Physical chemistry and industrial research · 1873–1975

William David Coolidge

Coolidge worked at the General Electric research laboratory in Schenectady for most of his life, in the first generation of industrial laboratories organized to turn physics and chemistry into products. His approach to tungsten was characteristic: rather than search for a new material, he studied how an existing intractable one behaved under combinations of temperature and mechanical work until he found a sequence that made it ductile.