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Learn About Famous Inventors Who Have Changed the World

Browse List of Inductees
Browse List of Inductees
Showing 26 - 50 of 163 results

Oliver Joseph Lodge

Electric Telegraphy

Physicist Oliver Lodge made several important technological contributions, most notably his advancement of wireless telegraphy. Lodge's invention of…
Inducted in: 2007
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 609,154
Died:

George Westinghouse, Jr.

Air Brake System

George Westinghouse, Jr. invented a system of air brakes that made travel by train safe and built one of the greatest electric manufacturing…
Inducted in: 1989
Born:
U.S. Patent Nos.: RE 5504
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Army, U.S. Navy

Walther H. Nernst

Metallic Filament Incandescent Lamp

Walther Nernst developed a new form of electric lighting, the Nernst lamp, that was a significant improvement over the carbon-filament lamp. In…
Inducted in: 2011
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 623,811
Died:

Les Paul

Solid-Body Electric Guitar

Les Paul introduced the world to the solid-body electric guitar, a pioneering instrument that transformed popular music. Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin…
Inducted in: 2005
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,018,680
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Army

Peter Cooper Hewitt

Mercury-Vapor Lamp

Peter Cooper Hewitt patented the mercury vapor lamp which was widely used for street and outdoor lighting. A graduate of Columbia University, he was…
Inducted in: 2011
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 1,030,178
Died:

James Murray Spangler

Portable Electric Vacuum Cleaner

James Spangler invented the first commercially successful portable electric vacuum cleaner, an invention that revolutionized household carpet…
Inducted in: 2006
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 889,823
Died:

Joshua Lionel Cowen

Toy Train

Joshua Lionel Cowen invented model railroads in the early 20th century. Born in New York City, Cowen attended the Cooper Union and Columbia College…
Inducted in: 2007
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 1,113,312
Died:

Charles Franklin Kettering

Electrical Ignition System

Charles Franklin Kettering invented the first electrical ignition system and the self-starter for automobile engines and the first practical engine-…
Inducted in: 1980
Born:
U.S. Patent Nos.: 1,150,523, 1,171,055
Died:

William D. Coolidge

X-Ray

William D. Coolidge's name is inseparably linked with the X-ray tube -- popularly called the "Coolidge tube." This invention completely…
Inducted in: 1975
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 1,203,495
Died:

Georges Claude

Neon Tubing

French industrial chemist Georges Claude invented neon tubing. Born in Paris, France, he studied at Ecole de Physique et Chinie before graduating in…
Inducted in: 2007
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 1,189,664
Died:

Calvin Fuller

Silicon Solar Cell

Chemist Calvin Fuller co-invented the silicon solar cell with physicists Daryl Chapin and Gerald Pearson. Building on Albert Einstein's theories…
Inducted in: 2008
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,780,765
Died:

Warren S. Johnson

Temperature Control

Warren Johnson was born in 1847 in Leicester, Vermont, to homesteading farmers. Two years later, the family moved to Wisconsin, where the largely…
Inducted in: 2018
Born:
U.S. Patent Nos.: 542,733, 281,884
Died:

Daryl Chapin

Silicon Solar Cell

Daryl Chapin, with Bell Labs colleagues Calvin Fuller and Gerald Pearson, invented the first practical device for converting sunlight into useful…
Inducted in: 2008
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,780,765
Died:
Steven Sasson

Steven Sasson

Digital Camera

Steve Sasson invented the digital camera, changing the future of photography and transforming an industry.Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Sasson…
Inducted in: 2011
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 4,131,919
Esther Sans Takeuchi

Esther Sans Takeuchi

Lithium/Silver Vanadium Oxide (Li/SVO) Battery Technology in Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICDs)

Energy storage expert Esther Sans Takeuchi led efforts to invent and refine the lithium/silver vanadium oxide (Li/SVO) battery technology used to…
Inducted in: 2011
Born:
U.S. Patent Nos.: 5,389,472, 6,221,534

Kenneth C. Jordan

Radioisotopic Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)

Ken Jordan worked as a nuclear physicist at Monsanto's Mound Laboratory for 36 years, and in 1954, he and colleague John Birden invented the…
Inducted in: 2013
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,913,510
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Army
Stanford R. Ovshinsky headshot

Stanford R. Ovshinsky

Nickel-Metal Hydride Battery

Stanford Ovshinsky was a prolific, self-taught inventor and physicist whose pioneering work in multiple fields had an impact on many aspects of…
Inducted in: 2015
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 4,623,597
Died:
Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla

Electro-Magnetic Motor

Nikola Tesla invented the induction motor with rotating magnetic field that made unit drives for machines feasible and made AC power transmission an…
Inducted in: 1975
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 381,968
Died:

Willem Einthoven

Electrocardiograph

Willem Einthoven designed the first instrument that accurately recorded the electrical activity of the heart and produced the first reliable…
Inducted in: 2008
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 1,592,628
Died:

William B. Shockley

Transistor

William Shockley headed the team at Bell Telephone Laboratories that studied semiconductors and invented the transistor. The work that he and fellow…
Inducted in: 1974
Born:
U.S. Patent Nos.: 2,502,488, 2,524,035
Died:

Charles G. Page

High-Voltage Induction Coil

Charles Grafton Page invented the first high-voltage induction coil in 1836. The high-voltage induction coil became an important tool of scientific…
Inducted in: 2006
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 76,654
Died:

Eli Harari

Floating Gate EEPROM

Eli Harari invented the Floating Gate EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory). After earning his Ph.D. from Princeton University…
Inducted in: 2017
Born:
U.S. Patent Nos.: 4,115,914, 5,297,148

Thomas A. Watson

Improvements to the Telephone

Thomas Watson is best known for working as Alexander Graham Bell's assistant during the development of the telephone. It was Watson who heard the…
Inducted in: 2011
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 199,007
Died:

Charles Sumner Tainter

Sound-Recording Instruments

Charles Tainter invented various sound-recording instruments, including an improved version of Thomas Edison's phonograph known as the graphophone,…
Inducted in: 2006
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 341,288
Died:

Ernst F. W. Alexanderson

High-Frequency Alternator

Ernst Alexanderson was the General Electric Company engineer whose high-frequency alternator gave America its start in the field of radio…
Inducted in: 1983
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 1,008,577
Died: