant21） he wanted.

So， to start his experiment Plunkett got a whole bunch of TFE gas， cooled it and pressured it in a container so it could be stored until he was ready to use it. When the time came to open the container and put the TFE and hydrochloric acid together so they could react， nothing came out of the container. The gas had disappeared.

Only it hadn't. Frustrated and angry， Plunkett took off the top of the container and shook it. Out came some fine white flakes. Luckily for everyone who's ever made an omelet22）， he was intrigued by the flakes and handed them off to other scientists at DuPont.

在20世紀30年代，氟氯烴類化合物在制冷科學中可謂熱門的新生事物。當時杜邦公司年輕的化學家羅伊·普倫基特正在嘗試合成一種新的氟氯烴。他的想法是，如果能得到一種叫做四氟乙烯的化合物，用它和鹽酸反應，他就能制成自己想要的制冷劑。

于是，在實驗準備階段，普倫基特制備了大量四氟乙烯氣體，將其冷卻并加壓儲存于一個容器中以備使用。等到他想要開啟容器把四氟乙烯和鹽酸放在一起讓二者發生反應時，卻發現容器里面空空如也。四氟乙烯氣體早已消失了。

實際上它并未消失。普倫基特在沮喪和憤怒之余打開了那個容器的蓋子，用力晃了晃。一些白色的小薄片從里面掉了出來。他對這些小薄片產生了興趣，并把它們拿給了杜邦公司的其他研究人員，這對所有做過煎蛋卷的人們可謂幸事（編注：不粘鍋上用的就是聚四氟乙烯涂料）。

1.penicillin [?pen??s?l?n] n. 【藥】青霉素（又譯盤尼西林，一種抗生素）

2.fungus [?f??ɡ?s] n. 【植】真菌；霉菌

3.culture [?k?lt??（r）] n. （微生物、細胞組織等的）培養

4.antibiotic [??ntiba???t?k] n. 【微】抗菌素，抗生素

5.malaria [m??le?ri?] n. 【醫】瘧疾

6.murky [?m??ki] adj. 污黑的；渾濁的

7.synthetic [s?n?θet?k] adj. 合成的；人造的

8.immunology [??mju?n?l?d?i] n. 免疫學

9.chemotherapy [?ki?m???θer?pi] n. 【醫】化學療法

10.fluorescence [?fl???resns] n. 熒光；熒光性

11.newfangled [?nju??f??ɡld] adj. 新奇的

12.uranium [ju?re?ni?m] n. 【化】鈾

13.plate [ple?t] n. 【攝】感光板

14.shellac [???l?k] n. 蟲膠

15.insulation [??nsju?le??n] n. 【物】絕緣

16.alternative [??l?t??n?t?v] n. 供替代的選擇

17.punch line： （故事、戲劇、笑話等中的）妙句，關鍵語

18.Teflon： 【化】聚四氟乙烯，一種不粘性涂料

19.CFC： 【化】含氟氯烴化合物

20.hydrochloric acid： 鹽酸

21.refrigerant [r??fr?d??r?nt] n. 制冷劑，冷凍劑

22.omelet [??ml?t] n. 煎蛋卷