Thomas Midgley Jr.

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Thomas Midgley Jr.

| image = ThomasMidgleyJr.jpg

| caption = Midgley {{circa|1930s–1940s}}

| birth_date = {{birth date|1889|05|18|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1944|11|02|1889|05|18|mf=y}}

| death_place = Worthington, Ohio, U.S.

| spouse = {{marriage|Carrie Reynolds|1911}}

| field = {{hlist|Mechanical engineering|chemical engineering}}

| alma_mater = Cornell University

| known_for = {{hlist|Leaded gasoline|CFCs}}

| prizes = {{unbulleted list |William H. Nichols Medal (1922)|Longstreth Medal (1925){{cite web |url=http://www.fi.edu/winners/show_results.faw?gs=&ln=&fn=&keyword=&subject=&award=LONG+&sy=1924&ey=1926&name=Submit |title=Franklin Laureate Database – Edward Longstreth Medal 1925 Laureates |publisher=Franklin Institute |access-date=November 18, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131015080435/http://www.fi.edu/winners/show_results.faw?gs=&ln=&fn=&keyword=&subject=&award=LONG%2B&sy=1924&ey=1926&name=Submit |archive-date=October 15, 2013 }}|Perkin Medal (1937)|Priestley Medal (1941)|Willard Gibbs Award (1942)}}

}}

Thomas Midgley Jr. (May 18, 1889 – November 2, 1944) was an American mechanical and chemical engineer. He played a major role in developing leaded gasoline (tetraethyl lead) and some of the first chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), better known in the United States by the brand name Freon; both products were later banned from common use due to their harmful impact on human health and the environment. He was granted more than 100 patents over the course of his career.

Midgley contracted polio in 1940 and was left disabled; in 1944, he was found strangled to death by a device he devised to allow him to get out of bed unassisted. It is often reported that he had been accidentally killed by his own invention, but his death was declared by the coroner to be a suicide.

While the harmful effects of CFCs were not appreciated until decades after Midgley's death, tetraethyl lead was known to be acutely toxic by those involved in the development of leaded gasoline. This included Midgley, who publicly insisted that there was nonetheless no health hazard posed by the use of leaded gasoline in internal combustion engines.

Early life

Thomas Midgley Jr. was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, on May 18, 1889, the son of Hattie Louise (née Emerson) (1865 – 1950) and Thomas Midgley Sr. (1840 – 1934). His family had a history of inventing; his father was an inventor in the field of automobile tires while his maternal grandfather, James Emerson, invented the inserted tooth saw. He grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from Cornell University in 1911 with a degree in mechanical engineering.{{cite web |work=invent.org |publisher=National Inventors Hall of Fame |title=Thomas Midgley, Jr. |date=May 17, 2023 |url=https://www.invent.org/inductees/thomas-midgley-jr}}{{cite journal | url = http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/midgley-thomas.pdf| publisher= National Academy of Sciences| journal = Biographical Memoirs | volume = 24 | pages = 359–380 | last = Kettering | first = Charles F. |author-link=Charles F. Kettering | title = Thomas Midgley Jr. 1889–1944 }}

Early on, Midgley had a penchant for finding useful applications for known substances. In high school, he used the chewed bark of the slippery elm trees to give baseballs a more curved trajectory, a practice professional players would later pick up. Later in life, he was known to always carry a copy of the periodic table, his main tool in the search for the substance that would mark his breakthrough invention.

Career

= Leaded gasoline =

File:EthylCorporationSign.jpg anti-knock compound Ethyl, a gasoline additive]]

