Robert Gore, the chemical engineer who unwittingly invented Gore-Tex, has died. He was trying to make more efficient use of Teflon by stretching it. “Everything I seemed to do worked worse than what we were already doing,” he said. “So I decided to give one of these rods a huge stretch, fast — a jerk. I gave it a huge jerk and it stretched 1,000 percent. I was stunned.”
That turned out to be a fortune-making discovery. The microporous material, which his company patented and trademarked as Gore-Tex, had exceptional qualities and myriad uses.
Further experiments led him to create the breathable, waterproof material used in numerous applications, including ski jackets, medical implants, industrial filters, packaging for biologic drugs, fuel cells for electric vehicles, uniforms for emergency responders, spacesuits, and guitar strings.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/science/robert-gore-dead.html