A Guide to Inventions and Discoveries
From Adrenaline to the Zipper
A
Adrenaline:
(isolation of) John Jacob Abel, U.S., 1897.
Aerosol can:
Erik Rotheim, Norway, 1926.
Air brake:
George Westinghouse, U.S., 1868.
Air conditioning:
Willis Carrier, U.S., 1911.
Airship:
(non-rigid) Henri Giffard, France, 1852; (rigid) Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Germany, 1900.
Aluminum manufacture:
(by electrolytic action) Charles M. Hall, U.S., 1866.
Anatomy, human:
(De fabrica corporis humani, an illustrated systematic study of the human body) Andreas Vesalius, Belgium, 1543; (comparative: parts of an organism are correlated to the functioning whole) Georges Cuvier, France, 1799–1805.
Anesthetic:
(first use of anesthetic—ether—on humans) Crawford W. Long, U.S., 1842.
Antibiotics:
(first demonstration of antibiotic effect) Louis Pasteur, Jules-François Joubert, France, 1887; (discovery of penicillin, first modern antibiotic) Alexander Fleming, Scotland, 1928; (penicillin's infection-fighting properties) Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, England, 1940.
Antiseptic:
(surgery) Joseph Lister, England, 1867.
Antitoxin, diphtheria:
Emil von Behring, Germany, 1890.
Appliances, electric:
(fan) Schuyler Wheeler, U.S., 1882; (flatiron) Henry W. Seely, U.S., 1882; (stove) Hadaway, U.S., 1896; (washing machine) Alva Fisher, U.S., 1906.
Aqualung:
Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Emile Gagnan, France, 1943.
Aspirin:
Dr. Felix Hoffman, Germany, 1899.
Astronomical calculator:
The Antikythera device, Greece, first century B.C.. Found off island of Antikythera in 1900.
Atom:
(nuclear model of) Ernest Rutherford, England, 1911.
Atomic structure:
(formulated nuclear model of atom, Rutherford model) Ernest Rutherford, England, 1911; (proposed current concept of atomic structure, the Bohr model) Niels Bohr, Denmark, 1913.
Atomic theory:
(ancient) Leucippus, Democritus, Greece, c. 500 B.C.; Lucretius, Rome c.100 B.C.; (modern) John Dalton, England, 1808.
Automobile:
(first with internal combustion engine, 250 rpm) Karl Benz, Germany, 1885; (first with practical high-speed internal combustion engine, 900 rpm) Gottlieb Daimler, Germany, 1885; (first true automobile, not carriage with motor) René Panhard, Emile Lavassor, France, 1891; (carburetor, spray) Charles E. Duryea, U.S., 1892.
Autopilot:
(for aircraft) Elmer A. Sperry, U.S., c.1910, first successful test, 1912, in a Curtiss flying boat.
Avogadro's law:
(equal volumes of all gases at the same temperature and pressure contain equal number of molecules) Amedeo Avogadro, Italy, 1811.
B
Bacteria:
Anton van Leeuwenhoek, The Netherlands, 1683.
Balloon, hot-air:
Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, France, 1783.
Barbed wire:
(most popular) Joseph E. Glidden, U.S., 1873.
Bar codes (computer-scanned binary signal code):
(retail trade use) Monarch Marking, U.S. 1970; (industrial use) Plessey Telecommunications, England, 1970.
Barometer:
Evangelista Torricelli, Italy, 1643.
Bicycle:
Karl D. von Sauerbronn, Germany, 1816; (first modern model) James Starley, England, 1884.
Big Bang theory:
(the universe originated with a huge explosion) George LeMaitre, Belgium, 1927; (modified LeMaitre theory labeled “Big Bang”) George A. Gamow, U.S., 1948; (cosmic microwave background radiation discovered, confirms theory) Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson, U.S., 1965.
Blood, circulation of:
William Harvey, England, 1628.
Boyle's law:
(relation between pressure and volume in gases) Robert Boyle, Ireland, 1662.
Braille:
Louis Braille, France, 1829.
