Showing 26 - 50 of 89 results
Stanley N. Cohen
Genetic Engineering
In 1973, Stan Cohen and Herb Boyer worked together to understand how genes work and ended up proving that DNA cloning was feasible. Their experiments…
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…
David Crosthwait
Heating and Ventilation System Design
David Crosthwait was a pioneer in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) industry. He devoted his career, which included groundbreaking…
Graham J. Durant
Tagamet - Cimetidine
Graham John Durant, John Emmett, and Robin Ganellin led the SmithKline Beecham Corporation's research team that discovered the H2 receptor class of…
John Ericsson
Screw Propeller
John Ericsson invented the ship propeller and incorporated the landmark device into his design for the Civil War ironclad the Monitor. Born in the…
Mary Florence Potts
Cold-Handle Sad Iron
Mary Florence Potts invented an improved sad iron, which was lighter and offered a cooler, more ergonomic handle. Beginning in the 1870s, it was…
James Fujimoto
Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)
James Fujimoto, David Huang and Eric Swanson invented optical coherence tomography (OCT), a method for imaging subsurface structure in biological…
Andrea Goldsmith
Adaptive Beamforming for Multi-Antenna Wi-Fi
Andrea Goldsmith created technical innovations including adaptive beamforming for multi-antenna Wi-Fi. Her work has shaped the performance of…
Gordon Gould
Optically Pumped Laser Amplifiers
Gordon Gould coined the word laser and patented optically pumped and discharge excited laser amplifiers now used in industrial, commercial, and…
Felix Hoffmann
Aspirin
Felix Hoffmann first made acetylsalicylic acid, better known today as aspirin, to ease his father's arthritis. However, aspirin's history begins long…
J. Paul Hogan
High-Density Polyethylene and Polypropylene Plastics
Paul Hogan was working with Robert Banks at Phillips Petroleum in 1951 when they invented crystalline polypropylene and a breakthrough process for…
Frederic Eugene Ives
Color Photography
Frederic Ives was a pioneer of color and stereoscopic photography, and demonstrated a system of natural color photography at the 1885 Novelties…
Charles Jenkins
Motion Picture Projector
Charles Jenkins was an innovator of early cinema and one of the first inventors of television, though he used mechanical rather than electronic…
Dawon Kahng
MOSFET
Dawon Kahng was an inventor of the first practical field-effect transistor, a device that controls electronic signals by switching them on or off or…
Donald B. Keck
Optical Fiber
Donald B. Keck worked with Robert Maurer and Peter Schultz at Corning Laboratories to create the first successful optical fiber in 1970. In the 1880s…
Joseph Lechleider
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line
Although inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell and Samuel Morse had speculated that data other than voice information could be transmitted over…
Andrew J. Moyer
Method for Production of Penicillin
Andrew J. Moyer's discoveries provided the foundation for the industrial production of penicillin. Born in Star City, Indiana, Moyer received his A.B…
Joseph Muhler
Stannous Fluoride Toothpaste
During the early 1940s, when dentist and biochemist Joseph Muhler was an Indiana University undergraduate, he began studying fluoride and tooth decay…
William Nebergall
Stannous Fluoride Toothpaste
Dentist and biochemist Joseph Muhler and inorganic chemist William Nebergall developed a cavity-preventing product using stannous fluoride, building…
Jacob Rabinow
Optical Character Reading
Jacob Rabinow invented machines that could recognize text, making it possible to automate vast amounts of routine work formerly done by hand.
A…
John Roebling
Suspension Bridge
In 1841, John Roebling invented a wire rope in order to improve upon the bulkier and weaker hemp fiber rope being used to haul canal boats along the…
Aran Safir
Iris Recognition System
Aran Safir and Leonard Flom worked together in the 1980s on their concept for an iris identification system. They based their work on the fact that…
Patsy O. Sherman
Scotchgard™ Textile Protector
Chemist Patsy Sherman and colleague Sam Smith were working at 3M Company when they created Scotchgard™. Scotchgard went on to become one of the most…
Charles Proteus Steinmetz
Alternating Current
Without Charles Steinmetz's theories of alternating current, the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States in the early 20th…
Herbert M. Strong
Diamond Synthesis
Herbert Strong, along with Tracy Hall, Francis Bundy, and Robert Wentorf, synthesized diamonds as part of Project Superpressure, as announced by the…