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Learn About Famous Inventors Who Have Changed the World

Browse List of Inductees
Browse List of Inductees
Showing 51 - 75 of 167 results

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

Theodore Harold Maiman

Laser

Physicist Theodore Harold Maiman invented the first operable laser. Born in Los Angeles, California, Maiman in his teens earned college money by…
Inducted in: 1984
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,353,115
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Navy

Gerald L. Pearson

Silicon Solar Cell

Gerald Pearson's fundamental research in semiconductor materials led to the invention, with Daryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller, of the silicon solar cell…
Inducted in: 2008
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,780,765
Died:
Alois A. Langer headshot

Alois A. Langer

Implantable Heart Defibrillator

Alois A. Langer was the engineer on the medical team that invented the first automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). This device is…
Inducted in: 2002
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 4,202,340

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:

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

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:

Maria Telkes

Solar Thermal Storage Systems

Maria Telkes was a highly respected innovator in solar energy. Throughout her career, she published widely on the topics of solar heating,…
Inducted in: 2012
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,986,969
Died:

Irving Langmuir

Incandescent Electric Lamp

Irving Langmuir's work led to two major inventions: the high-vacuum electron tube and the gas-filled incandescent lamp. Born in Brooklyn, New York,…
Inducted in: 1989
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 1,180,159
Died:
Mick Mountz

Mick Mountz

Mobile Robotic Material Handling for Order Fulfillment

Mick Mountz, Peter Wurman and Raffaello D’Andrea invented the Kiva system, a mobile robotic material handling system that has revolutionized order…
Inducted in: 2022
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 8,649,899

Otis Boykin

Electronic Resistors

Otis Boykin's work on improved electrical resistors made possible the steady workings of a wide variety of electrical devices. Variations of his…
Inducted in: 2014
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,891,227
Died:
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:

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:
Robert H. Dennard

Robert H. Dennard

Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM)

Robert Heath Dennard invented one-transistor Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), which significantly increased computer memory density while…
Inducted in: 1997
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,387,286
Died:

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:
Nick Holonyak, Jr. headshot

Nick Holonyak, Jr.

LED

Nick Holonyak invented the first visible light-emitting diodes (LEDs), today commonly found in applications ranging from traffic lights to consumer…
Inducted in: 2008
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,249,473
Died:
Military Service: U.S. Army
Alonzo G. Decker

Alonzo G. Decker

Portable Hand-Held Electric Drill

Virtually all of today’s electric drills descend from the original portable hand-held drill patented in 1917 by S. Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker,…
Inducted in: 2019
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 1,245,860
Died:

Louis W. Parker

Television Receiver

Louis W. Parker invented the intercarrier sound system for television sets, the modern basis for coordinating sound and picture. Born in Budapest,…
Inducted in: 1988
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,448,908
Died:

George de Mestral

VELCRO® Fasteners

In 1955, George de Mestral patented VELCRO® hook and loop fasteners, an efficient way to fasten fabrics and other materials. The idea came to him…
Inducted in: 1999
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,717,437
Died:
John Macdougall headshot

John Macdougall

Ion Implantation

John Macdougall is one of the inventors of the first commercially viable method of ion implantation, a process that changes the conductivity of areas…
Inducted in: 2009
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 3,895,966
David Huang

David Huang

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)

David Huang, James Fujimoto and Eric Swanson invented a revolutionary method for imaging the internal structures of body tissue with unprecedented…
Inducted in: 2025
Born:
U.S. Patent Nos.: 5,321,501, 5,459,570

Carl Auer von Welsbach

Incandescent Device

Carl Auer von Welsbach, an Austrian scientist and inventor, had a talent for discovering techniques for purifying rare earth elements and using these…
Inducted in: 2011
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 399,174
Died:

Claude Shannon

Pulse Code Modulation

Claude Shannon produced one of the great conceptual breakthroughs of his generation with the publication of his seminal work, "A Mathematical Theory…
Inducted in: 2004
Born:
U.S. Patent No.: 2,801,281
Died: