From Error to Innovation

Innovation is usually associated with planning and with a deliberate effort to solve a problem, but there are also cases where the starting point is an error or an unexpected outcome. What matters is what happens afterward; merely having an accident does not result in a useful innovation since it is necessary for someone to recognize its value and to build on it so that others can make use of it. Research into materials discovery shows that some major breakthroughs have arisen in this way, although major discoveries that happen by chance are rare (Cheetham et al., 2022).

Teflon resulted from an unexpected chemical finding during research into refrigerants, chemicals used in cooling systems, while Wilson Greatbatch’s work on an implantable pacemaker, a small device placed inside the body to help control the heartbeat, progressed after he installed the wrong electronic component and realized that the resulting signal could stimulate the heart. In each case, the accident created an opportunity, but knowledge, practical usefulness, and continued development turned that opportunity into an innovation.

Teflon: An Unexpected Material Discovery

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which later became known by the name Teflon, was discovered in 1938 as a result of research into refrigerants carried out by DuPont (Okamoto et al., 2020). Roy Plunkett had stored a gas called tetrafluoroethylene in a metal cylinder for future use. When it came time to use the cylinder, the pressure had disappeared even though its weight had not altered. Plunkett and a colleague looked into the matter and found a white, waxy solid inside. The gas had changed into a solid material through a chemical process called polymerization. The new material would not dissolve in many common liquids and resisted a wide range of chemicals (Cheetham et al., 2022).

What was important was not simply discovering an unexpected solid. Plunkett realized that the material had properties worth investigating. These properties, including the ability to withstand heat, resist chemicals, and prevent electricity from passing through easily, later supported its use in a number of technical applications (Okamoto et al., 2020). To put it simply, an unexpected result during refrigerant research became useful because it was examined rather than thrown away.

Forces Supporting Teflon

The research environment surrounding the discovery was an important technological and scientific force because it gave Plunkett the knowledge and resources needed to investigate what had happened. He was able to examine the material and recognize that its unusual properties might have value. This reinforces the broader point about chance discoveries: an unexpected result becomes important when someone has enough knowledge to recognize its value (Cheetham et al., 2022).

A second supportive force was economic value. PTFE was later used as plumber’s tape, and one trade account describes a plumbing shop that initially treated the tape as a costly item (Yates, 2012). After comparing the cost of the tape with the labor being lost through older sealing methods, the shop increased its use (Yates, 2012). I believe that this small example is useful because a product working well does not automatically mean people will adopt it; they still need a practical reason to change an established procedure.

The Implantable Cardiac Pacemaker

The case of the pacemaker is different because cardiac pacing, the use of electrical pulses to help control the heartbeat, already existed before Greatbatch’s accident. External pacemakers had already been developed, so Greatbatch’s contribution was not the invention of cardiac pacing itself. His error instead contributed to an electronic design that could be developed into a practical implantable device (Adam, 1995).

Before that, Greatbatch had learned about heart block, a condition in which the heart’s electrical signals do not travel normally from its upper chambers to its lower chambers. He believed electronics might be used to help keep the heart beating at a normal rate. Around 1956, while constructing a different circuit, he intended to use a 10-kΩ resistor, a component that helps control electrical current, but mistakenly selected a 1-MΩ resistor, which had a much higher resistance. Because of the wrong component, the circuit produced a short electrical pulse followed by a pause of about one second. Greatbatch realized that the pattern was similar to that required to stimulate a human heart (Adam, 1995).

The error was merely the starting point; afterward, Greatbatch collaborated with surgeons William Chardack and Andrew Gage, tested the devices on animals, sorted out the failures that occurred when body fluids came into contact with the electronics, and increased the reliability of the device before it could be used by patients; his team began human implantations in 1960 (Adam, 1995). At the same time, other researchers were also working on implantable pacing, and the first complete implantation of a pacemaker in a human took place in Sweden in 1958 using a device designed by Rune Elmqvist and implanted by Åke Senning (Pujol-Lopez et al., 2026).