In 1916, Midgley began working at General Motors. In December 1921, while working under the direction of Charles Kettering at Dayton Research Laboratories, a subsidiary of General Motors, he discovered (after discarding tellurium due to the difficult-to-eradicate smell) that the addition of tetraethyllead (TEL) to gasoline prevented knocking in internal combustion engines.Loeb, A.P., "Birth of the Kettering Doctrine: Fordism, Sloanism and Tetraethyl Lead," Business and Economic History, Vol. 24, No. 2, Fall 1995. The company named the substance "Ethyl", avoiding all mention of lead in reports and advertising. Oil companies and automobile manufacturers (especially General Motors, which owned the patent jointly filed by Kettering and Midgley) promoted the TEL additive as an inexpensive alternative superior to ethanol or ethanol-blended fuels, on which they could make very little profit.{{cite book |last1=Jacobson |first1=Mark Z. |title=Atmospheric pollution : history, science, and regulation |date=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0521010446 |pages=75–80 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bveEPjMxP3cC&pg=PA76}}{{cite journal |last1=Kovarik |first1=William |title=Ethyl-leaded gasoline: How a classic occupational disease became an international public health disaster |journal=International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health |date=2005 |volume=11 |issue=4 |pages=384–397 |url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5ef4/a42a4a5940ef6adf04aa1912147097aa3363.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180617165801/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5ef4/a42a4a5940ef6adf04aa1912147097aa3363.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 17, 2018 |access-date=October 7, 2018 |doi=10.1179/oeh.2005.11.4.384|pmid=16350473 |s2cid=44633845 }}{{citation |last=Kitman |first=Jamie Lincoln |date=2000-03-02 |url=http://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lead |title=The Secret History of Lead |website=The Nation |issn=0027-8378 |access-date=2024-10-19}} In December 1922, the American Chemical Society awarded Midgley the 1923 Nichols Medal for the "Use of Anti-Knock Compounds in Motor Fuels".[http://newyorkacs.org/nicholsmedalists.html Nichols Medalists] This was the first of several major awards he earned during his career.

In 1923, Midgley took a long vacation in Miami to cure himself of lead poisoning. He said, "I find that my lungs have been affected and that it is necessary to drop all work and get a large supply of fresh air."Kovarik, Bill. "Charles F. Kettering and the 1921 Discovery of Tetraethyl Lead In the Context of Technological Alternatives", presented to the Society of Automotive Engineers Fuels & Lubricants Conference, Baltimore, Maryland., 1994; revised in 1999. That year, General Motors created the General Motors Chemical Company (GMCC) to supervise the production of TEL by the DuPont company. Kettering was elected as president with Midgley as vice president. However, after two deaths and several cases of lead poisoning at the TEL prototype plant in Dayton, Ohio, the staff at Dayton was said in 1924 to be "depressed to the point of considering giving up the whole tetraethyl lead program". Over the course of the next year, eight more people died at DuPont's plant in Deepwater, New Jersey. In 1924, dissatisfied with the speed of DuPont's TEL production using the "bromide process", General Motors and the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (now known as ExxonMobil) created the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation to produce and market TEL. Ethyl Corporation built a new chemical plant using a high-temperature ethyl chloride process at the Bayway Refinery in New Jersey. However, within the first two months of its operation, the new plant was plagued by more cases of lead poisoning, hallucinations, insanity, and five deaths.

The risks associated with exposure to lead have been known at least since the 2nd century BC,{{cite journal | vauthors = Dapul H, Laraque D | title = Lead poisoning in children | journal = Advances in Pediatrics | volume = 61 | issue = 1 | pages = 313–33 | date = August 2014 | pmid = 25037135 | doi = 10.1016/j.yapd.2014.04.004 }} while efforts to limit lead's use date back to at least the 16th century.{{cite journal | vauthors = Needleman H | title = Lead poisoning | journal = Annual Review of Medicine | volume = 55 | pages = 209–22 | year = 2004 | pmid = 14746518 | doi = 10.1146/annurev.med.55.091902.103653 }}{{cite journal |last1=Needleman |first1=Herbert L. |last2=Gunnoe |first2=Charles |last3=Leviton |first3=Alan |last4=Reed |first4=Robert |last5=Peresie |first5=Henry |last6=Maher |first6=Cornelius |last7=Barrett |first7=Peter |title=Deficits in Psychologic and Classroom Performance of Children with Elevated Dentine Lead Levels |journal=New England Journal of Medicine |date=29 March 1979 |volume=300 |issue=13 |pages=689–695 |doi=10.1056/NEJM197903293001301 |pmid=763299 |access-date=17 November 2020|url=https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM197903293001301}} Midgley experienced lead poisoning himself, and was warned about the risk of lead poisoning from TEL as early as 1922.{{cite journal |last1=Seyferth |first1=Dietmar |title=The Rise and Fall of Tetraethyllead. 2. |journal=Organometallics |date=December 1, 2003 |volume=22 |issue=25 |pages=5154–5178 |doi=10.1021/om030621b |doi-access=free}} and {{erratum|doi=10.1021/om0343925|doi-access=free|checked=yes}} Midgley well knew the hazards of lead. He investigated whether the risks, both in production and use, could be managed. Testing on the exhaust was completed, which he used to support the idea that 1 part tetraethyl lead per 1300 of gasoline could safely be used.{{cite journal | last1=Midgley | first1=Thomas | title= Tetraethyl Lead Poison Hazards | journal= Industrial and Engineering Chemistry | date= August 1, 1925 | volume= 17 | issue=8 |pages = 827–828 | doi=10.1021/ie50188a020 |quote="After mixing tetraethyl lead with gasoline, no great precaution need be exercised, the ratio being 1 part tetraethyl lead to 1300 of gasoline. From this point on no health hazards actually exist unless the gasoline is used very abnormally for purposes for which it was not intended."}} After the initial worker exposures, controls were developed to allow the process to operate safely. Leaded gasoline use grew exponentially. The cumulative chronic impacts of environmental lead were grossly underestimated.

