by Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London
(from the archive)
Obscure plants and animals can turn out to be surprisingly useful. The current mass extinction of animal and plant species needs to be stopped for lots of reasons but an obvious one is that we risk losing forever materials that could transform our lives. Gutta-percha is a good example from the 19th century. It provided a new material with uses ranging from electronic engineering to bioengineering. It even transformed the game of golf. Perhaps its greatest claim to fame though is that it kick-started the worldwide telecoms boom of the 19th century that ultimately led to the creation of global networks including the Internet.
Gutta-percha trees are native to South East Asia and Australia. Their sap is similar to rubber. It’s actually a natural polymer: a kind of material made of gigantic molecules built up of smaller structures that are repeated over and over again. Plastics, amber, silk, rubber and wool are all made of polymers. Though very similar to it, unlike rubber, Gutta-percha is biologically inert – it doesn’t react with biological materials – and that was the key to its usefulness. It was discovered by Western explorers in the middle of the 17th century, though local Malay people already knew about it and used it.
Chomping wires
So how did it play a part in creating the first global telecom network? Back in the 19th century, the telegraph was revolutionising the way people communicated. It meant messages could be sent across the country in minutes. The trouble was when the messages got to the coast they ground to a halt. Messages could only travel across an ocean as fast as a boat could take them. They could whiz from one end of America to the other in minutes but would then take several weeks to make it to Europe. The solution was to lay down undersea telegraph cables. However, to carry electricity an undersea cable needs to be protected and no one had succeeded in doing that. Rubber had been tried as an insulating layer for the cables but marine animals and plants just attacked it, and once the cable was open to the sea it became useless for sending signals. Gutta-percha on the other hand is a great insulator too but it doesn’t degrade in sea-water.
As it was the only known material that worked, soon all marine cable used Gutta-percha and as a result the British businessmen who controlled its supply became very rich. Soon telegraph cables were being laid everywhere – the original global telecoms network. To start with the network carried telegraph signals then was upgraded to voice and now is based on fibre-optics – the backbone of the Internet.
Rotting teeth
Gutta-percha has also been used by dentists – just as marine animals don’t attack it, it doesn’t degrade inside the human body either. That together with it being easy to shape makes it perfect for dental work. For example, it is used in root canal operations. The pulp and other tissue deep inside a rotting tooth are removed by the dentist leaving an empty chamber. Gutta-percha turns out to be an ideal material to fill the space, though medical engineers and materials scientists are trying to develop synthetic materials like Gutta-percha, but that have even better properties for use in medicine and dentistry.
Dimpled balls
That just leaves golf! Early golf balls were filled with feathers. In 1848 Robert Adams Paterson came up with the idea of making them out of Gutta-percha since it was much easier to make than the laborious process of sewing balls of feathers. It was quickly realised, if by accident, that after they had been used a few times they would fly further. It turned out this was due to the dimples that were made in the balls each time they were hit. The dimples improved the aerodynamics of the ball. That’s why modern golf balls are intentionally covered in dimples.
So gutta-percha has revolutionised global communications, changed the game of golf and even helped people with rotting teeth. Not bad for a tree.
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