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During his 37-year career with B.F. Goodrich Co., Semon invented vinyl, made from polyvinyl chloride. "People then thought of PVC as worthless," Semon once said. "They'd throw it in the trash." But, by heating PVC in a solvent, Semon produced vinyl, which was flexible, elastic, waterproof, fire resistant, and did not conduct electricity. It's now the second most-used plastic in the world, with some 44 billion pounds produced each year. Semon was awarded 116 patents by the time he retired in 1963, but strangely he isn't known as much for vinyl as another everyday product: bubble gum. "Bubble gum came about as I was asked to create whatever I could from rubber," he said in 1995. "It looked just like ordinary gum, except that it would blow these great big bubbles. Unfortunately, B.F. Goodrich thought that was a defect and that nobody would buy it." He proved them wrong. Semon, who was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1995, died May 26 in Ohio at age 100.
From This is True for 23 May 1999
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