Published in 2010 by Britannica Educational Publishing (a trademark of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.) in association with Rosen Educational Services, LLC 29 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010. Copyright © 2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, and the Thistle logo are registered trademarks of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Rosen Educational Services materials copyright © 2010 Rosen Educational Services, LLC. All rights reserved. Distributed exclusively by Rosen Educational Services. For a listing of additional Britannica Educational Publishing titles, call toll free (800) 237-9932. First Edition Britannica Educational Publishing Michael I. Levy: Executive Editor Marilyn L. Barton: Senior Coordinator, Production Control Steven Bosco: Director, Editorial Technologies Lisa S. Braucher: Senior Producer and Data Editor Yvette Charboneau: Senior Copy Editor Kathy Nakamura: Manager, Media Acquisition Robert Curley: Manager, Science and Technology Rosen Educational Services Hope Lourie Killcoyne: Senior Editor and Project Manager Nelson Sá: Art Director Matthew Cauli: Designer Introduction by Stephanie Watson Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The 100 most influential inventors of all time / edited by Robert Curley.—1st ed. p. cm.—(The Britannica guide to the world’s most influential people) “In association with Britannica Educational Publishing, Rosen Educational Services.” Includes index. ISBN 978-1-61530-042-6 (eBook) 1. Inventors—Biography—Popular works. 2. Inventions—History—Popular works. I. Curley, Robert, 1955– II. Title: One hundred most influential inventors of all time. T39.A14 2010 609.2'2—dc22 2009027248 Cover photo: David Joel/Photographer’s Choice RF/Getty Images CONTENTS Introduction 8 Cro-Magnon 17 25 Imhotep 19 Archimedes 21 Cai Lun 22 Heron of Alexandria 23 Johannes Gutenberg 26 Christiaan Huygens 31 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 35 Benjamin Franklin 38 James Watt 48 Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier 52 Alessandro Volta 54 Joseph-Marie Jacquard 56 John Loudon McAdam 57 50 Nicéphore Niépce 59 Robert Fulton 61 Eli Whitney 66 Alois Senefelder 69 Sir William Congreve 70 René Laënnec 71 George Stephenson 75 Louis Daguerre 77 Samuel F.B. Morse 79 Charles Babbage 83 66 Sir Rowland Hill 88 Charles Goodyear 89 John Deere 91 Claude-Étienne Minié 92 Louis Braille 94 Cyrus McCormick 96 Elisha Graves Otis 99 Sir Henry Bessemer 100 Samuel Colt 103 Richard J. Gatling 105 James Starley 106 Alfred Nobel 108 95 John Wesley Hyatt 113 Ferdinand von Zeppelin 115 Georges Leclanché 118 Hiram Maxim 120 John P. Holland 123 Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler 124 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen 128 Thomas Edison 129 Alexander Graham Bell 142 Otto Lilienthal 148 Emil Berliner 150 Nikola Tesla 151 Rudolf Diesel 155 119 George Washington Carver 156 James A. Naismith 160 Auguste and Louis Lumière 162 Henry Ford 163 Reginald Fessenden 168 Wilbur and Orville Wright 170 Lee de Forest 182 Guglielmo Marconi 186 Robert Goddard 192 Clarence Birdseye 196 Igor Sikorsky 197 148 Vladimir Zworykin 202 Edwin H. Armstrong 204 R. Buckminster Fuller 207 Paul Müller 212 Ernest O. Lawrence 213 Charles Stark Draper 215 Walt Disney 218 William P. Lear 224 Felix Wankel 226 John von Neumann 227 Chester F. Carlson 233 Grace Murray Hopper 234 235 Frank Whittle 236 John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert 237 Edward Teller 240 Michael DeBakey 244 Willard Libby 246 Edwin Herbert Land 249 Virginia Apgar 251 Leo Fender 252 William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain 253 Wernher von Braun 257 Charles Townes 261 Gertrude B. Elion 263 308 Frederick Sanger 264 Tom Kilburn 270 Stephanie Kwolek 272 Douglas Engelbart 274 Robert Noyce 276 Ron Toomer 279 Heinrich Rohrer and Gerd Binnig 280 Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield 283 Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf 286 315 Ian Wilmut 290 Rodney Brooks 297 Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak 299 Tim Berners-Lee 308 Bill Gates 310 Linus Torvalds 313 Sergey Brin and Larry Page 315 Glossary 318 For Further Reading 322 Index 324 INTRODUCTION 7 Introduction 7 ust a few hundred years ago, life was far different than it Jis today. When people wanted to travel or communicate, they had to go on foot or horseback. A journey of just a few miles by this method could be a long, arduous process. Whatever people owned—from clothing to tools—had to be made by hand. Work was manual, laborious, and often tedious. Illness was a constant threat; diseases rapidly spread through unsanitary conditions and were difficult to treat with the rudimentary medicines available. Today, life in the United States and other developed countries is about ease and convenience. Communication is global and instantaneous. Transportation can carry people across states, countries, and even entire continents in a matter of hours. Industry has been automated, pro- viding people with plenty of time outside of work to enjoy leisure