On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL, in which he poured TEL over his hands, placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose, and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems.Markowitz, Gerald and Rosner, David. Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2002{{Cite web |last=Prisco |first=Jacopo |date=2024-05-24 |title=Once celebrated, an inventor's breakthroughs are now viewed as disasters — and the world is still recovering |url=https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/24/world/thomas-midgley-jr-leaded-gas-freon-scn/index.html |access-date=2024-05-26 |website=CNN |language=en}} However, the state of New Jersey ordered the Bayway plant to be closed a few days later, and Jersey Standard was forbidden to manufacture TEL again without state permission. Production was restarted in 1926 after intervention by the federal government. High-octane fuel, enabled by lead, was important to the military. Midgley later took a leave of absence from work after being diagnosed with lead poisoning.[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poisoners/player/ The Poisoner's Handbook] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161227032106/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poisoners/player/ |date=December 27, 2016 }} American Experience at 51:48 January 2014 He was relieved of his position as vice president of GMCC in April 1925, reportedly due to his inexperience in organizational matters, but he remained an employee of General Motors.

=Freon =

In the late 1920s, air conditioning and refrigeration systems employed compounds such as ammonia (NH₃), chloromethane (CH₃Cl), propane, methyl formate (HCO₂CH₃), and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) as refrigerants. Though effective, these were toxic, flammable or explosive. The Frigidaire division of General Motors, at that time a leading manufacturer of such systems, sought a non-toxic, non-flammable alternative to these refrigerants.{{cite book |title=Drug discovery: a history |chapter=Chapter 8: Systematic medicine |pages=74–87 |last=Sneader |first=Walter |publisher=John Wiley and Sons |location=Chichester, England |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-471-89980-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mYQxRY9umjcC&q=Drug+Discovery+history |access-date=September 13, 2010}}

Midgley, working with Albert Leon Henne, soon narrowed his focus to alkyl halides (the combination of carbon chains and halogens), which were known to be highly volatile (a requirement for a refrigerant) and also chemically inert. They eventually settled on the concept of incorporating fluorine into a hydrocarbon. They rejected the assumption that such compounds would be toxic, believing that the stability of the carbon–fluorine bond would be sufficient to prevent the release of hydrogen fluoride or other potential breakdown products. The team eventually synthesized dichlorodifluoromethane,{{cite journal | doi = 10.1021/ie50245a031| title = Organic Fluorides as Refrigerants1| journal = Industrial & Engineering Chemistry| volume = 22| issue = 5| pages = 542| year = 1930| last1 = Midgley| first1 = Thomas| last2 = Henne| first2 = Albert L.}} the first chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which they named "Freon".{{cite journal | doi = 10.1021/ie50270a008| title = Freon, a Refrigerant| journal = Industrial & Engineering Chemistry| volume = 24| issue = 6| pages = 620–623| year = 1932| last1 = Thompson| first1 = R. J.}} This compound is more commonly referred to today as "Freon 12", or "R12".{{cite journal | doi = 10.1021/ed039p361| title = Freon: Thomas Midgley and Albert L. Henne| journal = Journal of Chemical Education| volume = 39| issue = 7| pages = 361| year = 1962| last1 = Garrett| first1 = Alfred B.| bibcode = 1962JChEd..39..361G}}

