Inventor
inventor, a person who brings ideas or objects together in a novel way to create an invention, something that did not exist before.
Inventors defy definition; as a result, they are frequently defined by what they are not. For example, though there is a close relation between invention and science and engineering, an inventor is not necessarily a scientist or an engineer. A scientist is said to be a discoverer—that is, somebody who by acute observation and brilliant analysis is able to find and explain something that already exists in nature. An engineer, meanwhile, uses existing technology and scientific understanding to design better objects or processes. But an inventor, it is said, creates something that had never previously existed.
Such distinctions are useful to an extent, but they also ignore the fact that science, engineering, and invention often work together. In fact, a large part of inventors’ efforts throughout history have been devoted not to the creation of something new but to the improvement and development of existing devices—traditionally the domain of the engineer. Furthermore, invention and scientific discovery are frequently so closely intertwined that it is difficult to draw any clear-cut distinction between them. For instance, Thomas Edison’s “invention” of the incandescent lamp was based partially on his “discovery” that a carbon filament possessed the desired physical properties to incandesce, or emit light when heated, in a vacated bulb—and “discovery” was itself obtained not by the scientist’s vaunted methodology but by an engineer’s dogged persistence, trying many different possible filament materials until he found the one that worked.
Notable inventors throughout history are listed in the table below.
inventor
nationality
invention
year of invention
Homo habilis
stone tools
c. 2 million years ago
Imhotep
Egyptian
step pyramid
27th century BCE
Archimedes
Greek
Archimedes screw
3rd century BCE
Ctesibius of Alexandria
Greek
float-type clepsydra (water clock)
3rd century BCE
Heron of Alexandria
Greek
aeolipile (steam-powered turbine)
1st century CE
Cai Lun
Chinese
paper
2nd century CE
Johannes Gutenberg
German
printing press
c. 1450
William Lee
English
knitting machine
1589
Hans Lippershey
German-Dutch
compound microscope; telescope
c. 1590; 1608
Cornelis Drebbel
Dutch
oar-powered submarine
1620
Evangelista Torricelli
Italian
mercury barometer
1643
Otto von Guericke
Prussian
air pump
1650
Christiaan Huygens
Dutch
pendulum clock
1658
Giuseppe Campani
Italian
lens-grinding lathe
1664
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Dutch
single-lens microscope
c. 1670
Denis Papin
French-English
pressure cooker
1679
Daniel Quare
English
repeating watch mechanism for sounding the nearest hour and quarter hour
1680
Thomas Savery
English
steam-driven vacuum pump
1698
Jethro Tull
English
mechanical seed drill
1701
Abraham Darby
English
used coke to smelt iron
1709
Thomas Newcomen
English
atmospheric steam engine
1712
John Hadley
English
quadrant for determining latitude
1730
Thomas Godfrey
American
quadrant for determining latitude
1730
Henri Pitot
French
pitot tube
1732
John Kay
English
flying shuttle
1733
John Harrison
English
marine chronometer
1735
Benjamin Franklin
American
Franklin stove
c. 1740
Benjamin Huntsman
English
crucible steel
c. 1740
Thomas Boulsover
English
Sheffield plate
c. 1742
Jacques de Vaucanson
French
automated loom
1745
Sir Richard Arkwright
English
water frame (spinning machine)
1764
James Watt
Scottish
improved steam engine with separate condenser
1765
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot
French
steam-driven gun carriage
1769
David Bushnell
American
hand-powered submarine
c. 1775
Patrick Ferguson
Scottish
breech-loading flintlock rifle
1776
Samuel Crompton
English
spinning mule
1779
Jonathan Hornblower
English
reciprocating compound steam engine
1781
William Murdock
Scottish
Sun-and-planet motion for steam engines
c. 1781
Montgolfier brothers
French
hot-air balloon
1782
Josiah Wedgwood
English
pyrometer
1782
Claude-François-Dorothée, marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans
French
early paddlewheel steamboat
1783
John Fitch
American
early steamboat
1787
Andrew Meikle
Scottish
threshing machine
1788
Edmund Cartwright
English
wool-combing machine
1789
Oliver Evans
American
high-pressure steam engine (U.S.)
