Charles Goodyear was a man that had been turned down a lot by investors. He had created a valve for rubber but the rubber dealers would not buy it from him because all of the rubber shipped to customers had melted because rubber back then wasn’t stable. This caused Goodyear to go on a quest to find a way to stabilize rubber. This led to his major invention
In 1843, Charles Goodyear discovered that if you removed the sulphur from rubber then heated it; it would retain its elasticity. This process called vulcanization made rubber waterproof and winter-proof and opened the door for a enormous market for rubber goods.
Some say that Goodyear tried the experiment with a similar material over an open flame, and saw that the gum elastic was charred, but on the edge of the charred areas were portions that were not charred, but were instead perfectly cured. Other sources claim that Goodyear accidentally spilled the rubber mixture on a hot stove. The key discovery was that heating natural rubber and sulfur created vulcanized rubber. This process was eventually refined to become the vulcanizing process.
Goodyear himself admitted that the discovery of the vulcanizing process was not the direct result of the scientific method, but claims that it was not accidental. Rather it was the result of application and observation. On June 24, 1844, Charles Goodyear was granted a patent for vulcanized rubber.
Goodyear died July 1, 1860, while traveling to see his dying daughter. After arriving in New York, he was informed that she had already died. He collapsed and was taken to the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City, where he died at the age of fifty-nine . He is buried in New Haven at Grove Street Cemetery.
Citations
"Charles Goodyear." Conneticut. 25 February 2005. 19 May 2008
.
"Charles Goodyear." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. 1994, 2000-2006, on Infoplease.
2000–2007 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. 19 May. 2008
.
"The Strange Story of Rubber."...