Freon and other CFCs soon largely replaced other refrigerants, but also had other applications. A notable example was their use as a propellant in aerosol products and asthma inhalers.{{cite journal |journal=Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association |title=Stratospheric ozone, global warming, and the principle of unintended consequences—An ongoing science and policy success story |last1=Andersen |first1=Stephen O. |author1-link=Stephen O. Andersen |last2=Halberstadt |first2=Marcel L. |last3=Borgford-Parnell |first3=Nathan |year=2013 |volume=63 |issue=6 |pages=607–647 |doi=10.1080/10962247.2013.791349 |pmid=23858990 |bibcode=2013JAWMA..63..607A |doi-access=free |via=Taylor & Francis Online |quote=CFCs and HCFCs rapidly replaced other refrigerants in all but applications where companies accepted the increased risk of flammable and toxic refrigerant releases or in applications where the existing technologies were more energy efficient.}} The Society of Chemical Industry awarded Midgley the Perkin Medal in 1937 for this work.{{cite journal |journal=Refrigerating Engineering |date=January 1937 |volume=33 |issue=1 |title=Will Award Perkin Medal Jan. 8 to Thomas Midgley, Jr. |page=54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WpQpAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA54 |via=Google Books}} In 1941, the American Chemical Society gave Midgley its highest award, the Priestley Medal.[https://web.archive.org/web/20160304121719/https://pubs.acs.org/cen/acsnews/86/8614acsnews3.html The Priestley Medalists, 1923-2008] – American Chemical Society This was followed by the Willard Gibbs Award in 1942. He also held two honorary degrees and was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 1944, he was elected president and chairman of the American Chemical Society.

Death

In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted polio and was left severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. On November 2, 1944, at the age of 55, he was found dead at his home in Worthington, Ohio. He had been killed by his own device after he became entangled in it and died of strangulation.{{cite book | author-last= Bryson | author-first= Bill| author-link= Bill Bryson| title= A Short History of Nearly Everything |publisher= Transworld Publishers |date=2004| orig-year=First published 2003 | isbn=0-552-99704-8| edition= Black Swan paperback| page= 196 | title-link= A Short History of Nearly Everything}}{{cite news |url=http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=932 |title=The Ethyl-Poisoned Earth |last=Bellows |first=Alan |date=December 8, 2007}}[https://web.archive.org/web/20081214232532/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801605,00.html Milestones, Nov. 13, 1944] Time, November 13, 1944.{{cite journal |last1=Giunta |first1=Carmen |title=Thomas Midgley, Jr., and The Invention of Chlorofluorocarbon Refrigerants: It Ain't Necessarily So |journal=Bulletin for the History of Chemistry |date=2006 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=66–74 |url=http://acshist.scs.illinois.edu/bulletin_open_access/v31-2/v31-2%20p66-74.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190413043223/http://acshist.scs.illinois.edu/bulletin_open_access/v31-2/v31-2%20p66-74.pdf |archive-date=2019-04-13 |url-status=live |access-date=January 28, 2023}} His death was ruled a suicide by the coroner.{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-dayton-herald-obituary-for-thomas-m/148129966/ |author= |title=Midgley's Death Termed Suicide |newspaper=Dayton Herald (Ohio) |page=28 |date=1944-11-10 |access-date=2024-05-26 }}

He left behind a widow, Carrie M. Reynolds from Delaware, Ohio, whom he had married on August 3, 1911.

