"Velcro"
Who the hell is that? I suspect you will never have heard of him. It's George De Mestral. Born in Switzerland in 1907, he died there in 1990. He was an electrical engineer but as you probably already guessed from this blogpost's title, De Mestral was also the inventor of "Velcro". That was the brand name of the inspired hook and loop fastening device that he developed through the 1940s and into the early 1950s. One day, during World War II, De Mestral was out hunting with his dog. Upon returning home, he noticed that once again his dog had numerous burdock burs on its fur. It was irritating but why was it happening? How did the burdock burs cling to the animal's fur? He investigated with the aid of a microscope and eventually concluded that the outer perimeter of the dying burdock bloom was covered with tiny hooks that could latch on to anything with a loop - such as wool for example. He pondered this for years until he began to see the possible applicat...