
I think you're both right.  Teflon was actually discovered by accident
before WWII.  From what I've heard, they had some chemical (I assume it
was tetrafluoroethylene) in a tank and but the valve got gummed up.
Cutting it open revealed that it had polymerized.

The material was useful for seals, but it had a major problem for, say
the linings of vessels: it wouldn't stick to metal.  What the space
program did was to find a way to get it to stick.  Thus we had no-stick
frypans on the market in the late '60s.