Legacy

Midgley's legacy is tied in with the negative environmental impact of leaded gasoline and freon.{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29568505 |title=The fatal attraction of lead |author=Laurence Knight |date=October 12, 2014 |work=BBC News |access-date=August 23, 2016}} Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history",McNeill, J.R. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (2001) New York: Norton, xxvi, 421 pp. (as reviewed in the {{cite web |url=http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/volume_9/1101bess.html |title=Journal of Political Ecology |access-date=October 10, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040328013401/http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/volume_9/1101bess.html |archive-date=March 28, 2004 }}) and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny".{{cite book | author-last= Bryson | author-first= Bill| author-link= Bill Bryson| title= A Short History of Nearly Everything |publisher= Transworld Publishers |date=2004| orig-year=First published 2003 | isbn=0-552-99704-8| edition= Black Swan paperback | page=195 | title-link= A Short History of Nearly Everything}} Fred Pearce, writing for New Scientist, described Midgley as a "one-man environmental disaster".{{cite journal |last1=Pearce |first1=Fred |author1-link=Fred Pearce |date=June 7, 2017 |title=Inventor hero was a one-man environmental disaster |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431290-800-inventor-hero-was-a-oneman-environmental-disaster |journal=New Scientist |doi=10.1016/S0262-4079(17)31121-1 |access-date=April 25, 2022}}

Use of leaded gasoline, which he invented, released large quantities of lead into the atmosphere all over the world. High atmospheric lead levels have been linked with serious long-term health problems from childhood, including neurological impairment,{{cite web |publisher=Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry/Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine |year=2006 |title=ToxFAQs: CABS/Chemical Agent Briefing Sheet: Lead |url=http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/cabs/lead/lead_cabs.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091009071912/http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/cabs/lead/lead_cabs.pdf |archive-date=October 9, 2009 |url-status=dead }}{{cite book |isbn=978-0-415-70040-5 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qt8LEB7_HyQC&pg=PA153 |page=153 |chapter=Summary |editor=Golub, Mari S. |year=2005 |publisher=Taylor and Francis |location=Boca Raton, Florida |title=Metals, fertility, and reproductive toxicity}}{{cite journal |last=Hu |first=Howard |title=Knowledge of diagnosis and reproductive history among survivors of childhood plumbism |journal=American Journal of Public Health |year=1991 |volume=81 |issue=8 |pages=1070–1072 |pmid=1854006 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.81.8.1070 |pmc=1405695}} and with increased levels of violence and criminality in America{{cite journal |last1=Mielke |first1=Howard W. |last2=Zahran |first2=Sammy |date=August 2012 |title=The urban rise and fall of air lead (Pb) and the latent surge and retreat of societal violence |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412012000566 |journal=Environment International |volume=43 |pages=48–55 |doi=10.1016/j.envint.2012.03.005 |pmid=22484219 |bibcode=2012EnInt..43...48M |access-date=April 22, 2022 }}{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |date=February 7, 1996 |title=Aggressiveness and delinquency in boys is linked to lead in bones |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/07/us/aggressiveness-and-delinquency-in-boys-is-linked-to-lead-in-bones.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101125171319/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/07/us/aggressiveness-and-delinquency-in-boys-is-linked-to-lead-in-bones.html |archive-date=November 25, 2010 |url-access=limited |access-date=March 22, 2023 |last=Brody |first=Jane E. |author-link=Jane Brody}}{{cbignore}}{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 21, 2007 |title=Clean Air Act: Criminal Element |last=Hoffman |first=Jascha |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21wwln-idealab-t.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120919132926/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2007/10/21/magazine/21wwln-idealab-t.html?pagewanted=all |archive-date=September 19, 2012 |url-access=subscription}}{{cbignore}}{{cite magazine |magazine=Mother Jones |date=February 2013 |title=Lead: America's Real Criminal Element |last=Drum |first=Kevin |author-link=Kevin Drum |url=https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline}} and around the world.{{cite journal |last1=Nevin |first1=Rick |author1-link=Rick Nevin |date=July 2007 |title=Understanding international crime trends: The legacy of preschool lead exposure |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935107000503 |journal=Environmental Research |volume=104 |issue=3 |pages=315–336 |doi=10.1016/j.envres.2007.02.008 |pmid=17451672 |bibcode=2007ER....104..315N |access-date=April 22, 2022 }}{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Mark Patrick |last2=Forbes |first2=Miriam K. |last3=Opeskin |first3=Brian |last4=Parr |first4=Nick |last5=Lanphear |first5=Bruce P. |date=February 16, 2016 |title=The relationship between atmospheric lead emissions and aggressive crime: an ecological study |journal=Environmental Health |volume=15 |issue=1 |page=23 |doi=10.1186/s12940-016-0122-3 |pmid=26884052 |pmc=4756504 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2016EnvHe..15...23T }} Time magazine included both leaded gasoline and CFCs on its list of "The 50 Worst Inventions".{{cite magazine|last1=Gentilviso|first1=Chris|title=The 50 Worst Inventions: Leaded Gasoline|url=https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1991915_1991909_1991817,00.html|access-date=February 1, 2018|magazine=Time|date=May 27, 2010}}

