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How an Ohio State Alum invented Teflon.
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How an Ohio State Alum invented Teflon.


Dec 29, 2020, 12:24 PM

The story of the invention of Teflon by Dr. Roy Plunkett closely parallels Ohio State's entry into the CFP this year. As in, both are a happy accident, and happened by sheer dumb luck, and not by any planning or worthiness on their part.

Dr. Plunkett took a job at DuPont after getting his (several) sheepskins from Ohio State. He and his lab crew were looking for new "non-toxic" refrigerants to replace ammonia or sulfur dioxide, which were the prevalent ones at the time. They had created this molecule, tetrafluorethylene (TFE), and stored their batch of this synthetic gas in a pressurized cylinder. Later, when they tried to get the gas out, nothing would come out. They cut the cylinder apart, and found this waxy white substance instead of their gas. They noticed this stuff was VERY slippery, right off the bat. They realized the gas had polymerized into PTFE, which they later got patented under the commercial name TEFLON. It turned out to have all kinds of commercial uses, NONE OF WHICH was as a refrigerent.

The story of this years OSU footsball team is similar. They and their conference had decided not to play footsball at all this year, due to the Coronavirus. It would be far too dangerous. But, wait a minute. Other conferences didn't follow their lead. Those conferences decided they could do business anyway, and set about doing it. This led to a lot of hand wringing in the Little 10 offices, and they finally cobbled together a plan to play...just over half a season. But, alas, the plan was not good, or either the member institutions proved incapable of effectively executing it, and some member schools wound up only playing 5 games by the time the Conference Championship game rolled around. Most vexing was the fact that the only conference team with even an outside shot at the CFP, conference darling Ohio State, was one of those who did not qualify for the Conference Championship game due to not enough games being played, under a rule which the Little 10 had created prior to their half season . Oh, Deer, they said, what to do? They quickly decided that since they had made that temporary rule, they could just as easily unmake it. And so they did. But, wait. There was another problem. After having gifted Ohio State the league crown after a perfunctory beating of Northwestern, it turned out that, under another league rule, also created before the half season started, Ohio State would have a significant number of players that could miss the playoff game due to Coronavirus contact tracing guidelines. But, since Teflon was in fact invented by an OSU alum, it was quickly decided that this rule must be modified as well. All possible new numbers of days were thrown into a hat, nondesirable ones were ejected out the bottom of said hat, and then a number which provided all Ohio State players the ability to play in the game was chosen as the new guideline. All was well once again.

So, as you can easily see, both the invention of Teflon, and the inclusion of Ohio State in this years Playoffs were both happy accidents. The second one took quite a bit more engineering to make happen than the Teflon, but with perseverance, the LIttle 10 working behind the scenes with the CFP Committee was able to make it happen.

Now, stay tuned, because those same forces are still working doggedly behind the scenes, trying to concoct a scenario whereby OSU doesn't actually have to play the game with that pesky team from Clemson to advance to the Championship game. Three days left to accomplish this latest goal.....

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Re: How an Ohio State Alum invented Teflon.


Dec 29, 2020, 12:39 PM

Even a blind squirrel gets a bucknut even now and then. But I wouldn’t bet on the blind squirrel in a death match against a Tiger

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Re: How an Ohio State Alum invented Teflon.


Dec 29, 2020, 12:57 PM

I heard they were also responsible for inventing jhorts.

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Sure you don't mean Sharts?


Dec 29, 2020, 7:31 PM

:(

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