He created an adhesive that allows small square bills to stick to the surface. They became one of the most common office products ever.

Give any friend a story

As a subscriber, you have 10 gifts to send every month. Anyone can read what you share.

3M research chemist Spencer Silver (Spencer Silver) died on May 8 at his home in St. Paul, Minnesota. He inadvertently created an adhesive that was not too sticky. The post-it notes can be peeled off the surface as easily as they are attached. He is 80 years old.

His wife Linda said that he died after an episode of ventricular tachycardia, in which case the heart beats faster than normal. Mr. Silver underwent a heart transplant 27 years ago.

Since its introduction in 1980, post-it notes have become a ubiquitous office product, first in the form of small canary yellow cushions — billions of pieces sold every year — and later also in different shades and sizes, some with more Sticky adhesive. Currently, there are more than 3,000 post-it brand products worldwide.

Dr. Silver works in 3M's central research laboratory, developing adhesives. In 1968, he tried to create a solid structure that could be used in aircraft manufacturing.

He failed to achieve that goal. But in his experiment, he invented something completely different: an adhesive that sticks to the surface, but it can peel off easily and can be reused.

This is a solution to a seemingly non-existent problem, but Dr. Silver is convinced that this is a breakthrough.

He told the Financial Times in 2010: "I think my adhesive is very unique, so I started to hold seminars at 3M, hoping to inspire an idea among its product developers."

Dr. Silver has been promoting his adhesives in 3M, a company known for its innovative workplace, for several years, so hard that he is called "Mr." persistent. "

He applied for a patent for this adhesive (technically called acrylate copolymer microspheres) in 1972. But after another two years, someone at 3M started paying attention to it seriously: Art Fry, a chemical engineer in the tape department laboratory, who was looking to develop new products.

Mr. Fry heard about Dr. Silver’s adhesive from a colleague on the second hole of the 3M Golf Course in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, and decided to attend a seminar with Dr. Silver.

"We are not familiar with each other," Mr. Frye said on the phone. "We have had intersections on things like bicycle clubs. 3M always finds ways to mix people from different departments."

It was not until one day that he thought of using adhesives immediately. While practicing in the church choir, he realized that Dr. Silver’s invention might solve a problem: the note that Mr. Fry used as a bookmark in his hymn The song keeps disappearing. Therefore, he used Dr. Silver's adhesive sample to create a bookmark that remained intact but did not tear the pages of the book when removed.

Mr. Frye tested a similar bookmark on some colleagues, and the results were good. But he needs more evidence to prove the products 3M might want to pursue. So he sent a report to his boss, with a note on the front, written on a bookmark; the supervisor replied on the same paper, with some adhesive on the other side, and then returned it.

"This is an exhilarating and exciting time," Mr. Fry told the Financial Times. "I can still feel that excitement."

In 1993, Mr. Frye obtained a patent for sticky notes, which is technically a "repositionable pressure-sensitive adhesive sheet material".

Spencer Ferguson Silver III was born in San Antonio on February 6, 1941. His father Spencer Jr. was an accountant. His mother Bernice (Wendt) Silver is a secretary.

In 1957, when the Soviet Union put the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into earth orbit, Spencer was still a teenager.

"His science teacher told the class,'All of you will become engineers,'" his wife said in a telephone interview.

Dr. Silver did not choose engineering or astrophysics. Instead, he graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1962. Four years later, he received a doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder. There, he met Linda Martin, a part-time undergraduate in the Department of Chemistry. They were married in 1965.

He soon joined 3M as a senior chemist in pressure sensitive adhesives. During his 30 years in the company, he was promoted to a corporate scientist. Although he has been involved in other projects involving branched block copolymers and immunodiagnostics, none of the projects have been part of the popular success of Post-it Notes.

The combination of Dr. Silver's adhesive and Mr. Fry's hand-made sticky notes caused a sensation among 3M secretaries. But 3M executives are not sure.

In 1977, Press'n Peel (product name) was tested and released in four cities-Denver; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Tampa, Florida; and Richmond, Virginia-with consumer failure, they Not sure about the idea of ​​repositionable paper squares. But the following year, 3M provided free samples to its office in Boise, Idaho, and achieved greater success. 90% of recipients said they would buy.

Two years later, 3M launched post-it notes nationwide. They never stop selling.

"Post-it notes are developing so quickly," Dr. Silver told CNN in 2013, "I think it makes a lot of marketing and sales staff feel a little breathless."

"It has always been a self-promotional product," he added, because customers put notes on files they send to others, which arouses the curiosity of recipients. "They will look at it, peel it off and play with it, and then go out and buy a mat for themselves."

Dr. Silver and Mr. Fry were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2010. Dr. Silver received the Creative Invention Award from the American Chemical Society in 1998.

Dr. Silver paints part-time while working at 3M. After retiring, he pursued art more seriously, using acrylic, oil painting and pastels to create abstract works on canvas.

In addition to his wife, a computer programmer who used sticky notes to mark and annotate errors in program printouts, Dr. Silver has a daughter, Jennifer Silver, and two grandchildren. Another daughter, Allison Anderson, died in 2017.

Post-it played an unlikely role in the 1997 movie "Rome and Michelle's High School Reunion". When her former classmates asked what she had been doing, Michelle (Lisa Kudrow) pretended that she hadn’t succeeded 10 years after graduating from high school, and said: “Well, well, I invented the post-it note ," and then play the role of Dr. Silver.

"I invented a special glue," she said, and then went on to explain the chemical process involving "thermosetting resin", mixing "epoxides" and adding "complex glucose derivatives" in the emulsification process . "

When filmmakers asked 3M for technical help, everything Mr. Fry provided was nonsense.

"I wrote a bunch of things that have nothing to do with post-it notes, and they used it," Mr. Fry told Vice in 2017. "This sounds more like something you use to repair a broken restaurant chair than the adhesive needed for post-it notes."