Graphene
The theory of graphene was first explored by Wallace in 1947 as a starting point for understanding the electronic properties of 3D graphite. The emergent massless Dirac equation was first pointed out by Semenoff, DiVincenzo and Mele. The earliest TEM images of few-layer graphite were published by Ruess and Vogt in 1948. An early, detailed study on few-layer graphite dates to 1962 when Boehm and colleagues reported producing monolayer flakes of reduced graphene oxide. Efforts to make thin films of graphite by mechanical exfoliation started in 1990, but nothing thinner than 50 to 100 layers was produced before 2004. Initial attempts to make atomically thin graphitic films employed exfoliation techniques similar to the drawing method. Multilayer samples down to 10 nm in thickness were obtained.
Shaft (golf)
"Graphite" shafts began to emerge in the late twentieth century. The graphite shaft was invented by Frank Thomas in 1969 while working as Chief Design Engineer for Shakespeare Sporting Goods, in collaboration with Union Carbide. The original graphite shafts manufactured by Shakespeare Sporting Goods were filament wound, had extremely consistent properties and were extremely expensive. Subsequent, less expensive flagwrapped versions of the graphite shaft introduced by other manufacturers several years later had inconsistent properties and as a result professionals and skilled amateurs were initially skeptical of the new technology when compared to steel; however, advances in technology, developed by Bruce Williams, an engineer working with an Ohio-based composites company, eventually changed this perception.