Inventions
Without the efforts of famed inventors such as Thomas Edison, James Watt, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright brothers, our daily life today would look a lot different. Landmark inventions like the printing press, steam engine, telephone, incandescent light bulb, and airplane heralded new stages of progress in technology and spurred further innovation.
Inventions Encyclopedia Articles
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Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison American inventor who, singly or jointly, held a world-record 1,093 patents. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial research laboratory. Edison was the quintessential American...
research and development
Research and development, in industry, two intimately related processes by which new products and new forms of old products are brought into being through technological innovation. Research and development,...
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His...
Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee British computer scientist, 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...
Lumière brothers
Lumière brothers, French inventors and pioneer manufacturers of photographic equipment who devised an early motion-picture camera and projector called the Cinématographe (“cinema” is derived from this...
Les Paul
Les Paul American jazz and country guitarist and inventor who was perhaps best known for his design of a solid-body electric guitar, though he also made notable contributions to the recording process....
George Eastman
George Eastman was an American entrepreneur and inventor whose introduction of the first Kodak camera helped to promote amateur photography on a large scale. After his education in the public schools of...
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla Serbian American inventor and engineer who discovered and patented the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery. He also developed the three-phase system of...
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born American inventor, scientist, and teacher of the deaf whose foremost accomplishments were the invention of the telephone (1876) and the refinement of the phonograph...
invention
Invention, the act of bringing ideas or objects together in a novel way to create something that did not exist before. Ever since the first prehistoric stone tools, humans have lived in a world shaped...