arry Coover's discovery of cyanoacrylates, a class of chemicals with
powerful adhesive properties, opened the door to a wide range of industrial,
consumer, and medical applications, most notably as superglue. While
working as a research chemist at Eastman Kodak during world war II,
Coover worked with cyanocrylates in an effort to produce an optically
clear plastic to use for precision gunsights. These chemicals proved
to be unsuited to this particular task, but Coover recognized their
potential applications as an adhesive.