1790
William Nicholson
English
hydrometer
1790
Claude Chappe
French
semaphore telegraph
1794
Eli Whitney
American
cotton gin
1794
Joseph Bramah
English
hydraulic press
1795
Nicolas-Jacques Conté
French
graphite pencil
1795
Alois Senefelder
German
lithography
1798
Henry Maudslay
English
metal lathe
c. 1800
Alessandro Volta
Italian
electric battery
1800
John Stevens
American
screw-driven steamboat
1802
Richard Trevithick
English
steam railway locomotive
1803
Joseph-Marie Jacquard
French
Jacquard loom
1804–05
William Congreve
English
military rocket
1805
Alexander John Forsyth
Scottish
percussion-lock musket
1805–07
Robert Fulton
American
commercial steamboat
1807
John Heathcoat
English
lace-making machine
1809
John Blenkinsop
English
geared steam locomotive
1812–13
John Loudon McAdam
Scottish
macadam road surface
1815
Robert Stirling
Scottish
Stirling external-combustion engine
1816
Marc Isambard Brunel
French-English
geared steam tunneling shield
1818
René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec
French
stethoscope
1819
Thomas Hancock
English
rubber masticator
1821
Charles Macintosh
Scottish
mackintosh waterproof fabric
1823
Louis Braille
French
Braille writing system
1824
Richard Roberts
Welsh
automatic spinning mule
1825
George Stephenson
English
passenger train pulled by steam locomotive
1825
Nicéphore Niépce
French
permanent photographic image
1826–27
Nikolaus von Dreyse
German
needle-firing rifle
1827
Benoît Fourneyron
French
water turbine
1827
Goldsworthy Gurney
English
steam carriage
1830
Peter Cooper
American
Tom Thumb steam locomotive
1830
Henri-Gustave Delvigne
French
cylindrical bullet
c. 1830
Cyrus Hall McCormick
American
mechanical reaper
1831
Jeanne Villepreux-Power
French
glass aquarium
1832
Obed Hussey
American
mechanical reaper
1833
Thomas Davenport
American
electric motor
1834
Charles Babbage
English
Analytical Engine mechanical computer
c. 1835
Samuel Colt
American
revolver
1835
Rowland Hill
English
postage stamp
1835–40
John Frederic Daniell
English
Daniell cell battery
1836
Edward Davy
English
electromagnetic telegraph repeater
c. 1836
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
English
Great Western transatlantic steamer
1837
Isaac Pitman
English
Pitman shorthand
1837
Charles Wheatstone
English
electric needle telegraph
1837
Samuel F.B. Morse
American
electric telegraph; Morse code
1837; 1838
John Deere
American
all-steel one-piece plow
1838
Chauncey Jerome
American
one-day brass clock movement
c. 1838
Isaac Babbitt
American
babbitt metal
1839
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
French
daguerreotype
1839
Charles Goodyear
American
vulcanized rubber
1839
Johann Georg Bodmer
Swiss
gear-making machine
1839–41
William Howe
American
Howe truss for bridges
1840
Antoine-Joseph Sax
Belgian-French
saxophone
1842
Thomas Jackson Rodman
American
prismatic gunpowder
c. 1845
Elias Howe
American
sewing machine
1846
Richard March Hoe
American
rotary printing press
1847
Claude-Étienne Minié
French
cylindrical Minié bullet
1849
William Kelly
American
pneumatic steel-making process
c. 1850
Frederick Scott Archer
English
wet collodion photography process
1851
Hugh Burgess
English American
soda papermaking process
1851
Isaac Merrit Singer
American
domestic sewing machine
1851
Elisha Graves Otis
American
safety elevator
1852
George Cayley
English
first glider to carry a human
1853
Henry Bessemer
English
Bessemer steelmaking process
1856
Étienne Lenoir
Belgian
internal-combustion engine
1858
Gaston Planté
French
electric storage battery
1859
Christopher M. Spencer
American
Spencer breech-loading carbine
1860
Sondre Nordheim
Norwegian
ski bindings
1860
Robert Parker Parrott
American
Parrott gun (rifled cannon)
1861
William Siemens
German English
open-hearth furnace
1861
Warren De la Rue
English
astronomical photography
c. 1862
Richard Jordan Gatling
American
Gatling gun
1862
Louis Pasteur
French
pasteurization
1863
