What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Hindsight might be 20/20 but that won’t help you until it’s too late . . . You might be familiar with one “Eureka!” moment, but that’s not the only bathtub brainwave out there. Sometimes inventions are the result of just stumbling into a good idea—imagine trying to save people from malaria and inventing a new shade of purple instead. And sometimes ideas are better left on the drawing board, like an instant haircutter that also helpfully burns your hair off, or a trashcan that is also a food-storage container, cheese grater, and flytrap all in one. There are countless inventions that never quite “took off,” like a bicycle geared to travel at the speed of light. And then there’s the Canadian inventor who discovered how to fly without wings or a balloon. But if you’re looking for openings in the market, don’t bother building a better mousetrap—there are more mousetrap patent categories than there are successful mousetrap designs. For fans of What If? and MythBusters, What Could Possibly Go Wrong? is acollection of fascinating and amusing “did you know” stories including great ideas that never made it to market, lost technologies, absurd inventions, and more. Some of these stories are stranger than fiction, but all of them have the added benefit of being true.