1930 - Technology

Technology

A "differential analyzer" devised by Vannevar Bush and some MIT colleagues is the first analog computer (see Babbage, 1833; 1842; communications [Bush], 1922). It weighs 100 tons, can solve differential equations with as many as 18 variables, and will find widespread use in research and industry, gaining prominence for Bush and for MIT (see Mark I, 1944).

Plexiglass is invented by McGill University research student William Chalmers, whose thermoplastic polymer of methyl methacrylate is light weight and can be bent when heated into any shape desired. It will be marketed in Britain as Perspex.

Union Carbide Corp. introduces Vinylite, a trademarked industrial copolymer that combines vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate (see Semon, 1926). It will become the standard material for phonograph records (see music, 1946).

Dow Chemical Co. produces more than a million pounds of magnesium (see Ethyl, 1924). The price of magnesium has fallen to 48ยข/lb., down from $5 in 1917 when it was widely used in flares to illuminate battlefields. Chemist-industrialist Herbert H. Dow dies at Rochester, Minn., October 15 at age 64.