“Uncovering the Sticky Secret: The Surprising Inventor Behind Super Glue’s Revolutionary Bond!”
Ah, super glue. Along with duct tape and WD-40, it is an essential component of any toolkit, perfect for repairing everything from a chipped coffee mug to a cracked fingernail to that beloved toy the kids played a little too roughly with. Just dab on a little bit of the sticky stuff, wait a few seconds, and voila: the two parts are instantly bonded together…and to your hand…
Love it or hate it, super glue is one of the most successful adhesives in the world, accounting for more than $400 million in sales worldwide. And in addition to helping with minor home repairs, the substance has found applications in a wide variety of fields, including medicine and criminal forensic. But how did this powerful and versatile adhesive first come to be? Well, as with many inventions, superglue owes its existence to one person being in the right place at the right time. And that person was Dr. Harry Coover.
Harry Wesley Coover Jr. was born on March 6, 1919 in Newark, Delaware. His illustrious career as an inventor almost never happened, for at the age of 16 he was struck by a train while driving and fell into a coma for over a month. When he finally awoke, he remembered nothing of his life before the accident. However, Coover would go on to make a full recovery and study Chemistry at Hobart College and Cornell University, graduating with a Masters degree in 1942 and a PhD in 1944. His thesis was on a commercial synthesis process for Vitamin B6, which was adopted by the U.S. Army on the outbreak of the Second World War.
