In 1910, a 24-year-old Swiss law student who had never finished his degree worked out how to roll aluminium into thin, continuous sheets suitable for wrapping food. His name was Robert Victor Neher. Most people have never heard of him.
According to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, Neher was born on 2 February 1886 in Schaffhausen and was the son of Georg Robert, a factory director. He studied law in Zurich, Geneva, and Berlin between 1906 and 1910, which is to say he was a law student, not a chemist, not an engineer, and not a materials scientist.
