Early Years Thomas Midgley Jr.'s
Midgley was born into a family of inventors: his father and grandfather owned patents and its ancestor worked for James Watt, inventor of the steam engine.
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In 1905, while attending a school in Connecticut, the young Thomas was faced with a situation that was to familiarize him with scientific instrument that allowed him to break trail men in his family: a dispute with a teacher. During the first hour of chemistry attended Midgley jr., The teacher said to the class that the periodic table is a proof of God's existence. Young Thomas has not agreed with the statement the teacher.
"We had a fight. I argued that the only thing that demonstrates the periodic table is that atoms are composed of smaller particles. The dispute lasted for days and weeks, but was by no means one pointless. Over that debate I familiar with the periodic table, that I remained in my mind as a very useful tool in research, "he later told Midgley jr.
Thomas decided to follow his father and joined the faculty of mechanical engineering from Cornell University. Despite further innovated in chemistry, he has studied during college than the basic concepts that were taught to all future engineers at Cornell. During conştinciozitate faculty were noted by studying the minimum required many courses, in order to focus on those who interested him.
After graduating in 1911, Thomas won his first job in the company National Cash Register (NCR), headquartered in Dayton, Ohio. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Dayton was a genuine innovation center, the place where the Wright brothers built the aircraft with which they conducted first flight in the history of aeronautics. Midgley worked one year at NCR, where he discovered his passion for industrial research and met the man who would play a key role in his life: Charles Kettering.
Year spent in Midgley NCR caused to want to do experiments to discover new products, but the economic context of the time was not yet favorable. Thomas would spend the next year working for his father in a company that marketed the tires. In 1916, when the family business went bankrupt, Midgley found himself in a critical situation. "Suddenly I was without a job, a wife and two children to support and little money in the bank. We have taken a quick trip through the country, contacting numerous people from different industries, but we have not found a job after my own heart . When I returned home, I took the most important decision of my life: I decided to work for Mr. Kettering, regardless of salary offered, and see what happens ", said Midgley later. (Source 1, Source 2, Source3)
Midgley died three decades before the ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas effects of CFCs in the atmosphere became widely known(Source). Bill Bryson remarks that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny."(Source) J. R. McNeill, an environmental historian, opines that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."(Source)