Michael GirdleyGirdley Enterprises, Girdley Enterprises, Inc. · Business builder and investor

The Invention of Sticky Notes

Name: The Invention of Sticky Notes
Uploaded: 2024-09-23T13:51:52+00:00
Duration: 43 s
Channel: Michael Girdley
Description: The video narrates the accidental invention of Post-it notes. Dr. Spencer Silver, a 3M scientist, was attempting to develop a strong adhesive for…

23 Sept 2024 · 1 min

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0:43

The video narrates the accidental invention of Post-it notes. Dr. Spencer Silver, a 3M scientist, was attempting to develop a strong adhesive for aircraft construction but ended up creating a weak, low‑tack glue that was too weak to hold anything together. Years later, Art Fry, another 3M employee and a church choir member, needed a way to keep his hymn‑book bookmarks from falling out without damaging the pages. Remembering Silver’s weak adhesive, Fry applied it to small paper flags, creating a reusable, repositionable bookmark. This serendipitous combination gave rise to the Post‑it note, which grew into a $2.4 billion industry.

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This sticky little square was invented to hold airplanes together. Uh-oh. Well, here's what happened. Meet Dr. Spencer Silver. He's a scientist for 3M, and the dude is trying to invent a glue strong enough for aircraft construction. The only problem is his glue totally sucks. It's barely sticky at all and definitely not strong enough to hold together an aircraft. So he cans the idea and goes back to the drawing board. Several years go by, and in comes another nerd from 3M. This guy, Art Fry. And Art, it turns out, is a religious guy and wants to have a bunch of bookmarks in his hymnal. But they keep falling out, and he wants to glue them in without wrecking the page Pages. Then he remembers silver's weak adhesive. He lathers them onto his little bookmarks, and voilà, totally by accident and kind of like Velcro, the Post-it is born, and it's the beginning of a $2.4 billion industry.