Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 48 posts

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#21

Post by hga »

reader5000 wrote: post #19
hga wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worn Kevlar body armor? The Feds have rather stupid requirements for it, that don't match the real world, but depend on deformation of clay behind a vest. So what cops wear is stiffer, and perhaps hotter than needed. Although I think heat is unavoidable, there's even relevant lines in Shakespeare's King Henry the Fourth : Like a rich armour worn in heat of day, That scalds with safety. So plenty of cops…

>...especially bad if you're alone. My home defense body armor has a hard rifle plate in the front to mitigate this. I can't understand why a well-rounded individual like yourself would be living alone.

Heh. I'm not, but I live on a separate floor of a building with my father, so if we suffer from a home invasion one of us will be somewhat delayed in coming to the aid of the other. If we're alerted to it by the alarm system, then we'll be taking some time to clear our floor and turn off the alarm before likely realizing the other was threatened (an.

And it's still an issue if you've got an armed partner, neither of you can necessarily afford to be disabled for a few moments. Suppose there are multiple invaders ... in any case, "tunnel vision" in focusing on one threat is to be avoided, e.g. you don't want to rush past a non-shooting invader and then get bushwhacked by him.

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#22

Post by hga »

001sky wrote: post #20
shrikant wrote: post #9

> A DuPont spokeswoman estimated that since the 1970s, 3,000 police officers have been saved from bullet wounds through the use of equipment reinforced with Kevlar [...] Does that number seem really low to anybody else?

Spectra dominates most applications today, so kevlar is not used so much for ballistics vests. Additionally, the police are not the main customers, much is military. Third, kevlar is still used for cut-resistance but that will not show up in this data (nor would the military lives saved). So for these and other reasons, its intuitively correct to think that the invetion of kevlar has broadly saved more lives than wha…

Spectra is one of the brand names for the ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE, UHMW) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-molecular-weight_po... I mentioned in one of my other postings in this subthread.

I've gotten the impression, at least from one vendor, that mixed aramid and UHMWPE fabrics are common for law enforcement vests, due to their lower cost. And of course plain aramid is still cheaper, so is still used a lot.

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#23

Post by rdtsc »

hga wrote: post #12
shrikant wrote: post #9

> A DuPont spokeswoman estimated that since the 1970s, 3,000 police officers have been saved from bullet wounds through the use of equipment reinforced with Kevlar [...] Does that number seem really low to anybody else?

Have you ever worn Kevlar body armor? The Feds have rather stupid requirements for it, that don't match the real world, but depend on deformation of clay behind a vest. So what cops wear is stiffer, and perhaps hotter than needed. Although I think heat is unavoidable, there's even relevant lines in Shakespeare's King Henry the Fourth : Like a rich armour worn in heat of day, That scalds with safety. So plenty of cops…

> my next vest will be made from that

Holly molly, do you live in Iraq or Syria, or some other war zone?

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#24

Post by hga »

rdtsc wrote: post #23
hga wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worn Kevlar body armor? The Feds have rather stupid requirements for it, that don't match the real world, but depend on deformation of clay behind a vest. So what cops wear is stiffer, and perhaps hotter than needed. Although I think heat is unavoidable, there's even relevant lines in Shakespeare's King Henry the Fourth : Like a rich armour worn in heat of day, That scalds with safety. So plenty of cops…

> my next vest will be made from that Holly molly, do you live in Iraq or Syria, or some other war zone?

Just how peaceful do you think the US will remain after e.g. we no longer can borrow "a trillion dollars a year" at negative real interest rates?

Wars on arithmetic eventually fail, and I expect our's to in my lifetime. Note that I don't currently wear it when I go outdoors, currently don't even carry as many spare magazines as I perhaps should when I do.

It's one of the logical things to do after you buy and train up with your initial set of guns. Fairly inexpensive used sets can be bought; my current concealable one is used, Kevlar doesn't deteriorate in normal use, we've got a lot of experience with it by now. And putting on my chemist hat, I expect ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (e.g. Dyneema and Spectra) to be very very stable.

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#25

Post by reader5000 »

hga wrote: post #21
reader5000 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...especially bad if you're alone. My home defense body armor has a hard rifle plate in the front to mitigate this. I can't understand why a well-rounded individual like yourself would be living alone.

Heh. I'm not, but I live on a separate floor of a building with my father, so if we suffer from a home invasion one of us will be somewhat delayed in coming to the aid of the other. If we're alerted to it by the alarm system, then we'll be taking some time to clear our floor and turn off the alarm before likely realizing the other was threatened (an. And it's still an issue if you've got an armed partner, neither of…

This sounds good, but you're failing to take into account chemtrails. Think about it man, they already got you. Best to move to a safe location like say far outside of any US border.

