Group items tagged

Fry then suggested to Nicholson and Silver that they were using the adhesive backwards.  Instead of sticking the adhesive to the bulletin board, they should “put it on a piece of paper and then we can stick it to anything.”

This initially proved easier said than done, in terms of practical application.  It was easy enough to get the adhesive on the paper, but the early prototypes had the problem that the adhesive would often detach from the paper and stay on the object the paper was stuck to, or, at least, leave some of the adhesive behind in this way.  There was no such problem with the bulletin boards Silver had made because he had specifically made them so that the adhesive would bond better with the board than the paper. Two other 3M employees now entered the scene, Roger Merrill and Henry Courtney.  The two were tasked with coming up with a coating that could be put on the paper to make the adhesive stay bonded to it and not be left behind on whatever the paper was stuck to when it was removed, a task at which they were ultimately successful at achieving. Interestingly, because management at 3M still didn’t think the product would be commercially successful, they more or less shelved it for three years, even though the Post-It notes were extremely popular internally at 3M labs during that span.    Finally, in 1977, 3M began running test sale runs of the Post-It note, then called “Press ‘n Peel”, in a certain areas in four different cities to see if people would buy and use the product.  It turned out, no one much did, which confirmed in the minds of the executives that it wasn’t a good commercial product.

This time, the re-order rate went from almost nothing, in the previous attempt, to 90% of the people and businesses that had received the free samples.  For reference, this was double the best initial rate 3M had ever seen for any other product they’d introduced.  Two years later, the Post-It note was released throughout the United States.

So after 5 years of constant rejection for the adhesive and another seven years in development and initial rejection, Post-It notes were finally a hit and have since become a mainstay in offices the world over, today being one of the top five best selling office supply products in the world.

Another obstacle in the initial launch of Post-It notes was that, because it was a completely new type of product, it required the construction of new machinery to mass produce the Post-It note pads, which was initially prohibitively expensive for a product seen by many within 3M as destined for commercial failure.

Post-It notes received an upgrade in 2003 when 3M launched a new version of the Post-It note with super sticky glue that has better adhesion to vertical surfaces.

 Post-It notes are occasionally used in art-work.  One such famous example was in 2008 when Shay Hovell used 12,000 Post-It notes to create a replica of the Mona Lisa.  The most expensive Post-It note art piece was done by R.B. Kitaj and sold for £640 (about $1000) in 2000.

received

Bachelor of Science from Hobart College before earning his Master of Science and Ph. D. from Cornell University.

Eastman Kodak from 1944–1973

Vice President of the company from 1973-1984.

1942, while searching for materials to make clear plastic gun sights, Coover and his team at Eastman Kodak first worked with cyanoacrylates, rejecting them as too sticky.

Nine years later,

1958, the adhesive, marketed by Kodak as Super Glue, was introduced for sale.

overseeing Kodak chemists investigating heat-resistant polymers for jet canopies when cyanoacrylates were once again tested and proved too sticky.

cyanoacrylate is an acrylic resin which rapidly polymerises in the presence of water (specifically hydroxide ions), forming long, strong chains, joining the bonded surfaces together.

Cyanoacrylate is used as a forensic tool to capture latent fingerprints on non-porous surfaces like glass, plastic, etc.

Chemical structure of methyl cyanoacrylate, the basis of Superglue

Coover was also the first to recognize and patent cyanoacrylates as a tissue adhesive.

Vietnam War to temporarily patch the internal organs of injured soldiers until conventional surgery could be performed,

460 patents, and Super Glue was just one of his many discoveries

Implemented at Kodak, programmed innovation resulted in the introduction of 320 new products and sales growth from $1.8 billion to $2.5 billion.

Coover received the Southern Chemist Man of the Year Award for his outstanding accomplishments in individual innovation and creativity.

2004,

inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame.

He also held the

He also held the

National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership

Chemical Research Management,

Maurice Holland Award

medalist for the Industrial Research Institute

natural causes

Kingsport, Tennessee

Delaware

After graduating from Reed College with a degree in physics in 1953, Russell took a job with General Electric in the Hanford Nuclear Plant doing experimental work.

Battelle took over the Hanford Laboratories in 1965 and gave Russell a lab and time to work on some of his imaginings, including the crazy idea that sound could be converted to strings of numbers and reproduced using light.

He had come up with a way of using a laser to read digital bits of information, which later became the most widely-used way to read just about everything. By using a light to read the data, the record would never wear out. The data are encoded as microscopic pit marks on the surface of the disk, which, when spun, can be read to reproduce high-quality sound.

The original goal was to record television shows, not music, because adding visuals would be more difficult. If television couldn't be recorded digitally, Russell and his backers decided they would at least know where they stood. In 1973, they were successful, but they were ahead of their time. Amazingly, no one wanted to buy a license for the precursor to the DVD.

By 1991, about 25 years after he came up with the idea, CDs were outselling their predecessors, audio tapes, in record stores nationwide.

But all he can do is shrug ruefully, "I didn't invent the CD, I invented the technology.”

Today, Russell has more than 50 patents to his name. He continues his work from the basement of his Bellevue home where he and Barbara have lived for more than a decade.

The first devices were called Optical Digital Data Storage –the term CD is actually a trademark of Philips. The original storage units were made of glass plates, about the size of large index cards, which could be read as a laser scanned over them.

Now, sales of the mirror-like plastic discs are in the billions every year, but the man behind it all has gotten neither fame nor riches. The company that held the patents sold the rights for a song. Now, Russell has a few artifacts from the early days, a scrapbook full of pictures, and a handful of plaques and trophies to show for all his

Creating false eyelashes, the eyebrow pencil, lip gloss, and pancake make up, Factor created a whole new language for screen cosmetics.

He died on 30 August 1938 at the age of 59.

His son Frank took the name Max Factor JR and continued to be involved with the company until the 1970s, seeing the company create make up shades for US Marines during the second world war, offer male products such as shampoo and aftershave and launch its first female fragrance in 1955.

In the 1970s, the third generation of Factors rose to senior positions but wanted to focus on their own interests, leading the firm to first be bought by Revlon and then Proctor & Gamble in 1991.

Credited as the father of modern make up

It was in 1927 that Max Factor introduced his first cosmetics to be sold to non-theatrical consumers.

Another key development in the make up world was the invention of waterproof mascara for the film 'Mare Nostrum' in 1926.

By the 1920s, Max's sons were heavily involved in the business with Davis working as general manager and Frank helping his father to develop new products.

Thus, the motion picture industry, then beginning in Hollywood, beckoned. He settled in Los Angeles with his family in 1909 and got a job with the Pantages Theatre.

By 1914, he was perfecting make up for the movies.

He formed flexible greasepaint, which was the first make up created for film.