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Bruce Sterling

[email protected]



LITERARY FREEWARE: NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE

From THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, June 1993.

F&SF, Box 56, Cornwall CT 06753 $26/yr USA $31/yr other

F&SF Science Column #7:



SUPERGLUE



This is the Golden Age of Glue.

For thousands of years, humanity got by with natural glues like
pitch, resin, wax, and blood; products of hoof and hide and treesap
and tar. But during the past century, and especially during the past
thirty years, there has been a silent revolution in adhesion.

This stealthy yet steady technological improvement has been
difficult to fully comprehend, for glue is a humble stuff, and the
better it works, the harder it is to notice. Nevertheless, much of the
basic character of our everyday environment is now due to advanced
adhesion chemistry.

Many popular artifacts from the pre-glue epoch look clunky
and almost Victorian today. These creations relied on bolts, nuts,
rivets, pins, staples, nails, screws, stitches, straps, bevels, knobs, and
bent flaps of tin. No more. The popular demand for consumer
objects ever lighter, smaller, cheaper, faster and sleeker has led to
great changes in the design of everyday things.

Glue determines much of the difference between our
grandparent's shoes, with their sturdy leather soles, elaborate

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