James Franklin Hyde

He then completed his academic education at Harvard University, where he was granted a post-doctoral fellowship under Dr. James Bryant Conant.

He followed Kipping's procedure for creating organic silicon compounds by using Grignard's magnesium-containing reagent and eventually synthesized a fluid that hardened to a rubbery mass.

This new composite was one of the first Class H insulators and made it possible for Corning to produce high temperature motors and generators.

[3] In 1934, Hyde used a method called “flame hydrolysis” to create fused silica, an impurity-free glass.

Corning researchers used this fused silica when they invented optical fiber in 1970, which provided faster transmission speeds than copper wires did.

[6] In 1951, Hyde was appointed the position of senior research scientist for basic organosilicon chemistry at Dow Corning.

In 1976, he published in the student magazine Chemistry an alternative periodic table of his own design, which allots a central position to the element silicon.

He is proud of his accomplishments during his career and says that “it gives [him] a great satisfaction that [he] did something useful in life.” Dr. James Franklin Hyde died in his Florida home on October 11, 1999, at the age of 96, with over 100 patents held in his name while at Corning Incorporated.