It should be noted that nitrocellulose wasn't a new discovery. It had been made in 1832, but Schönbein's discovery was more practical and became widely adopted, though guncotton itself was still dangerous to manufacture until more reliable methods came along.

It was great for the advent of smokeless gun powders, but definitely caused a lot of headaches for film archivists over the years. I worked with it a bunch in lateral flow immune protein chemistry due to its capillary action, but not sure how many other applications it has outside that niche.

I hate it when that happens

That must have been a real "oh snap" moment.

Tons of important scientific discoveries actually happened accidentally. Even the creation of microwaves.

"While testing a new vacuum tube called a magnetron, he discovered that a chocolate bar in his pocket had melted from the heat. He decided to try another experiment by placing some popcorn kernels near the magnetron, and he watched as the kernels popped into fluffy popcorns."

https://celcook.ca/the-accidental-invention-of-the-microwave/