in 1943, he left to join the research laboratories of goodyear tire and rubber company as head of a group on polymer fundamentals. in the spring of 1948 peter debye, then chairman of the chemistry department at cornell university, invited flory to give the annual baker lectures. he then was offered a position with the faculty in the fall of the same year. at cornell, flory expanded and refined his baker lectures into his best work (magnum opus), "principles of polymer chemistry" which was published in 1953 by cornell university press. this quickly became a standard text for all workers in the field of polymers, and is still widely used to this day.