Carl Kaufmann, Historian and Biographer

Worked for Dupont.
Married to Ruth, stepdaughter of Nina Wyman, Baekeland’s daughter
Wrote “Grand Duke, Wizard and Bohemian: A Biographical Profile of Leo H. Baekeland”

One theme that keeps nagging me: LHB was among the major game-changers in the history of science, technology and economic growth — just look at the numbers –but few recognize that. If people think of Bakelite at all, they think of pill boxes and cigarette holders. I think of hundreds of thousands of jobs in industrial and consumer products, and economic impact in the tens of billions of dollars.

Sure, LHB invented only one family of products. He did not come up with the other big ones — nylon, Dacron, Mylar, Delrin, Teflon, polyethylene, etc… But he showed them how to do it. Once he kicked over the candle in the cow barn, fire broke out everywhere.

Edward Werner Cook 

Professor of Chemistry, Tunxis Community College, Farmington, Connecticut.

For inspiration, I would suggest innovation – the ability to relate disjointed observations and see a connection – lateral thinking.  To shock my students who believe they are good observers, I tell them to put their calculator and cellar phone side by side and look at the numeric keypads. How are they different?For perspiration, compulsive behavior- going further than others in search for a solution.

My comment “Invention is simple”, doesn’t mean that it is simple to invent but that it is simple to distinguish invention from discovery – here, anyway. Invention is easy. Baekeland obtained a patent and that’s the best definition of invention. Discoveries are finding “something” existing in Nature. As such, you can only hope this is named after you for bringing its existence to the world.  A reward that can’t be banked, simply cherished. Genius is, well, worthy of considerable discussion!  I would add “innovation” as notable and critical for invention.

Dr. Burkard Wagner

Retired Research Chemist, Union Carbide/Dow Chemical Bound Brook, New Jersey

One item that should make it into the blogs is to draw attention on a visceral basis how new and novel Bakelite was, and how it could fill needs that people until then had not realized they had. The NPR podcast “How Oil Got into Everything”

{http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/19/490408060/oil-4-how-oil-got-into-everything } got into that theme a little bit from the economic point of view (replacement of something unattainably expensive by something well in reach). I think we need to recreate the sense of wonder paralleling when we had the first iPod or iPhone in our hands – something that had not even existed before, but suddenly became not only totally desirable, indispensible – and totally in reach of everybody.