Who else spent all day playing with Silly Putty? 😄 Silly Putty was invented by accident during World War II when James Wright, an engineer at General Electric, was trying to create a synthetic rubber substitute for use in the war effort. In 1943, while experimenting with silicone oil and boric acid, Wright concocted a unique gooey substance that didn’t have the properties needed for industrial use, but it had unusual and fascinating characteristics: it could stretch further than rubber, bounce