Spencer Silver, Co-Inventor of 3M Post-it Notes, Dies at 80
Silver earned 37 patents during his time at 3M and won several awards, including the 1998 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention.
Spencer Silver, the inventor of the adhesive that would later become an integral part of 3M's Post-it® Notes, died Saturday, May 8, at his home in St. Paul, Minn. He was 80. His wife, Linda, told The New York Times that Silver died after an episode of ventricular tachycardia, a heart rhythm disorder, and that he had had a heart transplant 27 years ago.
Born in 1941 in San Antonio, Texas, Silver earned degrees in chemistry from Arizona State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder before joining 3M's Central Research Laboratory in 1966. He was working on adhesives in a 3M lab in 1968 when he discovered a peculiar formulation that didn't act like other adhesives. It formed clear spheres that "kind of sparkled in the light," Silver later recalled. The new adhesive was strong enough to hold paper together but could also be removed and would stick again—repeatedly—without damaging the paper. Silver looked for applications for his microsphere adhesive for several years while touting his creation to colleagues, calling it a "solution waiting for a problem to solve."