The Rules to Break, 2nd Edition

RULE TO BREAK

“Mistakes are a bad thing”

Back in the 1920s, lots of medical people were studying influenza. My great-grandfather was one of them. He, like many others, was frustrated that the culture dishes he was using kept getting contaminated with a mould that destroyed the bacteria around it. Annoyed that he couldn’t get the cultures to develop properly, he threw the dishes away and started again. This happened frequently, and like many other doctors he kept having to throw away these faulty cultures. One scientist, however, Alexander Fleming, realised that a mould that destroyed bacteria wasn’t actually a frustrating mistake, but a valuable discovery. He abandoned his original study, and started developing the mould instead. He called ...