Inventors and Inventions

Question: Who is credited with the invention of the first hovercraft?

Answer: Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell, British engineer who invented the Hovercraft; he began testing his ideas for a vehicle that moved atop a cushion of air in 1955; his first Hovercraft prototype, the SR.N1, was launched in the spring of 1959. A prolific inventor, he held some 70 patents, including one for an aerial direction finder widely used by pilots during World War II. The SR.N1 (for Saunders-Roe Nautical 1), a four-ton vehicle that could carry only its crew of three, crossed the English Channel for the first time on July 25, 1959.

Question: Which of these inventors registered nearly 1,100 patents?

Answer: Thomas Alva Edison, a prolific inventor, registered some 1,100 patents during his long career.

Question: Alessandro Volta is known for the invention of:

Answer: Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, whose invention of the electric battery provided the first source of continuous current. Known as the voltaic pile or the voltaic column, Volta’s battery consisted of alternating disks of zinc and silver separated by paper or cloth soaked either in saltwater or sodium hydroxide.

Question: He is known as the father of video games:

Answer: Ralph Henry Baer, American engineer and inventor, hailed as the father of video games for his role in developing the earliest home video-game console. In 1968 he created the “Brown Box,” a prototype device that allowed players to control moving dots on a television screen. He filed for patents on a “television gaming apparatus” in 1969 and 1971 and licensed the technology to Magnavox, which marketed it as the Odyssey, the world’s first video-game console.

Question: Who invented the safety elevator?

Answer: Elisha Otis, American inventor who invented the safety elevator. In 1852, he designed and installed what he called the safety hoist, the first elevator equipped with an automatic safety device to prevent it from falling if the lifting chain or rope broke. He invented several labor-saving machines. He sold his first elevator in 1853, and in 1857, he installed the first safety elevator for passenger service in the store of E.V. Haughwout & Co. in New York City.

Question: Which group invented and developed the early Internet?

Answer: The U.S. government developed the Internet in the 1970s and 1980s. It allowed people in distant places to communicate through computers.

Question: Who made the first fully automatic machine gun?

Answer: Maxim machine gun, the first fully automatic machine gun was developed by engineer and inventor Hiram Maxim in about 1884. It was manufactured by Vickers and was sometimes known as the Vickers-Maxim and sometimes just Vickers. The Maxim gun was recoil-operated and was cooled by a water jacket surrounding the barrel. The Maxim was responsible for the epithet of the machine gun war for World War I.

Question: John Bardeen shared the 1956 prize with William B. Shockley and Walter H. Brattain for their joint invention for:

Answer: Transistor, semiconductor device for amplifying, controlling, and generating electrical signals. Transistors are the active components of integrated circuits or microchips that often contain billions of these minuscule devices etched into their shiny surfaces. The transistor was invented in 1947–48 by three American physicists, John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley, at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s Bell Laboratories. The three were eventually awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their invention in 1956.

Question: When were the first rockets launched?

Answer: The Chinese made rockets by filling bamboo tubes with gunpowder, probably in the 13th century. When they lit the gunpowder, the gas from the explosion sent the rocket into the air.

Question: Clarence Birdseye changed the world by developing a process for preserving food for a longer time? What is it called?

Answer: Clarence Birdseye, American businessman and inventor best known for developing a process for freezing foods in small packages suitable for retailing. In the late 1920s, he began selling his quick-frozen foods, a successful line of products that made him wealthy. Birdseye’s process consisted of rapid freezing of packaged food between two refrigerated metal plates. Though they were not the first frozen foods, Birdseye’s freezing process was a highly efficient one that preserved the original taste of a variety of foods, including fish, fruits, and vegetables.

Question: For what invention is Ali Javan, William Bennett, Jr., and Donald Herriott known?

Answer: In December 1960, Ali Javan, William Bennett, Jr., and Donald Herriott at Bell Labs built the first gas laser, which generated a continuous infrared beam from a mixture of helium and neon. The laser is an acronym for “light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation.”

Question: Name the Italian physicist and mathematician who invented the barometer.

Answer: Barometer, a device used to measure atmospheric pressure was invented by Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist and mathematician. There are two main types of barometers: mercury and aneroid. In the mercury barometer, atmospheric pressure balances a column of mercury, the height of which can be precisely measured. A nonliquid barometer called the aneroid barometer is widely used in portable instruments and aircraft altimeters because of its smaller size and convenience.

