my grandfather invented ply wood. he made the machines to strip the wood of the trees and invented a new glue as the old cows hoof glue stained the wood, he also crossed the layers to make it stronger,
during the war my uncle was working for Dunlop and rubber was hard to get as the ships were blown out of the water so he was asked to invent a substitute and he invented plastic. then he found if you put washing up liquid with it you got plasticc foam sin=milar to the foam eskies of today