One day in 1903, French scientist Edouard Benedictus climbed high to get something on a high shelf in his laboratory. He carelessly hit an empty glass, and it fell to the stone floor.
Benedictus climbed down, expecting a mess but he found a surprise. The glass hadn't broken into a million pieces! It had cracked (破裂)but it had held together.
His helper explained he had used the glass to hold liquid plastic(液态塑料). Then he'd forgotten to wash it. The liquid plastic dried, so the glass looked empty. Benedictus realized the dried plastic had kept the cracked glass from falling apart. The same week, Benedictus read a report about a car accident in the newspaper. Many people were driving fast on the roads. When accidents happened, people were often hurt by flying broken glass. Suddenly Benedictus thought of the broken glass. Could his accident be something useful?
Benedictus spent a lot of time in the lab, trying to find out the best way to make safety glass for cars. Finally, Benedictus put some liquid plastic between two pieces of glass and pressed them together. When he hit it, the "glass -and -plastic sandwich" cracked, but it didn't break into small pieces.
Benedictus succeeded. He wrote in his diary, "I produced my first piece of Triplex (the name for his invention)." Benedictus was right. His method of putting plastic between pieces of glass is still used today. And that's how an accident led to an invention that made us all safer!
