The fascinating thing about chemistry's impact was that it was production that drove discovery. It was companies, not governments who asked the big questions.

The fascinating thing about chemistry's impact was that it was production that drove discovery. It was companies, not governments who asked the big questions. Conglomerates such as Bayer and BASF drove the development of ammonia, dyes, antibiotics and chemotherapy. The only real exception was particle physics, which was entirely academic/governmental.