International Rubber Science Hall of Fame (IRSHF)

Current Recipient

Ronald S. Rivlin - 2008

The 2008 International Rubber Science Hall of Fame selection committee met on Friday, April 18, 2008, and selected Professor Ronald S. Rivlin (1915-2005) to be inducted at the 50th Anniversary celebration on Thursday, Nobember 6, 2008. Check back soon for the complete brochure. The information below was given as an introduction of the Charles Goodyear Medalist, Louisville, Kentucky, May 20, 1992, by Alan N. Gent with The University of Akron.

"Not many persons write new chapters in science. The 1992 Charles Goodyear Medalist, Ronald S. Rivlin, is a member of this select group. He is universally recognized as the author of a whole new chapter in the theory of elasticity - that dealing with highly elastic materials (of which rubber is an obvious example). This work, and his other studies in materials science, have been recognized by the award of four honorary doctorates (National University of Ireland, 1980; University of Nottingham, England, 1980; Tulane University, 1982; University of Thessaloniki, Greece, 1984), by election to membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering as well as honorary memebership of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (the national academy of Italy) and the Royal Irish Academy, and by the award of the Bingham Medal of the Society of Rheology in 1958, the Panetti Prize and Medal of the Academy of Sciences of Turin, Italy, in 1975, and the Timoshenko Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1987. And now it is my privilege to speak about him in connection with the award to him of the Charles Good- year Medal.

"Professor Rivlin leaves a strong impression on all who meet him. He is a charming and witty companion and a gifted speaker. Although those who have tangled with him in scientific debate (and invariably lose) might question it, he is a kind, thoughtful, and generous person, who cares a great deal for the welfare and progress of his students and colleagues. As an indication of the warm regard which his colleagues have for Ronald, on the occasion of the award of the Timoshenko Medal in 1987, more than 60 professors (associates, colleagues, and former students of his) gathered in Boston ahead of the regular ASME meeting to hold a special two-day symposium and banquet in his honor.

"Professor Rivlin was born in London, England, in 1915. In view of his remarkable contributions to rubber science, it is interesting to note that although his father was a rubber merchant, Ronald maintains that he had no interest as a boy in such a career. Instead, at school, he was strongly influenced by a mathematics teacher, so that as a student at St. John’s College, Cambridge, he 'majored' in both mathematics and physics, receiving the BA. degree in 1937 and the MA. in 1939. Ronald received the Sc.D. degree from Cambridge University in 1952. During the summer preceding his graduation in 1937, Ronald worked at the Research Laboratories of The General Electric Company in Wembley, England, with Norman Campbell, a distinguished physicist and student of J. J. Thomson, on photocells. This led to a brief publication, his first, in the Proceedings of the Physical Society and to a permanent appointment on graduation.

"In the five years he spent at the General Electric Company, Ronald’s work was concerned at first with television, and then with problems arising in multichannel carrier telephony, particularly the design of filters involving piezoelectric elements as components and the design and fabrication of these elements. During this period Ronald was inventor or coinventor on seven patents and author or coauthor of a dozen papers.

"In 1942 Ronald moved to the Telecommunications Research Establishment of the Ministry of Aircraft Production (TRE), which was concerned with the development of radar. He served there until August 1 944. Then, at the suggestion of a former colleague at both General Electric and TRE, Dr. Leslie Treloar, he joined the British (now Malaysian) Rubber Producers’ Research Association (BRPRA) at Weiwyn Garden City. (Treloar had joined the BRPRA a few years earlier and was at the time temporarily at TRE). At the BRPRA, after a brief flirtation with the study of stickiness as exemplified by Scotch tape--Ronald embarked on the construction of his theory of larg&deformational elasticity; of which I shall have more to say later.

"In the Fall of 1946, at the instigation of the director of the BRPRA laboratories, Mr. John Wilson, Ronald came to the United States to spend a year with Dr. L. A. Wood at the (then) Bureau of Standards in Washington. During most of that year he also served as a consultant to the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh in connection with a program of the Office of the Rubber Reserve. It was in Pittsburgh that he first met his wife, Violet, who was employed as a chemist at the Mellon Institute.

"After his return to England, Ronald continued his extraordinarily productive program of theoretical research on rubber and also built up a group of experimental physicists dedicated to obtaining insight into a number of important physical properties of rubber elastic behavior, strength, abrasion, crystallization, etc. As a young scientist, I first met Ronald at this point and benefited enormously from his guidance. In 1952 he accepted an invitation to spend ayear as consultant to the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. While there he decided to remain in the United States and accepted an appointment as Professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University. He served there from 1953 to 1967, was Chairman of the Division of Applied Mathematics from 1958 to 1963, and L. Herbert Ballou University Professor from 1963 to 1967. He moved to Lehigh University in 1967 as Centennial University Professor and Director of the Center for the Application of Mathematics and served in these capacities until he reached the normal retirement age in 1980. He and Violet still live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They have one son, John, who is a computer software engineer in California.

