Woman of ‘Firsts’

On February 01, 2008 in General

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Katharine Burr Blodgett was the first woman in many different areas. She was the first woman to graduate with a Ph.D. in Physics from Cambridge University in 1926. She was the first woman scientist to be hired by General Electric. A Schenectady native, she was hired by GE even after she had completed her Master’s degree.

During her tenure at GE, she collaborated with the renowned Nobel Prize winning scientist Irving Langmuir. Their combined efforts resulted in the brilliant method for forming monomolecular coatings on glass and metal, now referred to as Langmuir-Blodgett films, or LB films in regular physics parlance. Interestingly though, she could not find a use for this wonderful new finding, thus was not a patentable. It wasn’t until the 1930s that a proper use for such layer-by-layer coatings. These coatings rendered glass non-reflective and non-distorting, and thus, she was able to create “invisible glass”. Subsequently, she had other inventions around this idea, and further, invented an easy method for measuring thickness.

She was further felicitated in various forums, many of which were in the category of ‘first woman’.

Her experience with LB films and the inventions based on it should give all the bright minds a lesson. How often have we said “That is a great idea, I should patent it”? Only to find out that convincing others that it is a great idea is difficult, let alone obtain a patent on it. Having a great idea is only a small part of getting a patent granted; finding a good use for it is a larger task. A good place to start for finding a uses for an idea is to attempt solving problems in the area using this idea. A key point to be noted here is that ideas by themselves are not patentable, unless there is something inherently useful in it.

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