Bring in the New or Déjà Vu ? Adventures in Chemical Engineering History Part II

To kick off the 2019 New Year, we’ll reflect on a few lessons, still relevant today, from technological progress in the past. Like us, our forbearers faced political, social, and economic challenges, and, like us, they looked to science for solutions. Along the way, they made amazing discoveries but they also hit brick walls. Then, as now, even the most amazing technological discoveries have a habit of requiring long residence times in developmental stages (often awaiting other discoveries) before they emerge as useful (often in surprising applications) which are now simply taken for granted.