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Wikipedia says gutta-percha was a household word as it was a popular material to make items out of. Interesting to see the word distribution in Google books, it

by jvm___ 1y ago

Wikipedia says gutta-percha was a household word as it was a popular material to make items out of. Interesting to see the word distribution in Google books, it was super popular but seems to have died off quickly. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Gutta-percha&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Gutta-percha&y...

culi 1y ago
At some point we started calling it latex instead. There's still plenty of stuff made from natural latex. The harvesting of latex from Hevea brasiliensis is almost exactly the same as harvesting latex from Palaquium gutta (gutta-percha) EDIT: I see they are actually 1,4-polyisoprene but gutta-percha is in a trans configuration while H. brasiliensis latex is in a cis configuration. Not sure if that amounts to any difference in properties https://s10.lite.msu.edu/res/msu/botonl/b_online/e20/20c.htm https://s10.lite.msu.edu/res/msu/botonl/b_online/e20/20c.htm
sorokod 1y ago
The dash in the spelling is unusual (according to books.google), also different languages tell different stories Russian - looks like a hot topic at the start of WW2 : https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%D0%B3%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%87%D0%B0&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=ru&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%D0%B3%D1%83%D... German: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Guttapercha&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=de&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=false https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Guttapercha&ye...
buildsjets 1y ago
Do you REALLY believe that there was a hundred-fold spike in the use of the term gutta-percha in the 5 years between 1869 and 1874, or would you willing to consider that you are looking at spurious data?
- WillAdams 1y ago
  Consider a similar new material/technology development --- certainly from 1969--1974 there was presumably a similar spike in the use of the word "computer", which was similarly transformative.

by jvm___ 1y ago

culi 1y ago

At some point we started calling it latex instead. There's still plenty of stuff made from natural latex. The harvesting of latex from Hevea brasiliensis is almost exactly the same as harvesting latex from Palaquium gutta (gutta-percha) EDIT: I see they are actually 1,4-polyisoprene but gutta-percha is in a trans configuration while H. brasiliensis latex is in a cis configuration. Not sure if that amounts to any difference in properties https://s10.lite.msu.edu/res/msu/botonl/b_online/e20/20c.htm https://s10.lite.msu.edu/res/msu/botonl/b_online/e20/20c.htm

sorokod 1y ago

The dash in the spelling is unusual (according to books.google), also different languages tell different stories Russian - looks like a hot topic at the start of WW2 : https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%D0%B3%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%87%D0%B0&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=ru&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%D0%B3%D1%83%D... German: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Guttapercha&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=de&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=false https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Guttapercha&ye...

buildsjets 1y ago

Do you REALLY believe that there was a hundred-fold spike in the use of the term gutta-percha in the 5 years between 1869 and 1874, or would you willing to consider that you are looking at spurious data?

WillAdams 1y ago
Consider a similar new material/technology development --- certainly from 1969--1974 there was presumably a similar spike in the use of the word "computer", which was similarly transformative.