Popular Science

History’s greatest innovators stand on the shoulders of those who have come before. Using discoveries that were hard-won or accidentally uncovered, inventors have changed the way we live by working passionately to connect the dots and make sense of the world around us.

In the 1930s, Wallace Carothers, a chemist for the DuPont chemical company, invented a polymer that could be stretched out into strong fibers, like silk. This plastic became known as nylon.