Supposedly, when he first synthesized a polymer he didn’t realize the significance of what he had and poured it down the drain. Though a quick Google search isn’t coming up with any sources for that story aside from the Reddit post OP’s image came from.
That’s Hermann Staudinger. He won the Nobel Prize for his work on polymers.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1953/staudinger/facts/
Supposedly, when he first synthesized a polymer he didn’t realize the significance of what he had and poured it down the drain. Though a quick Google search isn’t coming up with any sources for that story aside from the Reddit post OP’s image came from.