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19 October 2015

Velcro



The invention: 

A material comprising millions of tiny hooks and
loops that work together to create powerful and easy-to-use fasteners
for a wide range of applications.

The person behind the invention:

Georges de Mestral (1904-1990), a Swiss engineer and inventor


19 September 2015

Vat dye



The invention:

The culmination of centuries of efforts to mimic the
brilliant colors displayed in nature in dyes that can be used in
many products.

The people behind the invention:

Sir William Henry Perkin (1838-1907), an English student in
Hofmann’s laboratory
René Bohn (1862-1922), a synthetic organic chemist
Karl Heumann (1850-1894), a German chemist who taught Bohn
Roland Scholl (1865-1945), a Swiss chemist who established the
correct structure of Bohn’s dye
August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818-1892), an organic chemist



28 July 2015

Vacuum tube



The invention:

 A sealed glass tube from which air and gas have
been removed to permit electrons to move more freely, the vacuum
tube was the heart of electronic systems until it was displaced
by transistors.


The people behind the invention:

Sir John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945), an English physicist
and professor of electrical engineering
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), an American inventor
Lee de Forest (1873-1961), an American scientist and inventor
Arthur Wehnelt (1871-1944), a German inventor


22 July 2015

Vacuum cleaner



The invention:

The first portable domestic vacuum cleaner successfully
adapted to electricity, the original machine helped begin
the electrification of domestic appliances in the early twentieth
century.


The people behind the invention:

H. Cecil Booth (1871-1955), a British civil engineer
Melville R. Bissell (1843-1889), the inventor and marketer of the
Bissell carpet sweeper in 1876
William Henry Hoover (1849-1932), an American industrialist
James Murray Spangler (1848-1915), an American inventor


08 July 2015

UNIVAC Computer



The invention: 

The first commercially successful computer system.

The people behind the invention:

John Presper Eckert (1919-1995), an American electrical engineer
John W. Mauchly (1907-1980), an American physicist
John von Neumann (1903-1957), a Hungarian American
mathematician
Howard Aiken (1900-1973), an American physicist
George Stibitz (1904-1995), a scientist at Bell Labs


22 April 2015

Ultrasound


The invention: 

A medically safe alternative to X-ray examination,
ultrasound uses sound waves to detect fetal problems in pregnant
women.

The people behind the invention:

Ian T. Donald (1910-1987), a British obstetrician

Paul Langévin (1872-1946), a French physicist

Marie Curie (1867-1946) and Pierre Curie (1859-1906), the French husband-and-wife team that researched and developed the field of radioactivity

Alice Stewart, a British researcher


21 February 2015

Ultramicroscope




The invention: 

A microscope characterized by high-intensity illumination
for the study of exceptionally small objects, such as colloidal
substances.


The people behind the invention:

Richard Zsigmondy (1865-1929), an Austrian-born German
organic chemist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
H. F. W. Siedentopf (1872-1940), a German physicist-optician
Max von Smouluchowski (1879-1961), a German organic
chemist.


04 January 2015

Ultracentrifuge



The invention: 

Asuper-high-velocity centrifuge designed to separate
colloidal or submicroscopic substances, the ultracentrifuge
was used to measure the molecular weight of proteins and
proved that proteins are large molecules.

23 December 2014

Typhus vaccine



The invention: 

The first effective vaccine against the virulent typhus
disease.

The person behind the invention:

Hans Zinsser (1878-1940), an American bacteriologist and
immunologist


08 December 2014

Turbojet



The invention:

 A jet engine with a turbine-driven compressor that
uses its hot-gas exhaust to develop thrust.

 The people behind the invention:

Henry Harley Arnold (1886-1950), a chief of staff of the U.S.
Army Air Corps
Gerry Sayer, a chief test pilot for Gloster Aircraft Limited
Hans Pabst von Ohain (1911- ), a German engineer
Sir Frank Whittle (1907-1996), an English Royal Air Force
officer and engineer


09 November 2014

Tupperware



The invention:

Trademarked food-storage products that changed
the way Americans viewed plastic products and created a model
for selling products in consumers homes.

The people behind the invention:

Earl S. Tupper (1907-1983), founder of Tupperware
Brownie Wise, the creator of the vast home sales network for
Tupperware
Morison Cousins (1934-2001), a designer hired by Tupperware
to modernize its products in the early 1990’s


18 October 2014

Tungsten filament



The invention: 

Metal filament used in the incandescent light bulbs
that have long provided most of the world’s electrical lighting.


The people behind the invention:

William David Coolidge (1873-1975), an American electrical
engineer
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), an American inventor


25 September 2014

Tuberculosis vaccine



The invention: 

Vaccine that uses an avirulent (nondisease) strain
of bovine tuberculosis bacilli that is safer than earlier vaccines.


The people behind the invention:

Albert Calmette (1863-1933), a French microbiologist
Camille Guérin (1872-1961), a French veterinarian and
microbiologist
Robert Koch (1843-1910), a German physician and
microbiologist


26 August 2014

Transistor radio



The invention:

 Miniature portable radio that used transistors and
created a new mass market for electronic products.

16 July 2014

Transistor



The invention: 

A miniature electronic device, comprising a tiny
semiconductor and multiple electrical contacts, used in circuits
as an amplifier, detector, or switch, that revolutionized electronics
in the mid-twentieth century.

The people behind the invention:

William B. Shockley (1910-1989), an American physicist who led
the Bell Laboratories team that produced the first transistors
Akio Morita (1921-1999), a Japanese physicist and engineer who
was the cofounder of the Sony electronics company
Masaru Ibuka (1908-1997), a Japanese electrical engineer and
businessman who cofounded Sony with Morita

08 June 2014

Touch-tone telephone


The invention: 

A push-button dialing system for telephones that
replaced the earlier rotary-dial phone.