Question: The instant noodle was invented by:

Answer: Japanese food executive Momofuku Ando, was the founder of Nissin Food Products Co. and the inventor of instant noodles. He introduced chicken ramen in 1958, debuted Cup Noodle in 1971, and in 2005 created a vacuum-packed portion of instant noodles for the Japanese astronaut aboard the Discovery space shuttle.

Question: When was the machine gun first made?

Answer: Machine gun is an automatic weapon of small caliber that is capable of sustained rapid fire. Most machine guns are belt-fed weapons that fire from 500 to 1,000 rounds per minute and will continue to fire as long as the trigger is held back or until the supply of ammunition is exhausted. The machine gun was developed in the late 19th century and has profoundly altered the character of modern warfare.

Question: Gideon Sundback is known for his patent on:

Answer: The idea of a slide fastener was exhibited by Whitcomb L. Judson at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Judson’s fastener, called a clasp locker, was an arrangement of hooks and eyes with a slide clasp for closing and opening. Gideon Sundback, a Swedish engineer working in the United States, substituted spring clips in place of hooks and eyes, and his Hookless #2 (now considered the first modern zipper) went on sale in 1914 and a patent was granted three years later. zipper, also called slide fastener a device for binding the edges of an opening such as on a garment or a bag.

Question: Who discovered the vaccine for smallpox?

Answer: Edward Jenner, English surgeon and discoverer of vaccination for smallpox. Smallpox, an acute infectious disease that begins with a high fever, headache, and back pain and then proceeds to an eruption on the skin that leaves the face and limbs covered with cratered pockmarks, or pox. For centuries smallpox was one of the world’s most-dreaded plagues, killing as many as 30 percent of its victims, most of them children. But smallpox was also one of the first diseases to be controlled by a vaccine, particularly following the great experiments of English physician Edward Jenner in 1796. In 1967 the World Health Organization (WHO) began a global vaccination program against smallpox, and in 1980 the disease was officially declared eradicated.

Question: What did Chester F. Carlson invent?

Answer: Xerography, Image-forming process that relies on a photoconductive substance whose electrical resistance decreases when light falls on it. Xerography is the basis of the most widely used document-copying machines. The process was invented in the 1930s by U.S. physicist Chester F. Carlson (1906–1968) and developed in the 1940s and ’50s by Xerox Corp. (then called Haloid). Light passing through or reflected from a document reaches a selenium-coated drum surface onto which negatively charged particles of ink (toner) are sprayed, forming an image of the document on the drum. The first commercially successful xerographic copier was introduced in 1959.

Question: What is Margaret Sanger known for?

Answer: Margaret Sanger was the founder of the birth control movement in the United States and an international leader in the field. She is credited with originating the term birth control. After a brief teaching career, she witnessed the relationships between poverty, uncontrolled fertility, high rates of infant and maternal mortality, and deaths from botched illegal abortions. These observations made Sanger a feminist who believed in every woman’s right to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and she devoted herself to removing the legal barriers to publicizing the facts about contraception.

Question: Name the inventor who originated the movable type printing?

Answer: Johannes Gutenberg, German craftsman and inventor who originated a method of printing from movable type. Elements of his invention are thought to have included a metal alloy that could melt readily and cool quickly to form long-lasting reusable type, oil-based ink that could be made sufficiently thick to adhere well to metal type and transfer well to vellum or paper and a new press, likely adapted from those used in producing wine, oil, or paper, for applying firm even pressure to printing surfaces.

Question: Bubble gum was accidentally invented in 1928 by:

Answer: Walter E. Diemer, an American businessman who was working as an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Co. when in 1928 he accidentally invented bubble gum while experimenting during his spare time with recipes for a chewing gum base. Diemer later became senior vice president of Fleer.

Question: Why did Willard Boyle and George E. Smith win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2009?

Answer: CCD or charge-coupled device, a semiconductor device in which the individual semiconductor components are connected so that the electrical charge at the output of one device provides the input to the next device. Because they can store electrical charges, CCDs can be used as memory devices, but they are slower than RAMs. CCDs are sensitive to light and are therefore used as the light-detecting components in video and digital cameras and optical scanners. Willard Boyle, physicist was awarded along with American physicist George E. Smith, the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2009 for their invention of the device.

Question: Who patented the first mechanical refrigeration in 1851?

Answer: John Gorrie, an American physician who discovered the cold-air process of refrigeration as the result of experiments to lower the temperature of fever patients by cooling hospital rooms. In 1842, Gorrie designed and built an air-cooling apparatus for treating yellow-fever patients. His basic principle was to compress a gas, cooling it by sending it through radiating coils, and then expanding it to lower the temperature further is the one most often used in refrigerators today. Giving up the medical practice to engage in time-consuming experimentation with ice making, he was granted the first U.S. patent for mechanical refrigeration in 1851.

