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It was
quite a year for
this 'mother of invention'
By Paul Niemann
[MAY
8, 2003]
The year was 1965. A half
gallon of milk cost just 53 cents, delivered to your front door.
Miniskirts were in fashion, Sonny and Cher's "I Got You, Babe" was a
hit song, and "Lassie" was one of the most popular shows on TV. The
Pillsbury Doughboy made his debut that year, and baseball was played
inside the Houston Astrodome for the first time -- on natural grass.
The Vietnam War continued, as did the war protests, and Martin
Luther King Jr. led marches to protest unfair voter-registration
rules of the day. Lyndon Johnson was president.
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The year 1965 was also the year that
your humble columnist was born. More importantly, though, 1965 was
the year that a chemical engineer named Stephanie Kwolek
accidentally invented what became known as KevlarŪ.
Working for DuPont in 1965, Ms.
Kwolek's boss had asked her to develop some new synthetic polymers.
Each day she would mix different combinations of liquid crystals in
an attempt to produce new types of fibers. One day something
different happened, when she came up with a solution that was cloudy
like thick milk, unlike other liquid crystals that are transparent
and clear.
When she asked the man in charge of
spinning the polymers to run it through the spinneret, which is used
to make synthetic fibers, he initially refused because he thought
the new solution would plug up the device. After three days of
trying to convince him to test it, he finally relented. The brand
new "aramid" polymer that she had just invented was a stiff,
lightweight material that was five times stronger than steel, and
when she baked it, it became even stiffer. The resulting product,
Kevlar, is used in bulletproof vests, which have saved the lives of
more than 2,000 police officers since the material was introduced
for sale six years later.
Stephanie Kwolek's career as a chemical
engineer almost came about by accident, too, according to the
Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian Institution. "I did not start out
to be a chemist. As a child, I thought that I might be a fashion
designer," Stephanie recalls.
[to top of
second column in this article]
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Stephanie's father had helped her
develop an interest in science, but it was her mother who fueled her
passion for fashion. As a little girl, Stephanie spent a lot of time
sewing and drawing various types of clothing. After college, she
went to work for DuPont with plans to stay only until she could
raise enough money to go to medical school. It was by pure
coincidence that the group she joined at DuPont was the textile lab,
which was devoted to working with textiles and fibers.
Today, in addition to being used in
bulletproof vests, Kevlar is used to make items as diverse as crash
helmets, skis and radial tires, and it's also strong enough that
it's used in aerospace applications.
For her work, Kwolek has been honored
by numerous police organizations nationwide, and in 1995 she became
only the fourth woman to be elected to the National Inventors Hall
of Fame. In 1999 she won the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement
Award. Kwolek isn't a one-hit wonder, though, as her name appears on
16 additional patents issued between 1961 and 1986.
Today she
consults with DuPont and travels the world speaking to other
scientists about her work. She also mentors young students in
science, especially young women.
[Paul
Niemann]
Paul Niemann is a contributing author to
Inventors' Digest magazine, and he also runs
MarketLaunchers.com, helping people in the marketing of their
new product ideas. He can be reached at
niemann7@aol.com.
Last week's
column in LDN:
"Would Mark Twain
have preferred to be an inventor rather than a writer?"
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