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#26

Post by jjoonathan »

cpwright wrote: post #14
jcreedon wrote: post #6

> Kevlar has generated several billion dollars in revenue for the company. Ms. Kwolek did not directly benefit from it financially, however; she signed over patent royalties to DuPont. This is kind of sad to me. I realize it is more or less standard practice to sign over all IP rights to your employer, but this was a significantly greater contribution than your standard invention. Reminds me of the engineer who creat…

She signed the patent royalties over to DuPont, but that is the deal that she made. There is at least an equal chance that she never would have created this material (there are scores of other men and women who have worked for DuPont, but not an equal number of such incredible breakthroughs). She traded away the ability to hit a home run for lower variance in compensation. She collected a salary, and I would hope tha…

> Also, without the resources of DuPont she never would have been able to create this material.

Irrelevant. The need for capital doesn't inherently justify capital receiving ~100% of the proceeds. Her work was also a necessary part of creating the product.

> She collected a salary, and I would hope that she indirectly financially benefited from potential promotions or raises.

I don't think you understand how bad chemists have it. The guy who invented lipitor ($120 billion in revenue) was unceremoniously laid off from Pfizer for his trouble. He didn't get a penny on top of his salary -- a salary that half of the readers of this post probably wouldn't accept for a software development position.

> just because she didn't become fabulously wealthy doesn't mean she was treated poorly

No, but the labor force of industrial chemists is generally a heavily deleveraged group. There's an oversupply of them and they absolutely require intensive capital resources for success. That means they get systematically shafted at the bargaining table. They are treated poorly regardless of whether or not this individual incident is sufficient to prove it.

Due to the fact that software development has tiny capital requirements and that there are many industrial positions available for software engineers, we are able to negotiate much more reasonable terms of employment (i.e. capture a comparatively respectable fraction of the value we create). We have it good. Unusually good. It's important to remember that this is not because markets operate that way in general. It's a happy accident that has turned out well for us so far. Nothing more, nothing less. The very least we can do is refrain from victim-blaming in industries where labor is not blessed with the same happy accident.

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#27

Post by nicholas73 »

hga wrote: post #24
rdtsc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my next vest will be made from that Holly molly, do you live in Iraq or Syria, or some other war zone?

Just how peaceful do you think the US will remain after e.g. we no longer can borrow "a trillion dollars a year" at negative real interest rates? Wars on arithmetic eventually fail, and I expect our's to in my lifetime. Note that I don't currently wear it when I go outdoors, currently don't even carry as many spare magazines as I perhaps should when I do. It's one of the logical things to do after you buy and train u…

Probably will mirror the experience Britain had once the pound lost its reserve status.

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#28

Post by reader5000 »

hga wrote: post #24
rdtsc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my next vest will be made from that Holly molly, do you live in Iraq or Syria, or some other war zone?

Just how peaceful do you think the US will remain after e.g. we no longer can borrow "a trillion dollars a year" at negative real interest rates? Wars on arithmetic eventually fail, and I expect our's to in my lifetime. Note that I don't currently wear it when I go outdoors, currently don't even carry as many spare magazines as I perhaps should when I do. It's one of the logical things to do after you buy and train u…

What is the optimal spare magazine to federal funds rate ratio?

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#29

Post by kghose »

hga wrote: post #21
reader5000 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...especially bad if you're alone. My home defense body armor has a hard rifle plate in the front to mitigate this. I can't understand why a well-rounded individual like yourself would be living alone.

Heh. I'm not, but I live on a separate floor of a building with my father, so if we suffer from a home invasion one of us will be somewhat delayed in coming to the aid of the other. If we're alerted to it by the alarm system, then we'll be taking some time to clear our floor and turn off the alarm before likely realizing the other was threatened (an. And it's still an issue if you've got an armed partner, neither of…

I'm surprised you haven't bought the PipBoy4000 with the SurvivorMate addon. Just a press of a button inflates a life size doll decoy, buying just enough time ...

Re: Stephanie L. Kwolek, Inventor of Kevlar, Is Dead at 90

#30

Post by DanBC »

taspeotis wrote: post #11
noja wrote: post #7

Ironically he was stabbed to death while wearing a kevlar vest.

noja 4 hours ago | link | parent | flag Ironically he was stabbed to death while wearing a kevlar vest. You need to work on your reading comprehension: Stephanie L. Kwolek Stephanie L. Stephanie Stephanie is literally the first word in the title and article.

Both men and women are called "Stephanie", although in the US it is mostly a female name.

http://www.babynames.it/boyname/Stephanie-meaning.htm

The mistake was to assume a male. It doesn't matter what the name was.

Post reply on HN