Serendipity and the New Blue

I've blogged before about serendipity - fortunate accidents - which occurred in many important scientific discoveries: like Pavlov's classical conditioning studies or the invention of safety glass. Recently, science and serendipity once again combined to give us a new color, known as YInMn Blue.

The new color was discovered when scientists heated manganese oxide and a mixture of other chemicals to 2000 degree Fahrenheit. This happened back in 2009, and it wasn't until now that the rest of the world learned about the discovery. The article also discusses a few more examples of serendipity I hadn't heard of:

"The mighty Post-It Note only exists because a lab engineer at 3M failed to make a strong adhesive. The childhood wonder that is the Slinky was born after a naval engineer dropped a tension spring and watched it snake down the stairs. Even the tiny, crispy potato chip is only here because a chef messed up a simple fried potato."