Are all scientific discoveries as result of research?

Not all scientific discoveries are the result of research. There are a number of scientific discoveries that have been made through serendipity or by accident. For example, the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming was the result of a mold contaminating a petri dish of bacteria that he was studying. The following is a list of some additional scientific discoveries that were made by accident:

- The discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895.

- The discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel in 1896.

- The discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson in 1897.

- The discovery of the neutron by James Chadwick in 1932.

- The discovery of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953.

While many of the scientific discoveries that we know about today have come through scientific research conducted over numerous years, there are many that were made through chance events and observations that were not part of any research-based experiments.