Vulcanisations Process
In the old days rubber could not be used for making tyres because it would change shape with temperature. Charles Goodyear had been trying to find ways to "cure" it so that it would not become brittle in winters and sticky in summers, but his experiments were not leading to any solution. He had tried mixing it with all kinds of things, such as ink, black pepper, cheese, etc.
The breakthrough came because of Goodyear's clumsiness. One day when he went to buy groceries, he accidentally dropped a piece of rubber on a stove, kept in the shop to keep the place warm. It was an embarrassing thing to happen, but Goodyear was more occupied by what happened to the rubber piece. Instead of melting, he noticed, it hardened. And it also remained pliable.
He picked up the rubber piece and brought to his lab. By experimenting on it, he found that it contained traces of sulphur. It was the sulphur, combined with heat, that had done the trick.
Working on this accidental discovery, Goodyear perfected the process, and named it "vulcanisation", after the Roman God of fire, Vulcan.
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