Rubber band
Spencer persuaded the Akron Beacon Journal as well as the Tulsa World to try wrapping their newspapers with one of his rubber bands to prevent them from blowing across lawns.
Rubber trees belong to the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae) and only survive in hot, humid tropical climates near the equator, so the majority of latex is produced in the Southeast Asian countries of Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.
[citation needed] Once the latex has been tapped and is exposed to the air, it begins to harden and become elastic, or rubbery.
A rubber band is usually measured in three basic dimensions: the flat length, cut width, and wall thickness.
The result is that a rubber band behaves somewhat like an ideal monatomic gas inasmuch as (to good approximation) that elastic polymers do not store any potential energy in stretched chemical bonds.
Instead, all work done to the rubber is "released" (not stored) and appears immediately in the polymer as thermal energy.
They are commonly used for lashings, and can also be used for makeshift handle grips, providing a strong high-friction surface with excellent shock absorption.
[12] Snoopy loops are easily cut from discarded car and motorcycle inner tubes using a pair of scissors.
Uses in caving include sealing cuffs of oversuits and collars of boots against the ingress of water, holding kneepads and elbow pads in place or securing dive lines to small rocks.
[14] Technical divers use small snoopy loops made from bicycle inner tubes to prevent backup lights clipped to a dive harness from dangling, and larger loops cut from car tubes are used to stow hoses against sling or sidemount cylinders.
[15] The practice of using snoopy Loops has been claimed to have originated in Greece and spotted by Cave Diving Group members in the late 1970s.
[15] Another claim is that snoopy loops were named by Dave Morris, a Cave Diving Group caver who noticed how they 'snooped' around boulders.
One of the first to use this method was pioneer aerodynamicist George Cayley, who used rubber band-driven motors for powering his small experimental models.
[18][19] The world's largest rubber band ball as of November 19, 2008, was created by Joel Waul of Lauderhill, Florida.
[20] The ball, which previously sat under a tarp in Waul's driveway, weighs 9,032 pounds (4,097 kg), is more than 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) tall (which implies about a 20.68 feet (6.30 m) circumference), and consists of more than 700,000 rubber bands.
[22][23] Steve Milton of Eugene, Oregon, previously held the record for the biggest rubber band ball beginning in 2006.
[25] Before Steve Milton, the record was held by John Bain of Wilmington, Delaware, beginning in 1998.
