[GET] the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century

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Charles Slack - Noble Obsession - Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century

Quote:Noble Obsession - Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century
By Charles Slack

http://www.amazon.com/Noble-Obsession-Go...rial-Ni...

Description:

Like crude oil, cotton and plutonium, rubber is on the short list of raw materials that suddenly yielded transformative commercial benefits. The turning point was the 1839 discovery of vulcanization, whereby the heated addition of sulfur permits rubber to retain its shape regardless of temperature. Without sulfur, rubber melts or cracks when exposed to heat or cold. Goodyear was the implacable, obsessed true believer who made possible "the great shock absorber of the industrial age." Slack (Blue Fairways) ably chronicles the inspirations and intrigues surrounding the miraculous substance, which in its day sparked speculation comparable to the Internet boom. Shrewd and meticulous, British rubber pioneer Hancock receives equal billing, but this is Goodyear's book. Slack is Goodyear's advocate throughout, judiciously slicing through the self-serving arguments of Goodyear's adversaries. Countless setbacks, massive debt and perpetual destitution were unable to dent Goodyear's faith in rubber by all accounts, his wife, Clarissa, was blessed with an otherworldly patience. With his "debilitating lack of business sense" and an "almost superhuman capacity to endure," only Goodyear was dogged enough to stumble upon vulcanization. Sadly, his discovery brought not wealth but lengthy legal battles to establish proper credit, which he eventually secured. Slack's portrait of Goodyear is frequently touching, but the book loses focus in its final chapters. This is generally a fascinating portrait of the transitional period in America's progress from farmland to factory and, eventually, to freeway.

From Booklist

When rubber was first brought to the Western world in the early nineteenth century, it was a mere curiosity. Even with its marvelous properties, raw rubber had one fatal flaw: it became tacky and melted in the heat of summer, and brittle enough to break in winter. It took one man, Charles Goodyear, eight years of almost unendurable hardship to solve the vexing chemical puzzle of how to stabilize rubber, and his vulcanization process changed the world, making automobiles, airplanes, and electricity possible. Like Schwartz's Last Lone Inventor [BKL Je 1 and 15 02], this is the story of an obsessed inventor and the envious, greedy men who took advantage of him. Goodyear insisted on experimenting endlessly, bringing ridicule, poverty, and the horrid conditions of debtors' prison upon himself and his family. When he finally succeeded, the vultures that stole from him brought more heartache and an entanglement of lawsuits. Slack brings Charles Goodyear back to life and redeems the man who gave up everything to give his gift to the world. -David Siegfried

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http://www.filesonic.com/file/998473621/Charles Slack - Noble Obsession - Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century [1CD (MP3s)].rar