Paul J. Flory was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1974. He contributed outstanding research on the composition and properties of substances composed of giant molecules: plastics, rubbers, and fibers. His research in polymeric materials has been essential to the growth of the plastics industry.

Flory was born in Sterling, Illinois. He graduated from Elgin High School in Elgin, Illinois, in 1927. He received a bachelor's degree from Manchester College, North Manchester, Indiana, in 1931, and a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University in 1934.

From 1934 to 1938, Flory was engaged in basic research on synthetic fibers, rubber, and other polymeric substances at the DuPont Experimental Station. There, he worked in a group with Wallace H. Carothers on the origins of nylon. For the next two years he was attached to the University of Cincinnati, and from 1940 until 1943 he worked with Standard Oil Development Company, where he began his research on the properties of polymers and synthetic rubber. In 1948 he joined Cornell University as a professor of chemistry. There he taught and conducted research with postdoctoral students.

In 1956 Flory was named executive director of research at the prestigious Mellon Institute, and from 1961 he was professor of chemistry at Stanford University.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Flory received many other honors, including Ohio State University's Sullivan Medal (1954), the American Chemistry Society's Baekeland Award (1947), the Peter Debye Award in physical chemistry (1968), the Gibbs Medal (1973), the Priestley Medal (1974), the Frankly Institute Cresson Medal (1971), and the National Medal of Science (1974). He was inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame in 1979.

His many publications include the two books: Principles of Polymer Chemistry (Cornell University Press, 1953) and Statistical Mechanics of Chain Molecules (Interscience Publishers, 1969).

See:

Paul Flory's autobiography, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1974/flory-autobio.html

Paul Flory article in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Flory