Question: In which year did Nikola Tesla invent the Tesla coil, an induction coil widely used in radio technology?

Answer: Nikola Tesla, Serbian American inventor, and engineer invented the Tesla coil, an induction coil widely used in radio technology and television sets and other electronic equipment in 1891. He is also discovered and patented the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery.

Question: American inventor Douglas Engelbart has the patent for which device:

Answer: Douglas Engelbart is an American inventor whose work beginning in the 1950s led to his patent for the computer mouse. Mouse is a hand-controlled electromechanical device for interacting with a digital computer that has a graphical user interface. The mouse can be moved around on a flat surface to control the movement of a cursor on the computer display screen.

Question: Who invented the diesel engine?

Answer: Rudolf Diesel, a German inventor, developed the engine named for him in the early 1900s.

Question: This American engineer is widely regarded as the father of cell phones:

Answer: Martin Cooper, the American engineer who led the team that in 1972–73 built the first mobile cell phone and made the first cell phone call. He is widely regarded as the father of the cellular phone. Cooper received the Charles Stark Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering in 2013.

Question: What did Eli Whitney invent in 1793?

Answer: Cotton gin, machine for cleaning cotton of its seeds, invented in the United States by Eli Whitney in 1793. The cotton gin is an example of an invention directly called forth by an immediate demand; the mechanization of spinning in England had created a greatly expanded market for American cotton, whose production was inhibited by the slowness of manual removal of the seeds from the raw fiber. The simplicity of the invention that could be powered by man, animal, or water caused it to be widely copied despite Whitney’s patent, it is credited with fixing cotton cultivation, virtually to the exclusion of other crops, in the U.S. South and so institutionalizing slavery.

Question: Who built the world''s first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine?

Answer: Karl Benz, German mechanical engineer designed in 1885 and built the world''s first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine. Although the original Benz car first ran early in 1885, its design was not patented until January 29, 1886. Benz & Co. was founded in Mannheim in 1883 to build stationary internal-combustion engines; the company completed its first four-wheeled automobile in 1893 and produced the first of a series of racing cars in 1899.

Question: The kidney dialysis machine, used for cleansing the blood of patients experiencing kidney failure, was invented by:

Answer: Willem Johan Kolff, a Dutch-born American physician, was a pioneering biomedical engineer who invented the kidney dialysis machine. During World War II he began work on creating the first artificial kidney, using sausage casings; this early effort paved the way for the creation of the first dialysis machine, which cleansed the blood of patients experiencing kidney failure.

Question: Who won the 1902 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for discovering sugar and other related purine?

Answer: Emil Fischer, German chemist was awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize for Chemistry in recognition of his investigations of the sugar and purine groups of substances. Based on his work in purines and sugars, Fischer received the second Nobel Prize for Chemistry, the first organic chemist to receive the honor. While in Berlin, Fischer also became active in the promotion of chemistry and science in Germany.

Question: Who invented the atmospheric steam engine, a precursor of James Watt’s engine?

Answer: Thomas Newcomen, British engineer and inventor of the atmospheric steam engine, a precursor of James Watt’s engine. In his engine, the intensity of pressure was not limited by the pressure of the steam. Instead, atmospheric pressure pushed the piston down after the condensation of steam had created a vacuum in the cylinder. The first recorded Newcomen engine was erected near Dudley Castle, Staffordshire, in 1712.

Question: The jet engine was invented by which English aviation engineer?

Answer: Sir Frank Whittle, English aviation engineer, and pilot invented the jet engine. Whittle obtained his first patent for a turbo-jet engine in 1930 and tested his first jet engine on the ground in 1937. This event is customarily regarded as the invention of the jet engine. But the first operational jet engine was designed in Germany by Hans Pabst von Ohain and powered the first jet-aircraft flight on August 27, 1939.

Question: Name the inventor who developed the wireless telegraph in 1896

Answer: Guglielmo Marconi, Italian physicist and inventor of the successful wireless telegraph (1896). In 1909 he received the Nobel Prize for Physics, which he shared with German physicist Ferdinand Braun. He later worked on the development of shortwave wireless communication, which constitutes the basis of nearly all modern long-distance radio.

Question: The Kodak camera was invented in 1888 by:

Answer: George Eastman, American entrepreneur and inventor introduced the first Kodak camera, promoted amateur photography on a large scale. The first Kodak camera was placed on the market in 1888. It was a simple handheld box camera containing a 100-exposure roll of film that used paper negatives. Consumers sent the entire camera back to the manufacturer for developing, printing, and reloading when the film was used up; the company’s slogan was “You press the button, we do the rest.”

