Everything about Steven Kistler totally explained
Samuel Stephens Kistler (
March 26,
1900 – ??,
1975) was an
American scientist and
chemical engineer, best known as the
inventor of
aerogels, the lightest known
solid materials.
Born in the small town of
Cedarville in the far Northeastern corner of
California, son of a shop keeper, the family moved to the larger
Santa Rosa when Kistler was 12, where he first became interested in
chemistry. When he entered the
College of the Pacific in
1917 however, his plan was to learn to play the
cello, then pursue a degree in
agriculture. Instead he ended up taking every science course available, and after three years he moved to
Stanford University and obtained a B.A. in chemistry, followed by a chemical engineering degree. He never did learn to play the cello. After a brief spell working for the
Standard Oil Company of California, he returned to
academia, teaching chemistry at the College of the Pacific until
1931, when he transferred to the
University of Illinois.
The exact circumstances of the creation of the first aerogels are not well recorded. A popular story is that they resulted from a competition between Kistler and one Charles Learned
"to see if they could replace the liquid inside of a jelly jar without causing any shrinkage". Whether these experiments were performed at the College of the Pacific, still with limited facilities following the move in
1923 to the new
Stockton campus, or at Stanford where Kistler began pursuing a doctorate in
1927, is a source of some confusion. Either way, in
1931 Kistler published a paper in
Nature (vol. 127, p. 741) titled "Coherent Expanded Aerogels and Jellies".
Leaving his teaching post at the University of Illinois in
1935, and signed a contract with
Monsanto in the early
1940s to start developing granular
silica aerogel products under the trademark
Santocel. Largely used as a fattening agent in paints and similar uses, Monsanto discontinued the line in
1970, probably due to the high cost of manufacture and competition from newer products. Kistler had returned to teaching however, taking up a position as
Dean of Engineering at the
University of Utah in
1952. He died in
1975, shortly before the resurgence of interest in
aerogels caused by the discovery of a less time consuming method of manufacture by researchers led by
Stanislaus Teichner in
France.
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