Lunn Poly

Lunn Poly was, at one time, the largest chain of travel agents in the United Kingdom. The company originated from two successful travel agencies established in the 1890s: The Polytechnic Touring Association and Sir Henry Lunn Travel. Both firms were acquired in the 1950s by the British Eagle airline group, and combined into Lunn Poly during 1965. It became a nationalised industry as part of the Transport Holding Company (THC).

In June 1971, Sunair bought Lunn Poly from the THC for £175,000. The next year, the company became part of Thomson Travel Group, along the way it acquired ten John Camkin Travel shops in the Midlands – which increased the number of shops from less than 30 to nearly 500 by 1990. It is now owned by TUI Northern Europe, a subsidiary of the German conglomerate TUI AG.

When TUI UK rebranded Britannia Airways as Thomsonfly in November 2003, the company insisted that there were no plans to rebrand Lunn Poly. On 2 November 2004, however, the announcement was made that Lunn Poly was to be rebranded as Thomson in order to create a "powerbrand". TUI UK announced that all 780 Lunn Poly shops in the United Kingdom would be renamed to Thomson before the peak holiday booking period started on 26 December 2004.

Poly

Poly, from the Greek πολύς meaning "many" or "much", may refer to:

In Greek mythology

In science and technology

In mathematics

In medicine

Plastics

Poly(methyl methacrylate)

Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), also known as acrylic or acrylic glass as well as by the trade names Plexiglas, Acrylite, Lucite, and Perspex among several others (see below), is a transparent thermoplastic often used in sheet form as a lightweight or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. The same material can be utilised as a casting resin, in inks and coatings, and has many other uses.

Although not a type of familiar silica-based glass, the substance, like many thermoplastics, is often technically classified as a type of glass (in that it is a non-crystalline vitreous substance) hence its occasional historic designation as acrylic "glass". Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate. The material was developed in 1928 in several different laboratories by many chemists such as William Chalmers, Otto Röhm and Walter Bauer and was first brought to market in 1933 by the Rohm and Haas Company under the trademark Plexiglas.

PMMA is an economical alternative to polycarbonate (PC) when extreme strength is not necessary. Additionally, PMMA does not contain the potentially harmful bisphenol-A subunits found in polycarbonate. It is often preferred because of its moderate properties, easy handling and processing, and low cost. Non-modified PMMA behaves in a brittle manner when under load, especially under an impact force, and is more prone to scratching than conventional inorganic glass, but modified PMMA is sometimes able to achieve high scratch and impact resistance.

Poly(hydridocarbyne)

Poly(hydridocarbyne) (PHC) is one of a class of carbon-based random network polymers primarily composed of tetrahedrally hybridized carbon atoms, each having one hydride substituent, exhibiting the generic formula [HC]n. PHC is made from bromoform, a liquid halocarbon that is commercially manufactured from methane. At room temperature, poly(hydridocarbyne) is a dark brown powder. It can be easily dissolved in a number of solvents (tetrahydrofuran, ether, toluene etc.), forming a colloidal suspension that is clear and non-viscous, which may then be deposited as a film or coating on various substrates. Upon thermolysis in argon at atmospheric pressure and temperatures of 110 °C to 1000 °C, decomposition of poly(hydridocarbyne) results in hexagonal diamond (Lonsdaleite).

More recently poly(hydridocarbyne) has been synthesized by a much simpler method using electrolysis of chloroform (May 2008) and hexachloroethane (June 2009).

The novelty of PHC (and its related polymer poly(methylsilyne)) is that the polymer may be readily fabricated into various forms (e.g. films, fibers, plates) and then thermolized into a final hexagonal diamond ceramic.