Famous people who invented technology

Archimedes was undoubtedly one of the big names of engineering in the 3 rd century BC. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists of classical antiquity.

We owe it to Archimedes for inventing the pulley, the lever, the catapult and the cog… not to mention the Archimedes screw. And where would fluid mechanics be today without that original Eureka moment? As a founding father, Benjamin Franklin was one of the people who invented America! His legacy includes the lightning conductor, bifocal lenses, and, according to some, the first experiments in nanoscience. These two tie for 6 th place in our list because they both made discoveries that are still saving millions of lives today.

Frenchman Louis Pasteur was the first microbiologist. He invented the principles of vaccination and pasteurisation, which turned out to be hugely important for human health. Across the English Channel, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin a few decades later, so he's the one that made antibiotics possible. They go together because they were both pioneers of modern medicine and the first scientists to declare all-out war on viruses and bacteria! We all know about Pegasus and Icarus in ancient Greece.

Ader's contraption was the first piloted aircraft to take off under its own steam literally and make a brief uncontrolled hop across a field near Paris. No, he didn't invent the world's coolest electric car. But Nikola Tesla was arguably the greatest geek who ever lived, always fixing things that weren't broken and coming up with amazing inventions in the process.

Among one of his first innovations after the telephone was the "photophone," a device that enabled sound to be transmitted on a beam of light. George Washington Carver was an agricultural chemist who invented uses for peanuts and hundreds of more uses for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes.

His contributions changed the history of agriculture in the South. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in The cotton gin is a machine that separates seeds, hulls, and other unwanted materials from cotton after it has been picked. Johannes Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and inventor best known for the Gutenberg press, an innovative printing machine that used movable type. John Logie Baird is remembered as the inventor of mechanical television an earlier version of television.

Baird also patented inventions related to radar and fiber optics. Benjamin Franklin was known for being an iconic statesman and a Founding Father. But among his many other accomplishments was the invention of the lightning rod, the iron furnace stove or Franklin Stove , bifocal glasses, and the odometer. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile as many people mistakenly assume. But he did improve the assembly line for automobile manufacturing, received a patent for a transmission mechanism, and popularized the gas-powered car with the Model-T.

James Naismith was a Canadian physical education instructor who invented basketball in Herman Hollerith invented a punch-card tabulation machine system for statistical computation. Herman Hollerith's great breakthrough was his use of electricity to read, count, and sort punched cards whose holes represented data gathered by the census-takers. His machines were used for the census and accomplished in one year what would have taken nearly 10 years of hand tabulating. Due to overwhelming public demand, we had to add Nikola Tesla to this list.

Tesla was a genius and much of his work was stolen by other inventors. Tesla invented fluorescent lighting, the Tesla induction motor, and the Tesla coil. He developed the alternating current AC electrical supply system that included a motor and transformer, as well as three-phase electricity. Steve Jobs was best remembered as the charismatic co-founder of Apple Inc. Working with co-founder Steve Wozniak, Jobs introduced the Apple II, a popular mass-market personal computer that helped usher in a new era of personal computing.

After being forced out of the company that he founded, Jobs returned in and assembled the team of designers, programmers, and engineers responsible for the groundbreaking iPhone, iPad, and many other innovations. Tim Berners-Lee is an English engineer and computer scientist who is often credited with inventing the World Wide Web , a network that most people use to access the internet. He first described a proposal for such a system in , but it wasn't until August that the first website was published and online.

The World Wide Web that Berners-Lee developed was comprised of the first web browser, server, and hypertexting. Sir James Dyson is a British inventor and industrial designer who revolutionized vacuum cleaning with the invention of the Dual Cyclone, the first bagless vacuum cleaner. Telegraph wireless : Guglielmo Marconi.

Television : John Logie Baird. General websites Here are some good places to find out more about inventors and their inventions. Inventor Archive This has an extensive list of international inventors.

You can Filter by fields such as electronics or transportation, or look for name alphabetically. Each entry is a short biography of the inventor and what they invented.

Look for addresses in the results that include. These are quality sites from overseas government or educational organisations. Ancient History Encyclopedia This is an educational website on ancient history around the world. Use keywords 'Archimedes' to search for information.

Select the article Archimedes about this Greek mathematician and engineer. Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. Select Topics from the menu at the top of the page. This page has links to famous inventors and inventions like the Wright Brothers and The Invention of the Internet. AnyQuestions can't control which ads a website shows. ExplainThatStuff This website is all about how technology works and includes information about how different technologies were invented.

Search for 'inventions' using the bar at the top of the page. This will bring up general articles like Inventors and inventions and History of invention: a science and technology timeline. There are also articles about the history of particular inventions, like cars and computers.

Tips: Look at the date on each article to see when the information was last updated. Britannica School This is an online version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Choose the level best suited to you. Search for an invention or inventor eg wheel. Or find inventors by selecting Biographies from the main page. In the box for Known for, find the heading for Technology , and select Invention. Select an inventor eg Hedy Lamarr , a famous actress who developed a device that is now part of cellphone, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth technology.

Science Gale In Context This database has lots of articles from encyclopedias, magazines and journals. Search using keywords eg steam engines. Limit your results by subject or type of information. Biography Gale In Context This database includes historical and current biographies of famous people. Go to Browse People and from the Topics menu choose Inventors. The list is in alphabetical order by surname.

Choose an inventor eg Louis Braille. Or search using keywords such as Richard Pearse. World History Gale In Context This database provides an overview of world history that includes inventors and inventions. Search using keywords such as clocks. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.

Books There are a number of books and stories that have been written about inventors and inventing - check out your local public or school library to see what they have there.