In 1839, Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped a mixture of rubber and sulfur onto a hot stove and discovered vulcanisation — the same cross-linking that now makes the rubber erasers on a child’s pencil firm enough to lift graphite without smearing it into the paper.

How a hardware merchant's kitchen accident in 1839 produced the sulfur cross-linking that still makes rubber springy — from truck tyres down to the pink eraser on a child's pencil. The post In 1839, Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped a mixture of rubber an…