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The Award for History’s Unluckiest Screwball Scientist Goes To . . .
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I am intrigued by scientists. They’re some of the brainiest people ever born. Historically, they’ve also been some of the oddest — and unluckiest. Introducing:
#1. Hennig Brand (c. 1630 — c. 1710)
Hennig Brand was a German alchemist who earned his place on this list with the oddball theory that gold could be distilled from urine. (It’s the right colour, so duh.) In 1675, Hennig amassed 50 buckets of human urine, boiled it down into a paste and heated it with sand (don’t try this at home).
Result? Unluckily, not gold. Instead, Hennig had discovered a glow-in-the dark substance: phosphorous. Ironically, phosphorous might have been worth more per ounce than gold, but gathering sufficient raw materials was always a bit of a bummer.
#2. Karl Wilhelm Scheele (1742–1786)
Enter German-Swedish scientist K.W. Scheele (some 80 years later). Scheele found a way to manufacture phosphorous without the slosh or smell of urine, which helped Sweden become a leading manufacturer of matches. Lucky for Scheele, right? Not so much.
