Today I'm celebrating the invention of Silly Putty!
Silly Putty is a unique, classic toy that has been providing fun for persons of all ages for over 57 years. When rolled into a ball, it bounces. When pulled slowly, it stretches. When pulled quickly, it snaps off cleanly. For years it was great at picking up images from comic pages and newspapers and you could then distort the image. Now, some of the printing process changes often prohibit it from lifting up images from some newspapers.
Silly Putty was discovered by accident by James Wright in 1943 when mixing boric acid and silicone as he was trying to create a synthetic rubber substitute for General Electric during World War II. Although a dud as a rubber substitute, it was a great seller in a holiday toy catalog in 1949. You can see the timeline and read the history of how Peter Hodgson took Silly Putty to market. Today, about 20,000 "eggs" are manufactured each day, for a total of more than 6 million each year. In 2000, the manufacturer reported that more than 300 million had been made since 1950. In 2001, it was inducted into The National Toy Hall of Fame, joining other great classics, such as Crayola crayons, the hoola hoop, Lincoln Logs, the Tonka Truck, and The Monopoly Game. It's also earned a spot at the Smithsonian's American History Museum in Washington, DC as a classic piece of Americana.
People have found lots of uses for Silly Putty. It can be used to pick up lint. It has actually been used by astronauts in space to both fasten down tools and to relieve boredom. It has been used to help solve crimes too. One stupid criminal left fingerprints in some silly putty once and one victim reportedly used it to lift a fingerprint to successfully help the police catch a thief! Linda Sunshine identified 101 uses in her book 101 Uses for Silly Putty and there was a contest for the 50 silliest uses in 2000 as part of its 50th anniversary. After reviewing those lists, here's my personal favorite Top 15 Practical-to-Silly Uses for Silly Putty:
- Roll a long piece across your dorm room floor to clean it without a vacuum
- To practice your putting, rather than a golf ball
- Give hairdos to Pez dispensers
- Use the glow-in-the-dark variety to help find the snooze button on your alarm clock
- Insulate your beverage can to keep it cold
- Use it to dust off your window blinds
- Use it to fill in bowling ball holes that are too large
- Use it as an emergency ping pong ball
- Use it to make copies when you have no quarters for the copy machine
- Wrap it around a pencil and use it as a grip
- Use it as a thumb cover to count money quickly
- Open a twist top bottle without hurting your hands
- Level the leg of a wobbly table
- Plug a leak
- As a stress reliever
You can read the story of what a group of Googlers did with 250 pounds of Silly Putty on The Official Google Blog. If you are interested in what happens to 50 pounds of Silly Putty when dropped off a parking garage, you can view that video on YouTube. Silly Putty is really known as a solid liquid. You can read a more scientific description of it on its Wikipedia page. You can see a neat video of Silly Putty being made from the plant in Bethlehem, PA.
Here's a short video that shows you how to make your own version of it:
As posted on YouTube by gametrailers0000
Here's a short, creative video of Silly Putty Vs. Pepsi Can
As posted on YouTube by qosmo123
Today, I wish for you the creativity and fun that even mistakes can bring!
Reference: Silly Putty University site, where sources are provided for the each of the silliest uses listed
Image credit: TheCrayolaStore.com
