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Where other AIs often sound a little robotic, Claude has been designed with special research that informs its character, meaning that Claude just gets it when it comes to empathy and emotional intelligence. That's why Claude has become the if-you-know-you-know choice for dating advice, career coaching, gathering your thoughts for those important life decisions, and more. Give Claude a try for free at Claude.com. That's C L A U D E dot com and let us know how you feel the difference. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union.
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Is Kayla Ryder. Let's get into the story. It was February 11th, 2013, a typical day at Newcastle County Courthouse in Delaware. It was cold and raining, and Corporal Stephen Reinhardt of the Capitol Police was on duty. Manning the Courthouse Metal Detector.
Then? Chaos erupted. A gunman opened fire, killing two women in cold blood. Reinhardt immediately gave chase and was shot in the chest at close range by a handgun. But he didn't know it.
On that day, Reinhardt became the latest of many police officers who have had their lives saved by a miracle fiber known as Kevlar. Kevlar vests and body armor have saved more than 3,000 lives, but the most remarkable feature of Kevlar may be its history. Stephanie Kwolek was born in 1923 to a working-class family just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her parents had emigrated from Poland and her father, John, worked in one of the area's many metal foundries. But it was actually John Qualik's hobby that made a lifelong impression on Stephanie.
I had a father who was very much interested in plants and trees. He and I spent a lot of time just roaming through the woods looking for animals and snakes and leaves and wild plants and I put all these things in a scrapbook. We grew vegetables and flowers and so forth, so it's almost like living on a farm. She was hooked. I loved learning.
and loved learning new things. I found it very exciting, so this probably made me what I am today and what I was for many years. Yeah. Stephanie's father died when she was just 10 years old. But her passion for science remained strong.
She was an excellent student and earned a place in Carnegie Mellon University's Women's College. And graduated in 1946 with a degree in chemistry. and a warning from her professors. In the 1940s, most women did not earn college degrees, and even fewer pursued studies in the sciences, dominated by men. Quollack's professors told her that these women were increasingly abandoning their aspirations for careers in the sciences.
and instead pursuing more traditional work. But Qualik was not deterred. She applied for work at several industrial companies, including chemical giant DuPont. And that's where she caught the attention of pioneering DuPont scientist Dr. William Hale Charge.
Char was so impressed with Qualik that he hired her on the spot to work as a researcher at DuPont's Buffalo, New York facility. When I entered the workforce in 1946, not many women were being hired, but the few that were, they were hired because there were so few men available. They were at war. or just coming back for war.
So women were being made offers, but that didn't mean that the problem was completely solved because women had a very difficult time after they got jobs, and many women did not stay very long. While there may not have been many female researchers at DuPont at this time, Qualik was not intimidated. I'm just stubborn. And I decided that I was gonna stick it out and see what happened. And things improved eventually.
Qualik had originally intended to work for DuPont for a few years and then head to medical school. The only problem was that I became so enamored of the work that I totally lost interest in medical school. I stayed because the work was what I wanted to do. What I love about my work is that I have the opportunity to be creative every day. There's something about me that wants the excitement of invention and creativity.
Ironically, by staying at DuPont, Qualik probably saved more lives than she would have as a doctor. And by 1950, she was offered a research position at DuPont's Cutting Edge Pioneering Research Laboratory in Wilmington, Delaware. And it was during her time in Wilmington that Quolleck made her greatest contribution to science. and humanity. But Believe it or not, the original formulation for Kevlar could have just as easily been thrown in the trash.
It was 1965 and I was assigned to look for this super strong, super stiff, but lightweight fiber. Their goal was to discover a lightweight fiber that would be strong enough to replace the steel and radial tires. In the course of that work, I made a discovery. The results came back. It was very strong and very stiff.
Unlike anything we had made before, I hesitated about telling anyone because it was unusual and I didn't want to be foolish. During one experiment, Qualik sought to convert a solid polymer into a liquid form, but she got a very strange result. She expected to get a clear mixture with the consistency of molasses, typical for this type of polymer work. Instead, she ended up with a murky thin liquid. The solution looked like junk.
Members of Qualik's team even suggested she throw it away and start over. The fellow who does the spinning looked at it and said, this solution is too thin, it's too watery.
Furthermore, it has particles in it and it's going to plug up my equipment. She didn't listen. I sent it down a few more times.
So I think eventually, after a few days, he had a gilly conscience or something, and he came and said he would spid that thing. Mm-hmm. What happened next was what Koala called a case of serendipity. the molecules aligned in a crystal-like structure. And as Qualik and her team continued experimenting with the spinning process, they realized they were creating a very lightweight and very stiff fiber.
In fact, by weight, it was stronger than steel. I knew. that I had made a discovery. I didn't shout, Eureka, but I was very excited, as was the whole laboratory excited, and management was excited because we were looking for something new, something different, and this was it. That was the beginning of Kevlar.
DuPont knew it had something big on its hands. The company patented the material that became known as Kevlar in 1966. and the whole pioneering lab was assigned to develop commercial uses for it. DuPont and its scientists still had many questions about Kevlar, and it would still be a few years before someone asked the most important question of all. Could Kevlar actually stop a bullet?
It would take about a decade, but Qualec, DuPont and the rest of the world would get that answer. Uh On December 23, 1975, Seattle Police Officer Raymond Johnson confronted an armed man holding up a convenience store. Johnson was shot four times, including once over the heart. and once over the right lung. That could have been a death sentence for Johnson, but it wasn't.
Johnson walked away from the incident and lived another 40 years. On that day in 1975, Johnson is believed to have been the first law enforcement officer in the United States to have his life saved by a Kevlar bulletproof vest. Kevlar was indeed effective in stopping bullets. But for Qualik, it was humbling. Danger.
When I look back on my career, I'm inspired most. By the fact that I was fortunate enough to do something that would be of benefit to mankind. It's been an extremely satisfying discovery. I don't think there's anything like saving someone's life to bring you satisfaction and happiness. Stephanie worked another 20 years at DuPont after Kevlar was patented.
and contributed to the development of products like Lycra and Spandex. And she worked hard to encourage the next generation of scientists, especially young women. When Qualik was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994, She was only the fourth woman at that time to receive the honor. Qualik died in 2014 at the age of 90. Ellen Coleman, CEO of DuPont at the time, remembered Quallack as a creative and determined chemist and a true pioneer for women in science.
Even today. Qualik's work continues to inspire scientists. and it continues to save lives. You can take Corporal Stephen Reinhardt's word for that. The story of Stephanie Kolek.
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Millions of people have turned to Claude, the AI assistant from Anthropic, because it just feels different. Where other AIs often sound a little robotic, Claude has been designed with special research that informs its character, meaning that Claude just gets it when it comes to empathy and emotional intelligence. That's why Claude has become the if-you-know-you-know choice for dating advice, career coaching, gathering your thoughts for those important life decisions, and more. Give Claude a try for free at Claude.com. That's C-L-A-U-D-E dot com.
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