Plastic is a word that originally meant “pliable and easily shaped.” It only recently became a name for a category of materials called polymers. The word polymer means “of many parts,” and polymers are made of long chains of molecules. Polymers abound in nature. Cellulose, the material that makes up the cell walls of plants, is a very common natural polymer.
Over the last century and a half humans have learned how to make synthetic polymers, sometimes using natural substances like cellulose, but more often using the plentiful carbon atoms provided by petroleum and other fossil fuels. Synthetic polymers are made up of long chains of atoms, arranged in repeating units, often much longer than those found in nature. It is the length of these chains, and the patterns in which they are arrayed, that make polymers strong, lightweight, and flexible. In other words, it’s what makes them so plastic.
These properties make synthetic polymers exceptionally useful, and since we learned how to create and manipulate them, polymers have become an essential part of our lives. Especially over the last 50 years plastics have saturated our world and changed the way that we live.
The First Synthetic Plastic
The first synthetic polymer was invented in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt, who was inspired by a New York firm’s offer of $10,000 for anyone who could provide a substitute for ivory. The growing popularity of billiards had put a strain on the supply of natural ivory, obtained through the slaughter of wild elephants. By treating cellulose, derived from cotton fiber, with camphor, Hyatt discovered a plastic that could be crafted into a variety of shapes and made to imitate natural substances like tortoiseshell, horn, linen, and ivory.
This discovery was revolutionary. For the first time human manufacturing was not constrained by the limits of nature. Nature only supplied so much wood, metal, stone, bone, tusk, and horn. But now humans could create new materials. This development helped not only people but also the environment. Advertisements praised celluloid as the savior of the elephant and the tortoise. Plastics could protect the natural world from the destructive forces of human need.
The creation of new materials also helped free people from the social and economic constraints imposed by the scarcity of natural resources. Inexpensive celluloid made material wealth more widespread and obtainable.
Americans started to hate the war (woo go peace core) and eventually we left Vietnam and Johnson didn't try his luck for getting his second term lol
Yes, it is true that the technology and factory assembly lines of the 1900s changed American life forever, since these turned America into an industrial cornerstone of the world, which set its place in the 20th century.
Answer: The poem "Shoulders," by Naomi Shihab Nye reflects on our lives today.
Explanation: In the poem, Nye tells us about a man crossing a street in the rain with a young child he is carrying.He must use caution crossing the street. He must caution to avoid the raindrops, all the while looking, listening and caring for the child he is carrying. The symbolism of course is, that we are that person carrying the child, and it is our responsibility to do all we can to care for, nurture and protect that child because our society is such today that there are many raindrops, puddles and speeding autos we need to avoid, not in the literal sense but certainly figuratively. In this time of pandemic, the message could not be clearer-we need to care for one another. We need to take care of one another, because we are all in this together.
A.
abolitionists in free states such as Massachusetts
