Last night (Aug, 4th) I watched
The Absent Minded Professor. What a lovely basis for a parallel. Flubber would be a massive game changer even if only the anti-gravity function worked. Diverge after the end of the first film. Have Betsy Carlisle, Professor Ned Brainard's wife, handle the business end of things. Flubber based Anti-gavity and power generation are commonplace by 1970. Of course the Russians (after several nervous breakdowns) figure out the formula.
Basically, this is a Golden Age Sci Fi setting. It's a lot more
Danny Dunn and
Miss Pickerell than Heinlein or Van Vogt.
Besides the film mentioned here, Disney did
Son of Flubber,
The Misadventures of Merlin Jones,
The Monkey's Uncle,
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes,
Now you see him, now you don't, and
The Strongest Man in the World, all involving science gone wacky at
Medfield College. All could be mined for plot hooks.
If Flubber, or any of the crazy science works off parallel, it could be a game changer in the Homeline/Centrum struggle.