Wallace Carothers
Wallace Carothers was a chemist who worked at Dupont Chemical Company. Carothers's work and invention is the encapsulation of what science means. Wallace Carothers is attributed with the incidental discovery of nylon through his work with polymers. He also laid the groundwork for another one of the most widely used synthetic polymer-- neoprene.
Early Life and Education
Wallace Hume Carothers was born on April 27, 1896 in Burlington Iowa. He was the oldest of four siblings. After high school, Carothers studied accounting at Capital City Commercial College in Iowa then went on Tarkio College in Missouri to study science and teach accounting. At Tarkio College in Missouri, he became head of the chemistry department. Following this, he got his Master's degree from the University of Illinois.
Carothers held a teaching position at the University of South Dakota and began working on organic chemistry. Carothers then taught at Harvard after getting his PhD from the University of Illinois so he could do research.
Work at Dupont
In 1928, Carothers joined Dupont Chemical Company working in a lab explicitly created for basic research. More specifically, research focused on developing artificial materials. His first development was neoprene, a synthetic rubber. Following this discovery, in 1934, Carothers and his group discovered a nylon. Carothers introduced knowledge of natural polymers to the entire world. Nylon and neoprene were both two of the most important polymers of the 20th century.
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References
Chemical Heritage Foundation PBS People and Discoveries