Lab Accident Created Safety Glass Discovery

In 1903, French chemist Édouard Bénédictus accidentally dropped a glass flask coated with cellulose nitrate, and it shattered without breaking into pieces. The plastic coating held the fragments together, revealing a new way to make glass safer. After later hearing about a car accident in which flying glass injured people, Bénédictus filed a 1909 patent for laminated safety glass.

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