Midgley died three decades before the ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas effects of CFCs in the atmosphere became widely known.{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33021668 |title=How 1970s deodorant is still doing harm |author=Laurence Knight |date=June 6, 2015 |work=BBC News |access-date=August 23, 2016}} In 1987, the Montreal Protocol phased out the use of CFCs like Freon.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37665529 Climate change: 'Monumental' deal to cut HFCs, fastest growing greenhouse gases]

The harm of leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons have been framed as lessons in known unknowns and unknown unknowns, respectively. When leaded gasoline was invented it was known that lead had harmful effects on human health in large quantities, and that leaded gasoline caused emissions of trace amounts of lead to the atmosphere, but it was not known whether those trace amounts had adverse effects. The existence of the ozone layer, however, and the potential for chlorofluorocarbons to harm it, was not known at the time.{{Cite news |last=Johnson |first=Steven |date=2023-03-15 |title=The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History's Biggest Mistakes |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/magazine/cfcs-inventor.html |access-date=2024-01-21 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240718071439/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/magazine/cfcs-inventor.html|archive-date=2024-07-18}}

In 2024, it was announced that Terence Winter – writer of 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street – has co-written a feature film about Midgley entitled Midge.{{cite web |title=Midge |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31322301/reference/ |website=IMDb.com |publisher=IMDb.com, Inc. |access-date=27 May 2024}}{{cite web |last1=Prisco |first1=Jacopo |title=Once celebrated, an inventor's breakthroughs are now viewed as disasters — and the world is still recovering |url=https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/24/world/thomas-midgley-jr-leaded-gas-freon-scn/index.html |website=cnn.com |date=May 24, 2024 |publisher=Cable News Network |access-date=27 May 2024}}

References

External links

{{cite journal |pmid=17833986 |last=Midgley |first=T. |year=1942 |title=A Critical Examination of Some Concepts in Rubber Chemistry |volume=96 |issue=2485 |pages=143–6 |doi=10.1126/science.96.2485.143 |journal=Science|bibcode=1942Sci....96..143M }}
{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015120545/http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/tmidgley.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081030183309/http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/tmidgley.pdf |archive-date=2008-10-30 |url-status=live |date=October 15, 2012 |title=Biographical Memoir by Charles F. Kettering }}
{{cite journal|url = http://www.scs.illinois.edu/~mainzv/HIST/bulletin_open_access/v31-2/v31-2%20p66-74.pdf|first = Carmen J.|last = Giunta|title = Thomas Midgley Jr. and the Invention of Chlorofluorocarbon Refrigerants|journal = Bulletin for the History of Chemistry|volume = 31|issue = 2|year = 2006|pages = 66–74|access-date = June 12, 2012|archive-date = April 23, 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160423012402/http://www.scs.illinois.edu/~mainzv/HIST/bulletin_open_access/v31-2/v31-2%20p66-74.pdf|url-status = dead}}
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History] (video by YouTube producer Derek Muller on Thomas Midgley Jr., April 2022)

Category:1889 births

Category:1944 deaths

Category:20th-century American chemists

Category:20th-century American engineers

Category:20th-century American inventors

Category:Accidental deaths in Ohio

Category:Air pollution

Category:Cornell University College of Engineering alumni

Category:Deaths by strangulation in the United States

Category:Environmental controversies

Category:Human impact on the environment

Category:Inventors killed by their own invention