Thomas who? Well, all right, as a scientist Thomas Midgley, Jr is not usually ranked up there with Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. He was, however, one of the premier US chemists of his time, and he won practically every American award that could be given for work in chemistry. He is still thought important enough to rate half a column in the latest edition of Encyclopędia Britannica.
Why is this well-respected chemist an anti-hero of science? Midgley didn't think of himself that way, nor did anyone for decades after his death in 1944. However, by sheer misfortune – let's call it Midgley's Luck – two of his greatest achievements have turned into disasters for the rest of us.
Thomas Midgley, born in Pennsylvania in 1889, originally trained as a mechanical engineer, and during the first World War devised the control system for an aerial torpedo. On going back to civilian pursuits after the War, he began working on internal combustion engines, where he defeated the problem of engine knock by inventing tetraethyl lead.
Yes, Thomas Midgley is the man who put lead in our petrol. At the time, it was hailed as a great advance: overnight it gave the US added power equivalent to that generated by eighty Boulder Dams. But eighty years later we're still trying to deal with the consequences of it.
Midgley then turned his attention to other matters: proving that bromine could be extracted from seawater, for instance, and discovering one of the first catalysts for cracking hydrocarbons. And then Midgley's Luck popped up again.
Midgley decided that what the world needed was a non-toxic non-flammable refrigerant. He set to work, and in only three days discovered what he thought was the answer: a compound of chlorine, fluorine and methane called dichlorodifluoromethane. We know it better as Freon-12, the first of the CFCs.
That's right. Not only did Thomas Midgley put lead in our petrol, he's also helping to destroy the ozone layer. Of course, we didn't find that out until the 1970s. In the meantime, Midgley went on to attain high office in a number of chemical companies and research foundations.
The last attack of Midgley's Luck struck Midgley himself. Improbably, at the age of 51, he contracted polio – an event that he himself calculated was about as likely as drawing a certain individual card from a stack of playing cards as high as the Empire State Building. Thomas Midgley, Jr died in 1944, aged 54.