George de mestral cause of death
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Velcro® Inventor
George De Mestral got the idea for Velcro® from cockleburs caught in his clothes and his dog’s fur.
During a walk in the woods in 1948, Swiss engineer and outdoorsman de Mestral caught hundreds of burrs in his clothes and his dog’s fur. He wondered how they attached themselves so tenaciously.
De Mestral observed the burrs under a microscope. He saw that each one was covered with hooks that looked like a monster’s mouthful of spiked fangs. These hooks grabbed onto anything that had a loop--clothing fiber, animal fur, or human hair. The common burr was a natural “hook and loop fastener.” De Mestral realized he could create a fabric fastener that acted like the burrs, and so the idea of Velcro® was born.
The Work of George de Mestral
It took de Mestral nearly a decade of trial and error to create a fastener that would cling as well as the burrs. In early trials, the loops were too big for the hooks, or the hooks were too big for the loops. Together with a skilled French weaver, de Mestral eventually learned how to make nearly indestructible burr-like nylon h
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George de Mestral
George de Mestral was a Swiss electrical engineer who invented hook and loop fastener.
George de Mestral was born in Switzerland in 1907. Trained as an engineer, de Mestral was inspired to invent Velcro after examining burrs clinging to his clothing after a hiking trip. He began developing the fabric in 1948 and completed work in 1955, patenting his invention the same year. De Mestral died in Commugy, Switzerland, on February 8, 1990.
In 1948, de Mestral happened upon his most enduring discovery while hiking. He and his dog returned from a hike covered in burrs from the plants along the trail. De Mestral examined the burrs under a microscope, studying their structure. He began working to develop a synthetic fastening system that mimicked the hooks and loops of the burrs.
The fabric went through a number of phases before it was finalized. De Mestral worked with a weaver in France to create hooks and loops strong and durable enough to cling together as he intended. Originally crafted from cotton, the fabric ultimately proved more successful when made out of ny
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George De Mestral
It may be difficult to imagine a world without Velcro®, but the fastening mechanism did not exist before George de Mestral created it in 1955.
Born in Switzerland on June 19, 1907, de Mestral earned an electrical engineering degree from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. The idea for Velcro® came to him when he was doing one of the things he loved most: hiking. He and his dog passed through a patch of brush and were quickly covered with burrs, which clung firmly to fur and clothing. When he returned home, de Mestral pulled one of the burrs off of his trousers and took it to his microscope. He saw that the burr had tiny hooks all over it that were able to hold tightly to the fabric loops in his clothing or strands of hair in animal fur. This was nature’s way of ensuring that the seeds inside the burr would be spread far and wide for increased chance of successful planting.
This design intrigued de Mestral, who thought, why not create a fastening system employing these same ideas? He decided to experiment with his idea using two sides: one with
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