Linus Yale
American
Yale cylinder lock
1863
Siegfried Marcus
German
gasoline-powered automobile
1864–65
Samuel Cunliffe Lister
English
silk-combing machine
1865
George M. Pullman
American
Pullman sleeping car
1865
Thomas Clifford Allbutt
English
modern clinical thermometer
1866
Georges Leclanché
French
dry-cell battery
c. 1866
Alfred Ely Beach
American
pneumatic tube
1867
Joseph Monier
French
reinforced concrete
c. 1867
Alfred Bernhard Nobel
Swedish
dynamite
1867
Christopher Latham Sholes
American
typewriter
1868
Louis Ducos du Hauron
French
trichrome process of colour photography
1869
George Westinghouse
American
air brake
1869
John Wesley Hyatt
American
celluloid
1870
Margaret Knight
American
flat-bottomed paper bag
1871
James Starley
English
bicycle with centre-pivot steering
1871
Joseph Farwell Glidden
American
barbed wire
1873
Alexander Graham Bell
Scottish American
telephone
1876
Elisha Gray
American
telephone
1876
Melville Reuben Bissell
American
carpet sweeper
1876
Nikolaus August Otto
German
four-stroke internal-combustion engine
1876
Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov
Russian
Yablochkov candle (arc lamp)
1876
Joseph Rogers Brown
American
universal grinding machine
1877
Ephraim Shay
American
geared steam locomotive
c. 1877
Thomas Alva Edison
American
phonograph cylinder sound recorder; incandescent lightbulb
1877; c. 1879
Maria Beasley
English
life raft
1880
Nikola Tesla
Serbian American
alternating-current electric motor
1880–88
Hilaire Bernigaud de Chardonnet
French
rayon
1884
Hiram Maxim
American British
Maxim machine gun
1884
Ottmar Mergenthaler
German American
Linotype typesetting machine
1884
Charles Algernon Parsons
English
multistage steam turbine
1884
Karl Friedrich Benz
German
practical automobile with an internal-combustion engine
1885
Gottlieb Daimler
German
high-speed internal-combustion engine
1885
Josephine Cochrane
American
mechanical dishwasher
1886
Charles Sumner Tainter
American
graphophone cylinder sound recorder
1886
Charles Martin Hall
American
electrolytic aluminum smelting
1886
Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult
French
electrolytic aluminum smelting
1886
Emil Berliner
German American
Gramophone disc sound recorder
1887
John Boyd Dunlop
Scottish
pneumatic rubber tire
1887
George Eastman
American
Kodak camera
1888
Franklin Hiram King
American
cylindrical grain silo
1889
Herman Hollerith
American
tabulating machine
c. 1890
Ferdinand von Zeppelin
German
zeppelin airship
1890–1900
James A. Naismith
Canadian American
basketball
1891
William Seward Burroughs
American
adding machine
1892
James Dewar
Scottish
vacuum flask
c. 1892
Rudolf Diesel
German
diesel engine
1892
Hayward A. Harvey
American
carburizing (surface hardening of steel plate)
c. 1892
Edward Goodrich Acheson
American
Carborundum
1893
Otto Lilienthal
German
Lilienthal standard glider
1894
Lumière brothers
French
Cinématographe motion-picture camera and projector
1894
King Camp Gillette
American
disposable razor
1895
Guglielmo Marconi
Italian
wireless telegraph
1896
John Philip Holland
Irish American
gasoline-electric submarine
1898
Valdemar Poulsen
Danish
telegraphone magnetic wire recorder
1900
Reginald Aubrey Fessenden
Canadian American
amplitude modulation (AM) of radio waves
1900
Willis Haviland Carrier
American
air-conditioning
1902
Mary Anderson
American
windshield wiper
1903
Wilbur and Orville Wright
American
powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight
1903
John Ambrose Fleming
English
vacuum diode rectifier
1904
Lee De Forest
American
Audion vacuum tube amplifier
1906
Ole Evinrude
Norwegian American
marine outboard motor
1906–09
Melitta Bentz
German
coffee filters
1908
Hans Geiger
German
Geiger counter
1908
Leo Hendrik Baekeland
Belgian American
Bakelite
c. 1909
Paul Ehrlich
German
arsphenamine anti-syphilis drug
1910
Isaac Newton Lewis
American
Lewis machine gun
1911
Elmer Ambrose Sperry
American
