Evening star., 1941-01-01
Research Unveiled
Many New Triumphs
In Last Year
NyIon, Artificial Rubber,
Moving Found Among
Current Miracles
BY Cambridge Associates.

Back to the days before Don
Ameche invented the telephone
(source: Groucho Marx, before Paul
Mum even began to pasteurize milk,
the public was content with one
industrial miracle generation. Now,
new miracles from industrial labora-
tories are expected daily as mat
ter of course. And almost as mat
ter of course they are produced.
Looking over the developments OF
the past year, the chemical indus
tryS contributions are, as always
in the recent records, the most nu-
merous and far reaching. Despite
other events Of certain historical
importance. many women will re-
member 1910 as the year that Ny
lon hosiery came on the market.
Presentation of this product, born OF
coal. air, water, limestone and the
wizardry of Du Pont chemists, was
a neWsWorthy event awaited with
almost as many baited breaths as
the unveiling of Henry Ford's model
A u years ago.
First stocks were an immediate
sell-out, with but limited number of
pairs to each eager customer. First
reports from actual users were con-
flicting; some were adverse, largely
because original expectations had
been impossibly high. Repeat sales.
however, proved public acceptance
of this new synthetic fibre and with
the new plant facilities under con-
struction total production is expect
ed to reach in two years the volume
which it took rayon II years to at
tain.
New Fields TO Conquer.
The uses of these new products
such as Nylon and Vinyon have only
been slightly explored. Nylon is al
ready wildly used for toothbrush
bristles. Vinyon is invading the
hosiery field, but its big market is
expected to be in the field of indus
try for filters and similar uses. In
Vulnerable adaptations of products
of this type will bring it into COM
petition with leather, cotton and
silk.
Synthetic rubber is stepping into
the picture farther and faster as
war creates uneaSinesS about main
tanning shipments Of the natural
product. For many industrial uses
the "ersatz" product is superior to
the natural one. Authorities be-
lieve it is easily possible that before
long an acre of manufacturing plant
will be producing as much rubber
in two hours as an acre of rubbe!
plantation can produce in five years.
Other new products originating
from the test tubes of our chemists
include: A new paint which kills
germs. new plastic capable Of
Withstanding high temperatures.
new plastics to replace steel for
some purposes, as for car bodies.
/ Of course the chemical industry is
in the vanguard of the drive to
rearm; its efforts have already re-
suited in a new and more powerful
explosive and new synthetic
method of making toluol, an in
/ gredient of INT.
, Moving Sound" for Movies.
The moving picture art came for
ward with a sound reproduction
/ technique in 1910 that has been
hailed as the greatest change since
/ the movies first talked. Used in
Walt Disney's film, Fantasia" this
new moving sound" idea utilizes
speakers hidden all over the theater
to give a life-like perspective to
/ sound
( Behind the scenes, heavy industry
/ has scored variously in the eternal
search for better. cheaper products
Steel alloys of new lightnesS.
strength, and resistance to rust
and stains are making a greater
and greater place for themselves in
all branches of manufacture. New
testing and grading methods, uti-
lizing the X-ray and the photo
electric cell have come into wider
use in the past year. Frequency
modulation radio is passing from
the experimental stage and, for the
first time in history, the dramatic
moments of an American political
campaign were broadcast by tele-
vision.
Science marches on-at the
double quick. In 1910 the first
American company began manu-
facture of bomb-proof shelters You