Question: The first implantable cardiac pacemaker was developed by:

Answer: Wilson Greatbatch, American electrical engineer, developed the first implantable cardiac pacemaker, a device that was hailed as a major medical breakthrough and was credited with saving millions of lives. His original pacemaker was first implanted in a human in 1960, but by 1972 Greatbatch had succeeded in extending the life of the battery to 10 or more years.

Question: Who developed the substance resembling modern concrete by using lime and gypsum as binders?

Answer: The Egyptians developed a substance more closely resembling modern concrete by using lime and gypsum as binders. Lime (calcium oxide), derived from limestone, chalk, or (where available) oyster shells, continued to be the primary pozzolanic, or cement-forming, agent until the early 1800s. In 1824 an English inventor, Joseph Aspdin, burned and ground together with a mixture of limestone and clay. This mixture, called portland cement, has remained the dominant cementing agent used in concrete production.

Question: This explosive was invented by Alfred Nobel:

Answer: Dynamite, blasting explosive that was patented in 1867 by the Swedish physicist Alfred Nobel. Dynamite is based on nitroglycerin but is much safer to handle than nitroglycerin alone. He produced a solid that was resistant to shock but readily detonable by heat or percussion.

Question: What is Sir Rowland Hill famous for?

Answer: Sir Rowland Hill, British administrator and educator, the originator of the penny postage system. Known for his development of the modern postal service that was subsequently adopted throughout the world. Hill’s proposals for postal reform, formulated between 1835 and 1837, were based on the notion that revenue derived from taxes should increase with the growth of the population and national prosperity. He proposed a device that subsequently became known as the postage stamp.

Question: Who designed the first modern air-conditioning system?

Answer: Willis Carrier, an American inventor and industrialist who formulated the basic theories of air conditioning. In 1902, while an engineer with the Buffalo Forge Company, Carrier designed the first system to control temperature and humidity. His Rational Psychrometric Formulae was introduced in a 1911 engineering paper, initiated scientific air-conditioning design. He was a founder (1915) of the Carrier Corporation, manufacturer of air-conditioning equipment.

Question: In which decade did television become widely available around the world?

Answer: Though invented a couple of decades earlier, television became widely available only in the 1950s in the United States and elsewhere in the industrial world.

Question: In what year was the ball bearing patented?

Answer: The ball bearing was patented in Wales in 1794. It allowed a wagon wheel to turn smoothly on a wooden axle.

Question: Igor Sikorsky, a pioneer in aircraft design, is known for the development of:

Answer: Igor Sikorsky, pioneer in aircraft design who is best known for his successful development of the helicopter. In May 1909, he began construction of a helicopter. Its failure revealed some of the practical obstacles. Early in 1939, with a well-trained engineering group at his disposal, he started the construction of the VS-300 helicopter. The VS-300 was small (weighing 1,092 pounds) and was powered by a 65-horsepower Lycoming engine. On September 14, 1939, the VS-300 lifted off the ground on its first flight.

Question: Who invented the game of basketball?

Answer: James Naismith, Canadian-American physical-education director who, in December 1891 at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School, invented the game of basketball. In addition to basketball, he is credited with inventing the protective helmet for football players.

Question: This African American inventor received the first U.S. patent for a traffic signal.

Answer: Garrett Augustus Morgan, an African American inventor, born in Paris, received the first U.S. patent for a traffic signal; his other contributions include a gas mask and a zigzag attachment for sewing machines.

Question: What did Jacques Cousteau and Émile Gagnan coinvent?

Answer: In 1943 Jacques Cousteau and French engineer Émile Gagnan developed the first fully automatic compressed-air Aqua-Lung, a scuba apparatus, which allowed divers to swim freely underwater for an extended time. Jacques Cousteau was a French naval officer who helped to invent many other tools useful to oceanographers, including the diving saucer (an easily maneuverable small submarine for seafloor exploration), in 1959, and several underwater cameras.

Question: Which vehicle was invented about 3000 BCE?

Answer: The first chariot was invented about 3000 BCE.

Question: Popularly known as Tin Lizzie, name the automobile built by Ford Motor Company?

Answer: Model T, automobile built by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 until 1927. Conceived by Henry Ford as practical, affordable transportation for the common man, it quickly became prized for its low cost, durability, versatility, and ease of maintenance. Model T, popularly known as Tin Lizzie or flivver, become an American folkloric symbol, essentially realizing Ford’s goal to democratize the automobile.

