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Post-It Notes

A sticky item that sticks better than Silly Putty is Post-it Notes. Everyone knows that Post-it notes are those little self-stick notepapers that used to only come in yellow. Just about everyone uses them and love them, but they weren’t a planned thing that someone got the idea for and then stayed up nights trying to invent. In 1970 a man named Spencer Silver was working for 3M company trying to find a strong adhesive (glue). The new adhesive Silver invented turned out to be weaker than anything they already made, instead of stronger. It would stick to things, but since it was super weak instead of super strong it could be easily lifted off. No one knew what to do with it, but the adhesive wasn’t thrown out.

About four years later another 3M scientist, Arthur Fry, was singing in his church choir. He noticed that the markers he used in his hymnal kept falling out. He remembered Silver’s weak glue and put some of it on the markers. The weak glue worked and the markers stayed in place, but they could be lifted off without ripping the hymnal pages. Ten years after Spencer Silver invented his super weak adhesive, 3M started selling the Post-it Notes nationwide in 1980. Now they are one of the most popular items for the office and people use them in all sizes and colors.

Velcro

There is another sticky invention that doesn’t use goo or glue; it’s Velcro. For many years people have walked through fields of weeds and arrived back home with prickly plants called burrs stuck to their clothing. In 1948, a Swiss engineer named George de Mestral returned from a walk and found some cockleburs stuck on his clothes. He took the burrs and examined them under a microscope. He saw that how they worked was simple and could be a good idea for a new fastener. The cocklebur is a maze of thin strands with hooks (or burrs) on the end that cling to cloth and animal fur.

It took de Mestral another eight years of experimenting to develop and perfect his invention. The final product consisted of two strips of nylon fabric, one containing thousands of small hooks and the other containing small loops. When the two strips are pressed together, they stick and form a strong bond. The invention is called a hook-and-loop fastener in general, but de Mestral named it Velcro for his company. Like the Post-it Notes, Velcro is easily separated and now comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors. Velcro is used in everything from shoes, clothes, and watchbands to space suits and spacecraft.

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