Bridges:
(suspension, iron chains) James Finley, Pa., 1800; (wire suspension) Marc Seguin, Lyons, 1825; (truss) Ithiel Town, U.S., 1820.
Bullet:
(conical) Claude Minié, France, 1849
C
Calculating machine:
(logarithms: made multiplying easier and thus calculators practical) John Napier, Scotland, 1614; (slide rule) William Oughtred, England, 1632; (digital calculator) Blaise Pascal, 1642; (multiplication machine) Gottfried Leibniz, Germany, 1671; (important 19th-century contributors to modern machine) Frank S. Baldwin, Jay R. Monroe, Dorr E. Felt, W. T. Ohdner, William Burroughs, all U.S.; (“analytical engine” design, included concepts of programming, taping) Charles Babbage, England, 1835.
Calculus:
Isaac Newton, England, 1669; (differential calculus) Gottfried Leibniz, Germany, 1684.
Camera:
(hand-held) George Eastman, U.S., 1888; (Polaroid Land) Edwin Land, U.S., 1948.
“Canals” of Mars:
Giovanni Schiaparelli, Italy, 1877.
Carpet sweeper:
Melville R. Bissell, U.S., 1876.
Car radio:
William Lear, Elmer Wavering, U.S., 1929, manufactured by Galvin Manufacturing Co., “Motorola.”
Cells:
(word used to describe microscopic examination of cork) Robert Hooke, England, 1665; (theory: cells are common structural and functional unit of all living organisms) Theodor Schwann, Matthias Schleiden, 1838–1839.
Cement, Portland:
Joseph Aspdin, England, 1824.
Chewing gum:
(spruce-based) John Curtis, U.S., 1848; (chicle-based) Thomas Adams, U.S., 1870.
Cholera bacterium:
Robert Koch, Germany, 1883.
Circuit, integrated:
(theoretical) G.W.A. Dummer, England, 1952; (phase-shift oscillator) Jack S. Kilby, Texas Instruments, U.S., 1959.
Classification of plants:
(first modern, based on comparative study of forms) Andrea Cesalpino, Italy, 1583; (classification of plants and animals by genera and species) Carolus Linnaeus, Sweden, 1737–1753.
Clock, pendulum:
Christian Huygens, The Netherlands, 1656.
Coca-Cola:
John Pemberton, U.S., 1886.
Combustion:
(nature of) Antoine Lavoisier, France, 1777.
Compact disk:
RCA, U.S., 1972.
Computers:
(first design of analytical engine) Charles Babbage, 1830s; (ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator, first all-electronic, completed) John Presper Eckert, Jr., John Mauchly, U.S., 1945; (dedicated at University of Pennsylvania) 1946; (UNIVAC, Universal Automatic Computer, handled both numeric and alphabetic data) 1951; (personal computer) Steve Wozniak, U.S., 1976.
Concrete:
(reinforced) Joseph Monier, France, 1877.
Condensed milk:
Gail Borden, U.S., 1853.
Conditioned reflex:
Ivan Pavlov, Russia, c.1910.
Conservation of electric charge:
(the total electric charge of the universe or any closed system is constant) Benjamin Franklin, U.S., 1751–1754.
Contagion theory:
(infectious diseases caused by living agent transmitted from person to person) Girolamo Fracastoro, Italy, 1546.
Continental drift theory:
(geographer who pieced together continents into a single landmass on maps) Antonio Snider-Pellegrini, France, 1858; (first proposed in lecture) Frank Taylor, U.S. 1912; (first comprehensive detailed theory) Alfred Wegener, Germany, 1912.
Contraceptive, oral:
Gregory Pincus, Min Chuch Chang, John Rock, Carl Djerassi, U.S., 1951.
Converter, Bessemer:
William Kelly, U.S., 1851.
Cosmetics:
Egypt, c. 4000 B.C.
Cosmic string theory:
(first postulated) Thomas Kibble, UK, 1976.
Cotton gin:
Eli Whitney, U.S., 1793.
Crossbow:
China, c. 300 B.C.
Cyclotron:
Ernest O. Lawrence, U.S., 1931