The person behind the invention:

Bell Labs, the research and development arm of the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company

07 June 2014

Tidal power plant



The invention:

Plant that converts the natural ocean tidal forces
into electrical power.

The people behind the invention:

Mariano di Jacopo detto Taccola (Mariano of Siena, 1381-1453),
an Italian notary, artist, and engineer
Bernard Forest de Bélidor (1697 or 1698-1761), a French engineer
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), president of the United States

25 April 2014

Thermal cracking process



The invention: 

Process that increased the yield of refined gasoline
extracted from raw petroleum by using heat to convert complex
hydrocarbons into simpler gasoline hydrocarbons, thereby making
possible the development of the modern petroleum industry.

The people behind the invention:

William M. Burton (1865-1954), an American chemist
Robert E. Humphreys (1942- ), an American chemist



03 April 2014

Tevatron accelerator



The invention: 

A particle accelerator that generated collisions between
beams of protons and antiprotons at the highest energies
ever recorded.

The people behind the invention:

Robert Rathbun Wilson (1914- ), an American physicist and
director of Fermilab from 1967 to 1978
John Peoples (1933- ), an American physicist and deputy
director of Fermilab from 1987

10 February 2014

Television



The invention:

System that converts moving pictures and sounds
into electronic signals that can be broadcast at great distances.

The people behind the invention:

Vladimir Zworykin (1889-1982), a Soviet electronic engineer and
recipient of the National Medal of Science in 1967
Paul Gottlieb Nipkow (1860-1940), a German engineer and
inventor
Alan A. Campbell Swinton (1863-1930), a Scottish engineer and
Fellow of the Royal Society
Charles F. Jenkins (1867-1934), an American physicist, engineer,
and inventor


23 January 2014

Telephone switching





The invention: 

The first completely automatic electronic system
for switching telephone calls.

The people behind the invention:

Almon B. Strowger (1839-1902), an American inventor
Charles Wilson Hoover, Jr. (1925- ), supervisor of memory
system development
Wallace Andrew Depp (1914- ), director of Electronic
Switching
Merton Brown Purvis (1923- ), designer of switching
matrices


24 October 2013

Teflon








The invention: 

Afluorocarbon polymer whose chemical inertness
and physical properties have made it useful for many applications,
from nonstick cookware coatings to suits for astronauts.

The person behind the invention:

Roy J. Plunkett (1910-1994), an American chemist


01 June 2013

Talking motion pictures


The invention:

The first practical system for linking sound with
moving pictures.

The people behind the invention:

Harry Warner (1881-1958), the brother who used sound to
fashion a major filmmaking company
Albert Warner (1884-1967), the brother who persuaded theater
owners to show Warner films
Samuel Warner (1887-1927), the brother who adapted soundrecording
technology to filmmaking
Jack Warner (1892-1978), the brother who supervised the
making of Warner films


15 February 2013

Syphilis test





The invention: 

The first simple test for detecting the presence of
the venereal disease syphilis led to better syphilis control and
other advances in immunology.

The people behind the invention:

Reuben Leon Kahn (1887-1974), a Soviet-born American
serologist and immunologist

August von Wassermann (1866-1925), a German physician and
bacteriologist


23 January 2013

Synthetic RNA

 


The invention: 

A method for synthesizing the biological molecule
RNA established that this process can occur outside the living
cell.

The people behind the invention:

Severo Ochoa (1905-1993), a Spanish biochemist who shared
the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Marianne Grunberg-Manago (1921- ), a French biochemist
Marshall W. Nirenberg (1927- ), an American biochemist
who won the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Peter Lengyel (1929- ), a Hungarian American biochemist


19 December 2012

Synthetic DNA



The invention: 

A method for replicating viral deoxyribonucleic
acid (DNA) in a test tube that paved the way for genetic engineering.

The people behind the invention:

Arthur Kornberg (1918- ), an American physician and
biochemist
Robert L. Sinsheimer (1920- ), an American biophysicist
Mehran Goulian (1929- ), a physician and biochemist

10 December 2012

Synthetic amino acid




 The invention :

Amethod for synthesizing amino acids by combining water, hydrogen, methane, and ammonia and exposing the mixture to an electric spark.

The people behind the invention : 

Stanley Lloyd Miller (1930- ), an American professor of chemistry
Harold Clayton Urey (1893-1981), an American chemist who won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin (1894-1980), a Russian biochemist
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892-1964), a British scientist

02 December 2012

Synchrocyclotron



The invention: 

A powerful particle accelerator that performed
better than its predecessor, the cyclotron.

The people behind the invention:

Edwin Mattison McMillan (1907-1991), an American physicist
who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1951
Vladimir Iosifovich Veksler (1907-1966), a Soviet physicist
Ernest Orlando Lawrence (1901-1958), an American physicist
Hans Albrecht Bethe (1906- ), a German American physicist


21 November 2012

Supersonic passenger plane




The invention: 

The first commercial airliner that flies passengers at
speeds in excess of the speed of sound.


The people behind the invention:

Sir Archibald Russell (1904- ), a designer with the British
Aircraft Corporation
Pierre Satre (1909- ), technical director at Sud-Aviation
Julian Amery (1919- ), British minister of aviation, 1962-1964
Geoffroy de Cource (1912- ), French minister of aviation,
1962
William T. Coleman, Jr. (1920- ), U.S. secretary of
transportation, 1975-1977


18 November 2012

Supercomputer



The invention: 

A computer that had the greatest computational power that then existed.

The person behind the invention: 

Seymour R. Cray (1928-1996), American computer architect and designer