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In 1851, in order to show the success of the industrial revolution to the world, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom decided to hold an exhibition, called the World Industrial Exhibition, which was also the first World Expo in history.

This World Expo was also organized by the Queen's husband Prince Albert in person, and both the exhibits and the exhibitors in the Expo were of the highest standard in the world at that time. Therefore, the British government specially built the Crystal Palace as the exhibition hall. At that time, it could be said that it was attracting worldwide attention. So what is the relationship between this Expo and the theme we want to talk about today? The rubber we want to talk about today is an invention that has been exhibited in the International Industry Exhibition. The inventor of vulcanized rubber came from the United States. His name is Charles Goodyear. This is an invention that really changed the world. At that time, vulcanized rubber won the highest award in the International Industry Exhibition. Later, rubber, which was not useful, became a necessity for human beings. Let's start from the origin of rubber.

In the 15th century, Columbus discovered the American continent. One day, Columbus came to the island of Haiti, and he found that the local people were playing with a ball. It was a very elastic ball, which could bounce far with one buttock. This was too new for Columbus. He had never seen such a ball. Later, he learned that this ball was made of Kaqiao House, which in the local language represents the tears of trees, There is a kind of tree in the local area. When you cut a knife on the tree, the liquid that flows out is called Kaqiao House. The local people say that the tree that can shed tears is a unique rubber tree in America. There are records of the earliest evidence that Americans used rubber in history, which can be traced back to more than 3000 years ago. Besides making balls, rubber has many other uses, such as coating rubber on clothes and drying them to make them waterproof, This is undoubtedly very useful for tropical rainforests that often rain. For example, apply rubber on your feet, wrap it up and dry it in the air, and then turn it into a pair of rain boots.

Although Columbus knew there was rubber in 1496, he was obviously more interested in gold and silver mines in the American continent. Therefore, rubber continued to be buried in the tropical rainforest of South America. It was more than 200 years later that it was introduced to Europe. In 1736, French scientist Kang Daming visited the American continent and brought rubber to Europe. Europeans also used it to make raincoats and boots, just like Indians, Later, some other rubber products, such as rubber tubes, appeared in the market, mainly for daily necessities. After 1823, the first batch of rain shoes were exported to the United States, and rubber finally met the person who changed its fate. Who was that person? Charles Goodyear, what did Goodyear do before rubber came to the United States? Goodyear used to run a hardware store, mainly dealing in farm tools, buttons and other products. The business was good at ordinary times, but later he was in debt because of blind expansion and investment failure. So when rubber came to the United States, major newspapers began to report this material. Goodyear, with a keen sense of smell, also sensed the value of rubber. He checked many reports on rubber and finally found business opportunities, Goodyear found that the workmanship of the rubber tubes purchased by big companies was not very good, so he improved the tubes based on his years of experience in the manufacturing industry. After reading the tubes to the purchasing manager, he said that the workmanship was really good, but it would have to be tested. It would take a year to use them to produce results. Goodyear had no choice but to wait. After a few months, Goodyear was dumbfounded, and the manager returned all his rubber tubes, At first glance, it was known that those rubber tubes had melted away. It turned out that natural rubber had a fatal disadvantage, that is, it would melt in hot weather. Goodyear decided to improve the rubber material. However, Goodyear was already in debt, and had no money to do research. But in order to make a practical experiment, he sold his house and furniture, and spent all his money on rubber materials. But Goodyear was not a scientist. He mixed all kinds of acids, alkalis Ash, lime, etc. As long as he could think of, he tried to mix them into rubber. But there was a problem. These things would occasionally have chemical reactions when mixed together. Goodyear did not know it at all, so he often inhaled some toxic and harmful gases, and his body became worse and worse. However, Goodyear insisted on doing research for five years. Finally, he succeeded in 1938, when Goodyear tried to wrap sulfur into rubber, As a result, the container was accidentally knocked over, and rubber and sulfur fell into a hot frying pan. It was said that rubber was most afraid of heat, and it would certainly melt if it fell into the hot pan. As a result, Goodyear poured it out and found that the rubber was not only not melted, but also became stronger and more resilient. Goodyear immediately used sulfur as the main ingredient and heated it together. Finally, the earliest formula of vulcanized rubber was developed, which thoroughly improved the performance of rubber, In 1844, he received a patent for invention.

With such a famous invention, Goodyear's life should be on the rise, but his destiny is to play tricks on people. Although Goodyear got the patent of vulcanized rubber, he was soon infringed, and when the infringement lawsuit was not won, Goodyear died of illness at the age of 59, and knew that he had not paid off his debts.