"Dr. Rivlin has held many distinguished posts as visiting professor and lecturer: at California Institute of Technology in 1953; as Guggenheim Fellow at the University of Rome in 1961-62; at the University of Paris in 1966-67; as Senior von Humboldt Fellow at a number of German universities (Hannover, Stuttgart, Munich, Berlin) in 1981 and 1982; at the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin, in 1984-5; at the University of Delaware in 1985-86; and at Georgia Institute of Technology in 1986-87. These appointments are marks of the high regard in which his scientific work, advice, and judgment are held internationally.

"I come now to the research for which Ronald is renowned. We all know that the mathematical theory of elasticity is elegant and rigorous. For many years it was regarded as virtually complete—- only refinements were possible to the great achievements of the 19th century. But these were concerned almost exclusively with small deformations, for which a linear theory provides a good approximation. From 1946 forward, Rivlin showed that it is possible to treat, with the same rigor and elegance, a new branch of mathematical theory dealing with highly elastic materials (of which rubber is, of course, a prime example). He solved, virtually singlehandedly, most of the problems which can be solved analytically, creating a body of work which is generally recognized to be of classic stature. He has made many other distinguished scientific contributions that I could go into S-on the analysis of viscous and viscoelastic materials, on the strength of rubber, and the behavior of rubber solutions all of which merit recognition and acclaim. But I have focused on the work that I know best.

"In conclusion, Professor Ronald S. Rivlin richly deserves our recognition and acclaim there is no more appropriate person to whom the Division could award the 1992 Charles Goodyear Medal."

Past Recipients

Dr. Ralph Milkovich - 2007

Dr. Ralph Milkovich received his Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry at The University of Akron in 1959 under the direction of Professor Maurice Morton. Dr. Milkovich was a pioneer in heterophase polymer science and technology and was one of the first to observe and recognize living anionic polymerization. He pioneered the synthesis of pure block and graft polymers (Kraton® and Macromer®) and developed the concept of morphological domains in heterophase polymers.

Dr. Milkovich was often described as the "Johnny Appleseed of anionic polymerization," as a result of his pioneering technological leadership and research activities at Shell Chemical Company, The General Tire & Rubber Company, CPC International, ARCO Chemical Company and PPG Industries. Dr. Milkovich received the American Chemical Society's Creative Invention Award in April, 1985, shortly before his untimely death in June of that year.

2007 - Ralph Milkovich
2006 - David Tabor
2005 - Thor L. Smith
2004 - Frederic Stanley Kipping
2003 - John D. Ferry
2002 - Michael Szwarc
2001 - Leonard Mullins
2000 - Wendell V. Smith
1999 - William J. Sparks and Robert M. Thomas
1998 - Adolf Schallamach
1997 - No award given
1996 - Gerard Kraus
1995 - Lawrence A. Wood
1994 - Maurice Morton
1993 - Herman F. Mark
1992 - Philip Schidrowitz
1991 - Jean Le Bras
1990 - George V. Vinogradov
1989 - Merton L. Studebaker
1988 - Edward M. Bevilacqua
1987 - L. R. G. Treloar
1986 - Paul John Flory
1985 - William Draper Harkins
1984 - William Bryan Wiegand
1983 - Giulio Natta
1982 - George Oenslager
1981 - Joseph C. Patrick
1980 - Graham Moore
1979 - Walter Bock
1978 - No award given
1977 - Misazo Tamamoto
1975-76 - Arthur Victor Tobolsky
1974 - John Boyd Dunlop and Robert William Thomson
1973 - Charles Dufraisse
1972 - George Stafford Whitby
1971 - Melvin Mooney
1970 - Kurt Otto Hans Meyer and Wemer Kuhn
1969 - Ernest Harold Farmer
1967-68 - Peter J. W. Debye
1966 - Hermann Staudinger
1965 - Johan Rudolph Katz
1964 - Sir William A. Tilden
1963 - Wallace Hume Carothers
1962 - Guiseppe Bruni
1961 - Carl Dietrich Harries
1960 - Henry Nicholas Ridley
1959 - Thomas Hancock
1958 - C. Greville Williams, Carl O. Weber, Ian I. Ostromislensky, Charles Goodyear and Henri Bouasse