begins… One day while conducting his experiments, in the lab, Benedictus ascended on ladder to acquire something from a high shelf. As a
result of a clumsy mistake he knocked over a
beaker. As it fell to the ground he heard it shatter.
To his shock, when he descended from the ladder the beaker was in its original contour (all
stuck together). After several experiments Benedictus found some solutions for his unanswered
questions, he found that the flask had recently
held a solution of cellulose nitrate, a liquid plastic
(that had evaporated) and
as a result it deposited a
thin layer of plastic on the
flask’s interior.
This was all during the
1900s. At this (same) time a
new and dangerous hobby
was arising automobile racing. Benedictus was constantly coming across news
articles that portrayed images of injured drivers. Most
of their injuries came about as a result of broken
glass. It instantly raced to his head that this “unshattered” glass could actually save lives. Benedictus raced to his lab and began continuous experimentation for a total duration of twenty-four
hours. He kept coating glass with thin layers of
plastic and then attempting to smash it. By the
end of this day Benedictus had produced his
first piece of Triplex (safety glass) what he believed was “full of promise for the future”.
By the early 1900s manufacturing hadn’t
yet reached its peak and mass production was
very expensive. When Benedictus approached
automobile manufacturers to pitch them his idea
of safety glass, they rejected his offer. Manufac-
FACT
10% of all human
beings ever born
are alive at this
very
turers were already trying
as hard as they could to reduce their costs so that automobiles could be more affordable. The cost of producing the safety glass
would not help them achieve their objective. It
wasn’t till the outbreak of World War 1 that Benedictus found the first large-scale implementation
to be used as lenses for gas masks. Manufactures found it moderately inexpensive and simple
to produce these small lenses. The safety glass
provided military personal with additional
safety. After safety glass
proved successful automobile manufacturers
saw it as an expense
worth taking and began
implementing safety
glass in car windshields.
Regarding scientific thinking, we look
back on this article and
think how different our lives could have been if
this “accident” hadn’t occurred…how long would
it have taken to come up with this invention?
What method of experimentation would have
been used? Additionally, we reflect on the past at
the time when the safety glass was “invented”
and how it wasn’t recognized by automakers, at
the time. The prevalent attitude (then) was that
driving safety was largely in the hands of the
driver, not the manufacturer. Safety measures
were incorporated into automobile design to prevent an accident but not to minimize injury if an
accident occurred. A statement that would not
be made in the current times we live in due to
negative effects the manufacturer would receive.
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