The 1851 World Industrial Expo also became his last highlight. Although Goodyear did not profit from his invention, he benefited all mankind. Today, rubber products have long become necessities of mankind. Without rubber products, there would be no car tires, and there would be no such developed transportation industry. Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber, making rubber more useful, Naturally, human demand for rubber began to soar. At that time, where there were rubber trees, there was wealth. As the sole source of rubber, the South American rainforest, especially the Amazon region, witnessed a direct economic boom. Manaus, a small town in Brazil, was located in the center of the Amazon rainforest. It soon became the most prosperous metropolis in South America from a small town. It was called the Rubber City. It is said that there were rubber tycoons everywhere in Manaus at that time. These rubber tycoons have since reached the peak of their lives. Some people played yachts on the Amazon River, some raised lions in villas, and some bathed horses with champagne.

However, when South America monopolized the rubber resource economy, a theft in 1876 completely changed them. The thief's name was Vickham. In fact, he was ordered by the British government to steal the seeds of rubber trees in Brazil. The British government offered him a price of 10 pounds for 1000 seeds. He collected more than 70000 seeds and smuggled them back to Britain. The British immediately put rubber trees in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the countries under their control at that time, had grown more and more in a few years, and the price of rubber had plummeted all the way. Since then, the metropolis of Manaus had never recovered. At that time, the rubber plantations in South America had also suffered from leaf blight, which was an uncontrollable fungus. At that time, the rubber plantations in South America were destroyed.

Since then, South America has basically withdrawn from the rubber industry. In 1903, Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Company. For more than 20 years, Ford Motor has become a giant in the auto industry. They have all the raw materials needed for automobiles, but only one exception is rubber. At that time, all rubber was imported from Asia, but Henry Ford felt there was a problem. He said that rubber trees were originally from South America, Now it is inconvenient to import from Asia from thousands of miles away, so he spent 20 million dollars to buy a large tropical rainforest in the Amazon region and built the largest rubber plantation in the world at that time, named Fortrandia.

But Ford obviously underestimated the blight. In a few years, his plantation was completely occupied by the blight, and there was no way to save it. In this way, he was defeated by the highly expected Forlandia. Later, some people made fun of Ford, saying that he spent 20 million dollars to build a fungus incubator. It was undoubtedly heartfelt for Ford at that time. Since then, Asia still firmly held the absolute monopoly of rubber until the Pearl Harbor incident in 1941. In December 1941, the Pearl Harbor incident marked the official declaration of war by the United States against Japan. At that time, Japan just controlled the main rubber producing areas in Southeast Asia. That is to say, 95% of the rubber in the world was intercepted at that time. If the United States wanted to start a war, it had to consider this situation, As for the rubber reserves in the United States at that time, it may not last for a year. What should we do?

Fortunately, the US government responded quickly. On the the fourth day just after Pearl Harbor incident, the US government announced that it would ban the use of rubber in non war necessities, which would greatly reduce the demand for rubber, and rubber in all waste warehouses would also be recycled at a high price. However, the US government also understood that it could not solve the problem only by thrift and waste utilization, and it would have to find new sources, Therefore, all hopes are pinned on the American chemists, whose task is synthetic rubber. In fact, there were many researches on synthetic rubber before World War II, but there are still many problems. One is that the effect is not as good as that of natural rubber, and the other is that the supply of natural rubber is sufficient, so countries did not pay such attention to this research at that time, but now it is different. After the Japanese blocked the natural rubber, chemists in all relevant fields in the United States began to work on synthetic rubber, And a few years later, there are more than a dozen kinds of synthetic rubber on the market. Although the effect is not as good as that of natural rubber, is it better to have one than not? Therefore, the United States persisted until the end of World War II, and then the proportion of synthetic rubber gradually increased. So far, at least 60% of rubber in the world is synthetic rubber. Will natural rubber be completely replaced in time? Of course, the answer is no, after all, the strength and flexibility of synthetic rubber are not as good as natural rubber. In some important applications that cannot be missed, such as aircraft tires, heavy truck tires, medical gloves, etc., natural rubber depends on the spectrum. Therefore, rubber plantations in Asia are still crucial. In fact, planting rubber trees is a very hard job, It is believed that many people who have seen rubber farmers cut rubber must understand that they have to get up at midnight every day to take rubber liquid before the sun comes out. Because in the early morning, the humidity is high and the water is sufficient, so they can harvest more. Rubber farmers usually cut spiral holes in the bark to wait for the liquid to flow down bit by bit, and the yield of each rubber tree is very small, Therefore, only a large area of rubber trees can support the family and survive proudly.

Moreover, with the increasing demand for rubber in the world, people can only use an axe to cut down more forests, cultivate more forests, and then increase rubber plantations. In addition, in order to pursue the highest yield, most rubber plantations in Asia are now planted with rubber trees of the same variety, that is, Brazilian rubber trees in South America. In other words, this is an industry that is seriously lacking in genetic diversity, Therefore, botanists have warned that if someone wants to seriously damage the world economy, he can only bring the blight to the rubber plantations in Southeast Asia. For his own development, human beings are wantonly destroying the earth's environment. It seems very powerful, but in fact, nature also has a way to deal with us, and it is easy for human beings to pay the price.