ABSTRACT
Paul Flory was strongly affected by Carothers’ suicide on April 29, 1937.20 In an interview,21 Flory referred to Carothers’ death as “one of the most profoundly shocking events in my life … It just pulled the rug from under my hopes … I realized how much a shield he had been and much of an influence … when he was gone.” After Carothers’ death, it was clear to Flory that he had lost an important mentor and felt that there was now no one devoted to fundamental research at DuPont. In 1938, Flory decided to leave DuPont and joined the Basic Sciences Research Laboratory of the University of Cincinnati (UC) as a research associate. The Basic Sciences Laboratory was the perfect opportunity for Flory at that time. Flory again had the freedom to develop his own ideas, and from 1938 until 1940, he continued his important studies of polymer viscosity and the mechanism of chain-length distributions of polymers that he had begun at DuPont. A particularly important milestone was the development of a mathematical model for gelation.
