Question: how meany chemical reactions have gone rong

Martin Wieczysty answered on 6 Mar 2015:

Good question.
I have had many many MANY reactions that have gone wrong.
Lucky these were not a big bang or anything dangerous. In fact we spend a lot of time planning each reaction to make sure it is safe, and if something went dangerously wrong we have something in place (like a fire extinguisher) to keep us safe.
As a research scientist, many reactions do not go the way you expected them to, and it is important to understand what happened and why. During my research projects at University, I made something very interesting by accident, and this led to new discoveries.
If you look throughout history you will find that significant discoveries have been made purely by mistake such as Alexander Flemming who discovered penicillin almost purely by accident. This has saved the lives of millions of people, and lead to major breakthroughs in medical research. However it took a great scientist to say “Hey look what this mold did!”.