Hawkins worked as a chemist for AT&T’s Bell Laboratories, part of the telephone company. At the time, telephone cables on telephone poles were made of a plastic that didn’t work very well.  Because of the coating on the wires, the wires wouldn’t last in different weather, like extreme heat or cold.

Telephone cables.

In 1956, Hawkins created a new kind of plastic that wouldn’t be destroyed easily.  The telephone company could now put up telephone lines where they wanted without worrying about animals or weather. Although this technology has advanced since then, this polymer is still used for other kinds of cables.

Like telephone cords made of polymer that W. Lincoln Hawkins created, we can find polymer in many parts of our everyday life. In this experiment from Carnegie Mellon University, you can create a polymer.

Gumdrop Polymer

Supplies:

Package of flavored gelatin powder like Jello (cannot be sugar-free)
Bowl or cup
Small, shallow dish, less than 2 inches wide
Water
Eyedropper
Plastic fork
Paper plate

Instructions:

1. Place the gelatin in the small dish, less than an inch deep.

2. Pour your water into a bowl or cup. Take your eyedropper and extract some water from the bowl or cup.

3. Drop the water in the center of the gelatin.

4. After the first drop is absorbed, drop another one in the same place. Keep doing this for 6-8 more drops.

5. Take your fork and scoop under the drops in the gelatin. Lift the lump out of the gelatin and place it on your plate. You just made a gumdrop, which is a natural polymer! (Remember, as yummy as it looks, this polymer gumdrop is like most parts of experiments and cannot be eaten.)

For more fun with polymers, click here to see how we experiment with polymers at the Museum, or here to see how someone else experiments with them. Information and history on W. Lincoln Hawkins courtesy of the Lemelson-MIT Program.