Chemical engineers at MIT have developed a new material that's stronger than steel and as light as plastic - and it might one day protect your smartphone, support new buildings, hold up bridges, and more. Polymerization 101: Under the right conditions, small molecules called "monomers" will connect to form chains called "polymers."

Arguably the most important (if least well known) industrial advancement of the 20th century, the Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis process essentially conquered food scarcity by creating the means to mass produce fertilizer-fertilizer then used to fortify food harvests around the world.