Professor Miiller and I have enjoyed cordial relations for over thirty years, but this is the jirst
time he and I have been honored together for our separate and almost simultaneous discovery of what
has become known as the Miiller-Rochow Process, It is a great pleasure, and a source of much personal
satisfaction to us, that we have both been awarded the "Wacker Silicon-Preis" during the stimulating
and enjoyable "Munich Silicon Days '92".
When I realized that the new "methyl silicon oxides" that I developed during the late 1930s could
never reach practical application unless an entirely new tnethod of synthesis was devised, entirely
outside of the Grignard reagent, it took many experiments before the reaction between methyl chloride
and a silicon-copper powder became a demonstrated reality. lken, afler the 1940 success and endless
laboratory scale-ups, there was an agonizingly long wait while a chemical engineering group under
Charles E. Reed devised new equipment for carrying on the reaction, built a pilot plant, and eventually
bought land and started fill-scale production. Today, the reaction is the bms of a thriving world-wide
industry, the products of which are of enormous benefit both to individuals and to commerce.
In the papers presented in rhe two days of the Munich Silicon Days, representatives from many
lands describe what is new and what has been going on in the silicone industry. I join with Pro! Miiller
in commending these papers, now in book form, to the student and the practitioner in this new, very
different, and very exciting field.