Question: Which scientist is credited with the invention of the World Wide Web?

Answer: Tim Berners-Lee, British computer scientist who is generally credited as the inventor of the World Wide Web. In 2004, he was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the inaugural Millennium Technology Prize by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation. From 1991 to 1993, Berners-Lee evangelized the Web. In 1994 in the United States, he established the World Wide Web (W3) Consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science.

Question: What did French physician René Laënnec invent?

Answer: René Laënnec, a French physician who invented the stethoscope and perfected the art of auditory examination of the chest cavity. In 1816 Laënnec was appointed as a physician at the Necker Hospital in Paris, where he developed the stethoscope. Laënnec’s original stethoscope design consisted of a hollow tube of wood that was 3.5 cm (1.4 inches) in diameter and 25 cm (10 inches) long and was monoaural, transmitting sound to one ear. It could be easily disassembled and reassembled, and it used a special plug to facilitate the transmission of sounds from the patient’s heart and lungs. His instrument replaced the practice of immediate auscultation, in which the physician laid his ear on the chest of the patient to listen to chest sounds.

Question: Who discovered the process called embryonic induction?

Answer: Hans Spemann, German embryologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1935 for his discovery of the effect now known as embryonic induction, the influence exercised by various parts of the embryo that directs the development of groups of cells into particular tissues and organs.

Question: What is Denis Papin known for inventing?

Answer: Denis Papin, French-born British physicist who invented the pressure cooker, a hermetically sealed pot which produces steam heat to cook food quickly. The pressure cooker first appeared in 1679 as Papin’s Digester. The cooker heats water to produce very hot steam which forces the temperature inside the pot as high as 266° F (130° C).

Question: Developed in the 1990s, this technology enables short-range wireless communication between electronic devices:

Answer: Bluetooth, technology standard used to enable short-range wireless communication between electronic devices. Bluetooth was developed in the late 1990s and soon achieved massive popularity in consumer devices. Bluetooth, named for Harald I Bluetooth, the 10th-century Danish king who unified Denmark and Norway, was developed to enable a wide range of devices to work together. Its other key features were low power usage—enabling simple battery operation—and relatively low cost.

Question: This Dutch inventor is credited with building the first navigable submarine

Answer: Cornelis Drebbel, Dutch inventor who built the first navigable submarine. The first serious discussion of a “submarine”—a craft designed to be navigated underwater—appeared in 1578 from the pen of William Bourne. But, Bourne did not construct his boat, and, Drebbe is credited with building the first submarine.

Question: The ballpoint pen, an easy-to-use writing instrument, was invented by:

Answer: László Bíró, Hungarian inventor of the easy-to-use writing implement generally known as the biro in Britain and the ballpoint pen in the United States. On June 10, 1943, Bíró secured an Argentine patent for his ballpoint pen, which was sold there under the name Eterpen.

Question: Who invented the first saxophone, patented in 1846?

Answer: Saxophone, any of a family of single-reed wind instruments ranging from soprano to bass and characterized by a conical metal tube and finger keys. The first saxophone was patented by Adolphe Saxin Paris in 1846. Adolphe studied the flute and clarinet at the Brussels Conservatory and, in 1842, went to Paris. There he exhibited the saxophone, a single-reed instrument made of metal, with a conical bore, overblowing at the octave, which had resulted from his efforts to improve the tone of the bass clarinet.

Question: Who discovered the X-ray?

Answer: Recipient of the first Nobel prize for physics in 1901, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was the discoverer of X-rays.

Question: Which inventor built the first steam engine?

Answer: Thomas Savery, English engineer and inventor who built the first steam engine. Savery was drawn in the 1690s to the difficult problem of pumping water out of coal mines. Using principles adduced by the French physicist Denis Papin and others, Savery patented (1698) a machine consisting of a closed vessel filled with water into which steam under pressure was introduced, forcing the water to a higher level; when the water was expelled, a sprinkler condensed the steam, producing a vacuum capable of drawing up more water through a valve below.

Question: The space shuttle, designed to go into orbit around Earth, to transport people and cargo to and from orbiting spacecraft, was developed by:

Answer: Space shuttle, also called Space Transportation System, partially reusable rocket-launched vehicle designed to go into orbit around Earth, to transport people and cargo to and from orbiting spacecraft, and to glide to a runway landing on its return to Earth’s surface that was developed by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Formally called the Space Transportation System (STS), it lifted off into space for the first time on April 12, 1981, and made 135 flights until the program ended in 2011.