“Rubber? Yes, of course – it can be found in tires, seals, shoe soles, garden hoses...” Very good! Anything else? Well, most people would start having problems at this point. That’s not surprising, since even professionals find it difficult to name all the applications for rubber in our daily lives. That’s because no one really knows the exact number of things that owe their existence to this extremely versatile material. Bungee ropes, engine mountings, gasket rings, balloons, gym mats, print cylinders – anyone who tried to write down all the things containing rubber that we encounter every day would soon have to stop from exhaustion. It’s actually almost easier to count the things that don’t contain rubber. After all, you’re bound to find the elastic material in nearly every place where power is transmitted or stepped down, or where a liquid is transported or needs to be contained.

Nevertheless, things aren’t quite that simple, because there really is no one single elastic rubber material. Whenever rubber has to do its work under extreme conditions, engineers today rely on high-performance rubbers – special materials that have as much in common with the natural sticky stuff used by the Mayas and Aztecs to make balls and containers as a sports car has with a pushcart. And the only reason we now have these special materials is because somebody came up with a really good idea one hundred years ago.