gyroscopic compass
1911
Charles F. Kettering
American
automobile electrical starter
1912
Henry Ford
American
automobile assembly line
1913–14
Irving Wightman Colburn
American
Colburn flat-glass machine
1916
William D. Coolidge
American
X-ray tube
1916
John Moses Browning
American
Browning automatic rifle
1918
Vladimir Kosma Zworykin
Russian American
Iconoscope and Kinescope electronic television camera and receiver
1923–31
John Logie Baird
Scottish
electromechanical television
1924
Clarence Birdseye
American
rapid-frozen food
c. 1924
Robert Hutchings Goddard
American
liquid-fueled rocket engine
1926
Philo Taylor Farnsworth
American
Image Dissector electronic television camera
1927
Robert Jemison Van de Graaff
American
Van de Graaff generator for particle accelerators
1929
László József Bíró
Hungarian
ballpoint pen
1931
Isaac Shoenberg
Russian English
high-definition electronic television system
1931–35
Edwin H. Armstrong
American
frequency modulation (FM) of radio waves
1933
Ernst Ruska
German
electron microscope
1933
Laurens Hammond
American
Hammond organ (electronic keyboard)
1934
Ernest Orlando Lawrence
American
cyclotron particle accelerator
1934
Wallace Hume Carothers
American
nylon
1935
Robert Alexander Watson-Watt
Scottish
radar early warning
1935
Frank Whittle
English
jet engine
1937
Katharine Blodgett
American
nonreflective glass
1938
Chester F. Carlson
American
xerography
1938
Albert Hofmann
Swiss
LSD
1938
Paul Hermann Müller
Swiss
DDT
1939
Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain
German
jet aircraft
1939
Igor Sikorsky
Russian American
production helicopter
1939
Hedy Lamarr
American
spread-spectrum technology
1942
George Antheil
American
spread-spectrum technology
1942
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
French
Aqua-Lung
1943
John W. Mauchly
American
ENIAC general-purpose electronic computer
1946
John Bardeen
American
transistor
1947
Walter H. Brattain
American
transistor
1947
William B. Shockley
American
transistor
1947
R. Buckminster Fuller
American
geodesic dome
c. 1947
Edwin Herbert Land
American
Polaroid instant-print camera
1947
Willard Frank Libby
American
carbon-14 dating
c. 1947
Les Paul
American
eight-track tape recorder
c. 1947
Leo Fender
American
electric guitar
1948
Mária Telkes
American
solar-heated home
1948
Charles Stark Draper
American
inertial guidance systems for aircraft
c. 1949
Tom Kilburn
English
Manchester Mark I stored-program digital computer
1949
Grace Hopper
American
compiler
1952
Virginia Apgar
American
Apgar Score System
1952
Charles Hard Townes
American
maser
1953
Uziel Gal
Israeli
Uzi submachine gun
1954
Felix Wankel
German
Wankel rotary gasoline engine
1954
Jack Kilby
American
integrated circuit
1958
Robert Noyce
American
integrated circuit
1958
Theodore H. Maiman
American
ruby laser
1960
Michael DeBakey
American
coronary artery bypass
1964
Seymour Cray
American
supercomputer
1964
Douglas Engelbart
American
computer mouse
1964
Stephanie Kwolek
American
Kevlar
1965
Kenneth L. Thompson
American
UNIX operating system
1969
Dennis M. Ritchie
American
UNIX operating system
1969
Stephanie Kwolek
American
Kevlar
c. 1971
Paul Lauterbur
American
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
1973
Peter Mansfield
English
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
1973
Vinton Cerf
American
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
1974
Robert Kahn
American
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
1974
Erno Rubik
Hungarian
Rubik's cube
1974
Frederick Sanger
English
DNA sequencing
1977
Stephen Wozniak
American
Apple II personal computer
1977
Gerd Binnig
German
scanning tunneling microscope
1981
Heinrich Rohrer
Swiss
scanning tunneling microscope
1981
Patricia Bath
American
Laserphaco Probe
1981
Tim Berners-Lee
English
World Wide Web
1990–91
Linus Torvalds
Finnish
Linux open-source operating system
1991
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