Forces Supporting Pacemaker Development

One of the main driving forces was the medical need. Greatbatch realized that heart block could interfere with the electrical signals that control the heart, and because of his work with doctors, he had access to the clinical knowledge and setting necessary for testing and improving the device (Adam, 1995).

The technological force was just as important. Smaller transistor-based electronics, which replaced much larger earlier electronic components, made it more practical to place the device inside the body. The group still had to improve how the electronics were sealed inside the body, the wires, called leads, that carried electrical pulses to the heart, the reliability of the device, and its power source. Battery limitations later pushed Greatbatch and others toward longer-lasting lithium batteries (Adam, 1995). That technological development continues today. Modern pacemakers now include leadless systems, which place the pacemaker directly in the heart without the traditional wires connecting it to a separate device (Stark et al., 2025). Researchers are also looking at ways for pacemakers to process heart signals while using less battery power (Nagakumararaj & Baskar, 2025).

Organizational and commercial support was just as important; the relationships that Greatbatch had with doctors and engineers helped to get the project off the ground for clinical testing, and licensing the design to Medtronic gave the company the right to manufacture it and provided a path toward larger-scale production and use (Adam, 1995). More than six decades later, the development of cardiac devices has continued through the use of leadless pacing and other specialized ways of treating abnormal heart rhythms (Pujol-Lopez et al., 2026).

What These Cases Show About Innovation

The key lesson I have drawn from these cases is that an accident offers an opportunity rather than a complete innovation. Plunkett had to recognize that the unexpected material found in the cylinder was worth investigating, and Greatbatch had to realize that a circuit that was behaving incorrectly for one purpose could be useful for another; it was their existing knowledge that made the accidents useful.

Chance mattered, but preparation mattered too; in both instances, it is evident that the factors which promote innovation can change over time; scientific knowledge helped researchers understand why Teflon was useful, while its economic usefulness helped support its later adoption. In a similar way, the pacemaker depended on medical need and on the electronics available at the time, as well as requiring clinical collaboration, organizational support, and continuous engineering improvements.

Even if a new tool or technique proves effective, that does not mean it will automatically take the place of the one currently in use; someone still has to demonstrate that it has value and give people a practical reason to change the way they are currently working. Although innovation can at times begin suddenly, making it useful is usually a far more careful process.

Conclusion

The cases of Teflon and Greatbatch’s implantable pacemaker demonstrate that errors and unexpected outcomes can become the starting points for significant innovations. In both cases, technical knowledge helped someone recognize the value of an unexpected result, while continued development and practical usefulness turned that result into something others could use. The accident is the memorable part of each story, but the work that followed is what made each innovation game-changing.

References

Adam, J. A. (1995). Wilson Greatbatch. IEEE Spectrum, 32(3), 56–61. https://doi.org/10.1109/6.367974

Cheetham, A. K., Seshadri, R., & Wudl, F. (2022). Chemical synthesis and materials discovery. Nature Synthesis, 1(7), 514–520. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-022-00096-3

Nagakumararaj, S., & Baskar, S. (2025). Dynamic energy consumption using multiobjective genetic algorithm based FFT for implantable cardiac pacemakers. Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, 122(3), Article 40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-025-02342-y

Okamoto, Y., Chiang, H.-C., Fang, M., Galizia, M., Merkel, T., Yavari, M., Nguyen, H., & Lin, H. (2020). Perfluorodioxolane polymers for gas separation membrane applications. Membranes, 10(12), Article 394. https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes10120394

Pujol-Lopez, M., Tung, R., & Mont, L. (2026). Innovations in cardiac device therapy in the era of advanced rhythm management: Implantable defibrillators and conduction system pacing. Heart. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2025-325834

Stark, C., Bhat, P., Rytkin, E., & Efimov, I. R. (2025). Temporary pacing for electric cardiac stimulation and neuromodulatory cardiovascular therapy. Cardiovascular Engineering and Technology, 16(3), 363–375. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13239-025-00780-3

Yates, D. (2012). Plumber’s tape and Dr. Roy Plunkett. Contractor, 59(8), 26.