Wallace Carothers invented the first synthetic rubber called neoprene in 1931. Neoprene was the first polyester. Carothers went on to invent nylon, a true silk replacement, in 1935. Paul Flory was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1974 for his work on polymer random coil configurations in solution in the 1950s. Stephanie Kwolek developed an aramid, or aromatic nylon named Kevlar, patented in 1966.
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