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# My bookmarks keep falling out of the book
- URL: https://www.thefrictionlog.com/08200/
- Published: 2026-09-22T18:54:11.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-12T15:20:13.000Z
- Description: Filed: 1974 · Solved: 1980 · the sticky note · by Spencer Silver and Art Fry, 3M scientists
- Author: The Clerk
- Tags: Solved, #solved 1980

*I had forty scraps of paper marking the important pages. Then I sneezed.* — Law student, 1976

In 1968 a 3M chemist named Spencer Silver set out to make a strong glue and made a weak one. He spent years showing it around anyway. Proud of it. Art Fry, a colleague whose bookmarks kept falling out of his church hymnal, figured out what it was for. 3M handed out free pads in Boise, Idaho, and 90% of the people who tried them said they'd buy. A glue nobody had a use for, and nine in ten wanted the note. Sometimes the mistake is the product.

**Still bugs us**: sticky notes fall off too, and always seem to land behind the desk.