this video is sponsored by masterworks vulcanized rubber is a product so universally used that we
hardly ever think about it yet without it our modern world would hardly be the same
surgeons use it to protect their patients from germs hikers used to stay dry in the rain cars
needed to move forward airplanes needed to land but it's ironic that while today it's
used in classrooms and offices the world over to erase mistakes its very existence came completely
by accident this is charles goodyear you may recognize his name from places like here
or here and no he's not actually the founder of goodyear tire but without his critical discovery
in 1839 rubber as we know today would never have existed and you know without rubber there'd be no
tires so for the name of a tire company pretty good choice goodyear also wasn't the one who
actually discovered rubber we'll dive into that in a second but goodyear is responsible
for discovering the recipe for making rubber more durable allowing it to function in a whole bunch
of different ways the craziest part is that he did it completely by accident working at
the eagle india rubber company here in woburn massachusetts but that's not where this story
starts the story actually starts here in a region known as mesoamerica around 3000 years
before goodyear ever entered the picture before we get into it if you're enjoying this video please
hit that like button it not only helps the channel a ton it also lets us know exactly what kind of
videos you want to see more of so in the region stretching between central mexico all the way
down to honduras and nicaragua tribes like the aztecs olmecs and mayans discovered a harmonious
relationship between two very particular plants the ipamea alba also known as morning glory and
the castilla elastica tree the castilla sap had some very peculiar qualities it was thick sticky
and stretchy even though it was liquid it sort of behaved like a solid what we didn't know was that
the sap contained high concentrations of latex proteins starch and alkaloids that gave it its
high elasticity meaning that you could stretch it or compress it and it would return to its original
shape and high tensile strength meaning it didn't rip tear or break apart very easily while these
ancient tribes may not have known the deeper science behind the miracle sap they discovered
that by mixing different ratios of christian sap and morning glory juice they could exploit
different properties to fit different applications it turns out the morning glory plant which
grows naturally near castilla trees contains elements that kick off critical chemical changes
that transform the sap from sticky brittle latex into stretchy elastic unprocessed castilla sap was
still used to join different materials together in early form of glue and primitive rubber joists
with shock absorbing properties adding in more morning glory juice stabilized the sap which
was great for footwear spanish conquistadors described the aztecs as wearing durable treaded
sandals a few millennia before nike the substance was water resistant and could be lathered onto
hats and clothing to create a protective barrier most famously these early tribes made the world's
first rubber balls but these weren't like today's soccer balls they weighed between 6 and 10 pounds
and players use their hips instead of their feet also sometimes the losers were beheaded but that's
neither here nor there archaeologists believe that these tribes built entire economies around the
substance which they called couchsuck cow truck let's go with cow chuck the earliest form of what
would eventually become rubber the mesoamerican tribes actually had a pretty good thing going
that is until those pesky europeans showed up and had to ruin everything
one of the earliest european missionaries to write about rubber was friar juan de torquemada in 1615.
about a century later this guy charles murray de la condemin is credited as being the first
person to introduce rubber to europe but it wasn't exactly off to a booming success
early scientists and entrepreneurs certainly saw potential in this miracle material that was at
the time renamed gum elastic it was exceptionally flexible resistant to many corrosive substances
and it could serve as an excellent electrical insulator all great things in the industrializing
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companies that support this show okay time for a mini science lesson but trust me this will be
fun so stick with us so the thing that makes rubber so special is that it has a particular
type of molecule called a polymer basically a very long molecule made up of these really long chains
of repeating materials these interlocking chains are incredibly strong much stronger than most
other organic substances so even though the natural sap is liquid at room temperature those
strong interlocking forces make it behave like a solid and mixing in different stabilizers just
like the aztecs did with the morning glory juice can help solidify all those great qualities one
major breakthrough came when english chemist joseph priestly noticed that a piece of the
material was extremely good at rubbing off pencil marks on paper we'll never know exactly what mr
priestley was trying to cover up but we can thank him for the fact that today we call it rubber
instead of couch chuck get it rubber for rubbing off pencil lid so that's where rubber gets its
name from that's pretty cool but the application of natural rubber was somewhat limited while it
did have many incredible qualities it also had a certain number of drawbacks for one thing
natural rubber doesn't like extreme changes in temperature when it gets warm like if it were
spinning really fast against a rough paved road like a tire it would get extremely sticky and
kind of fall apart on the flip side if natural rubber gets really cold it becomes more brittle
and prone to shattering like the evil terminator and terminator 2. in hopes of solving this rubber
problem chemist the world over set out to find a solution to help this miracle product
reach its full potential and her self-taught american chemist our boy charles goodyear around
1831 goodreads began running his own experiments with gum elastic a quest that would take him over
five years across multiple states at one point he was even arrested by creditors for not paying
back his debts on his investments and was sent to prison but his persistence never failed even in
jail goodyear was mixing different materials with rubber he tried magnesium turpentine nitric acid
lead oxide at one point he even nearly suffocated himself with noxious gas and
every time he thought he finally cracked the nut before long the substance would become sticky
again by 1839 a flustered and exacerbated goodyear ended up in the eagle india rubber company
where he continued to pursue his obsession it was here that one fateful night goodyear decided
to combine his natural rubber with sulfur during the experiment goodyear accidentally dropped his
mixture into a hot frying pan amazingly though the mixture didn't melt instead it appeared to harden
as he increased the heat the rubber got even harder inspired by the roman god vulcan
god of fire and metallurgy goodyear dubbed this breakthrough process vulcanization this was the
accident that would change the world forever it was the combination of sulfur and heat that made
all the difference those two factors allowed the polymer rubber to become what's known
as a cross-linked polymer basically the sulfur acts like a little bridgeway between two latex
chains so now instead of having individual chains you have chains starting to link together what
this means is that all those incredible properties that rubber already had got even better and all
those drawbacks virtually disappeared now you had rubber that was significantly stronger while
also retaining its elasticity and it's those two properties that have made vulcanized rubber one of
the most significant discoveries of all time what other material would work as a plane's landing
gear it needs to be insanely strong to support the weight of the plane sturdy enough not to melt
with all that friction yet still have elasticity to absorb the shock of that very heavy aircraft
landing on the ground without shattering to a million pieces there's only one element that
could possibly do the job and that's vulcanized rubber over 50 years after goodyear stumbled upon
this breakthrough discovery john dunlap dunlop tires invented the pneumatic tire
or diddy maybe that could be a future tuba davinci episode let us know in the comments below so in
the case of car tires we did have wooden tires before that but the problem with wood is it wears
really quickly when hitting that ground over and over again to fix this people would put a steel
belt around the wooden tire to help with the wear but you can imagine how rough and incredibly
uncomfortable those early tires were plus you were limited to about 10 or 15 miles an hour
there's nowhere going 80 miles an hour on such a wheel so that's where vulcanized rubber completely
transformed transportation as we know it we wouldn't have vehicles and highways and aircraft
and landing and all this came from vulcanized rubber and that doesn't even get into things like
shoes how amazing are those they last for years give you really good grip on the road and are just
so durable we take them for granted goodyear's story can serve as inspiration to us all
that often the most influential ideas don't come from a large research lab or require
huge research grants sometimes all it takes is a termination and perhaps even a little bit of fate
but before we go we have just enough time for the comment of the week first up from cj this is on
our aptera video we talked about the apterra ev he says any engineer will tell you that scaling down
is almost always a win-win i agree with you good point and the second one comes from kevin hoffman
and this is on our crescent dune thermal solar plant video he says if they learned anything
about it at all it's a success and i agree with that's a really good point it actually kind of
gets down to the heart of this video as well thank you so much we'll see you guys next week