Quirky Science
Rubber comes from trees. South American tribes used it long before the world got to know about it. When Columbus witnessed Haitian natives playing ball he found himself mesmerized by the bouncing goo. The South American tribes also made "waterproof" shoes. When Western ships and their sailors brought these back home, the rubber melted on people's feet. And so did their profits. A stationer accidentally discovered the stuff made a pencil stripe disappear, by rubbing it, and suggested to call it 'India Rubber'. It took decades for someone to discover how to prevent rubber from melting in heat or stiffening in cold. Charles Goodyear found out how, by dropping a lump of natural rubber on his wife's stove. By now, chemists know that the vulcanization process links the rubber molecules like pearls on a string, making each piece of rubber one large molecule! Goodyear's invention spurs the Industrial Revolution. Rubber becomes such a wanted good it instigated a rubber boom - turning Manaus, a remote Brazilian jungle town, into one of the richest cities on earth. This Brazilian monopoly of rubber ended with the theft of 70,000 seeds, by a British traveler named Henry Wickham. It takes decades for someone to discover synthetic rubber. While one researcher was looking for something to replace the rubber in tires - she ended up discovering a material that is so tough it can stop bullets: Kevlar, which also makes a nice vest!