Thinking smart

During the inter-war period a German chemist was searching for what we would now describe as an antibiotic. Every evening before he left his laboratory he would set out bacteria in petri dishes so they could grow during the night ready for him to work on them the next day. But day after day he noticed that many of the bacteria were dead with mould spores on them. He concluded that the spores came from the mould growing in the corners of the laboratory. Therefore he had it thoroughly cleaned and decontaminated, so he could carry on his work.

Unfortunately he was unable to find a chemical substance that was successful in killing the bacteria. Yet, if he had been able to free himself from the orthodox explanations and expectations of his profession, he might have realised that the mould spores that killed the bacteria could have been a source of the very antibiotic he was looking for. He might then have won the Nobel