Imagine creating something that does not go as planned. Would you throw it away, or would you keep looking for another use? In 1968, Spencer Silver was working as a scientist at the American company 3M. He was studying adhesives—the materials that make glue sticky. His team wanted to develop a new, strong glue that could hold things firmly together. However, Silver’s experiment produced the opposite result. His new adhesive was weak. It stuck lightly to a surface, but it could also be removed easily. Even more surprisingly, it remained sticky after it was removed, so a person could use it again and again. This was not the strong glue that Silver wanted to create, but he did not throw it away. He believed that it could be useful. There was just one problem: he had no idea what to…