Accidental Inventions & Discoveries Fireworks
Roughly 2,000 years ago in China, a cook was experimenting with charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter.
Three items commonly found in kitchens back then. When he found that the mixture he’d created burned.
This time, however, Coover had a light-bulb moment and observed how this substance formed incredibly strong bonds between objects with no heat applied.
This set him and his team to thinking, and with a little tinkering, sticking objects in the lab together, they realized they’d found a use for this annoying gloop.
Coover whacked a patent on the discovery and in 1958, 16 years after he’d first gotten stuck, Super Glue was being sold on shelves all around the world.
He played about a bit with his new-found fire-powder, as any self-respecting kitchen-alchemist would, and found that when compressed into a bamboo tube it exploded.
After a few more combinations the cook found that he could cause different colored explosions and different effects to create what we now know as fireworks.
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