pursuits. Modern medical treatments have enabled people to stay healthy well into their eighth, ninth, or even tenth decade. Life has been transformed over the years through the efforts of the men and women who had the brilliance, diligence, and creativity to come up with new and better ways of doing things. As detailed throughout these pages, their inventions spawned many more inventions, speeding up the pace of progress even further. Alexander Graham Bell’s fascination with the idea of sending sound down a wire from the speaker to the listener gave birth to the telephone, which ultimately led to the cell phone, fax machine, modem, and a communication system that now links the entire globe. These inventions, like many others, have clearly improved life by keeping people healthier, helping them to communicate and work more efficiently, and allowing them to travel farther. X-rays allowed doctors to look inside the human body to treat disease and injury. The electric light illuminated the darkness so people could 9 7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7 work (and play) at night. Braille made it possible for blind people to read. However, some inventions, while having their obvious benefits, have also had their pitfalls. Before Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, separating cotton lint from its seeds was a 10-hour, labour-intensive ordeal. Whitney’s invention transformed cotton production into a rapid process that for the first time made cotton farming a highly profitable business. Yet the cotton gin also pro- longed slavery, as cotton plantations needed a larger labour force to keep up with increased production demands. Other inventions were controversial because of their potential for destruction. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, was described by one scientist as being one of the “most thoughtful statesmen of science.” However, another contemporary referred to Teller as “a danger to all that’s important,” and claimed that the world would have been better off without him. In 1948, Paul Hermann Müller received a Nobel Prize for discovering the toxic effects on insects of the chemical compound known as DDT, a pesticide that efficiently wiped out the insects that carry deadly diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, and typhus. DDT was initially hailed as a “miracle” pesticide. Yet by the early 1970s it had been banned from public use in the United States. Health officials had dis- covered that while DDT was killing insects, it was also accumulating in other wildlife, notably falcons and eagles, and dangerously lowering their reproduction rate. Even the most groundbreaking and world-changing inventions were not always recognized as such when they were introduced to the public. When Rutherford B. Hayes saw a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1876, the president’s response was less than enthusiastic. “That’s an amazing invention, but who would 10 7 Introduction 7 ever want to use one of them?” he scoffed. In 1968, the audience attending a computer conference at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium likely didn’t know what to make of Douglas Engelbart’s invention—a small wooden box with a button that moved a cursor on an attached machine. His “mouse,” so named for its tail-like cable, now enables virtually every home and business computer user to navigate around their computer screens. Inventors themselves have sometimes been skeptical about the ability of their own creations to endure. Despite the public excitement that greeted their Cinèmatographe motion picture machine when it was released in 1895, the Lumière brothers felt that their invention was just a fad. In fact, Louis Lumière referred to the cinema as “an invention without a future.” In spite of the Lumière brothers’ initial cynicism, film endures as one of the most popular art forms today. WHAT INSPIRES INVENTION? The old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” couldn’t be more true. Inventors have had a knack for rec- ognizing a need or problem in society and then discovering a way to fill that need or solve that problem. In the 15th century, as the number of universities in Europe grew and public literacy spread, a more efficient method was needed for reproducing books—a demand that was met by Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press. Sometimes it was the inventor’s own necessity that gave birth to invention. Frustrated at having to change pairs of glasses whenever he switched from reading to viewing objects at a distance, Benjamin Franklin invented a new type of glasses—bifocals—that could easily accom- modate both views. 11 7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7 Intelligence and curiosity are unquestionably important assets for inventors, but having an advanced degree—or even a formal education—has never been a prerequisite. Thomas Edison studied at home with his mother. Orville and Wilbur Wright never finished high school. George Washington Carver, who began life as a slave, taught him- self to read from the only book he possessed—Webster’s Elementary Spelling Book.