Od wazeliny do krzemowej rewolucji: czyli niezwykła historia największego polskiego odkrycia, które zmieniło świat

In August 2016 exactly one hundred years passed from the discovery of the Czochralski method of single crystal pulling, named after Jan Czochralski (1885–1953), the Polish chemist and metallurgist. To celebrate this anniversary, a translation of Czochralski main publication into Polish was published. In the present paper we show the pharmaceutical inspiration which was most likely a source of the discovery of the Czochralski method. We present the evolution of this method up to obtaining huge single crystals of silicon, the fundamental element of contemporary electronics and our civilization.