In 1903, French chemist, painter, and composer Edouard Benedictus was working in his Paris laboratory when he accidentally bumped a glass flask off a shelf. The container plummeted fifteen feet onto the hard floor, producing a loud crash. Expecting to find sharp shards scattered across the ground, Benedictus was amazed to discover that the flask had cracked into a web of fractures yet retained its exact original shape.
Upon closer examination, he realized the flask had previously contained liquid collodion, a solution of cellulose nitrate dissolved in ether and alcohol. Although the liquid had evaporated, it left behind an invisible, extremely tough plastic film lining the inner surface of the glass container, holding the fractured pieces together. At the time, Benedictus filed the observation away as an interesting curiosity.
However, after reading several newspaper articles detailing severe injuries caused by flying windshield glass in early automobile accidents, he realized the life-saving potential of his discovery. Working tirelessly in his lab, Benedictus spent twenty-four hours creating a primitive prototype using a hydraulic press to sandwich a thin sheet of celluloid between two glass panes. He patented the invention in 1909 under the name Triplex.
Although car manufacturers initially rejected the material due to added production costs, Triplex gained widespread adoption during World War I for gas mask lenses, eventually becoming standard equipment in automobiles worldwide.