The Invention of Safety Glass

In 1903, French chemist Édouard Bénédictus was working in his Paris laboratory when he slipped up. While climbing a ladder, he accidentally knocked a glass flask off a high shelf. He braced himself for the crash, expecting the beaker to shatter into a million jagged shards.

The glass definitely broke, but to his utter shock, it didn’t shatter. The cracked pieces stayed perfectly glued together. His assistant explained that the flask had previously held liquid plastic. The liquid had evaporated, leaving an incredibly tough, invisible film clinging to the inside.

Later that week, Bénédictus read a newspaper story about early automobile crashes and the terrible injuries caused by flying windshields. Remembering his unbreakable flask, he sprinted back to the lab. He began sandwiching his plastic film between sheets of glass, inventing a life-saving barrier.