Physics: Important Inventions and their Inventors

Invention

Inventor

Centigrade scale

Anders Celsius

Watch

Peter Henlein

Radio

Guglielmo Marconi

Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell

Electricity

Benjamin Franklin

Electric Light Bulb

Thomas Edison

Thermometer

Galileo Galilei

Telescope

Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Janssen; later Galileo

Telegraph

Samuel Morse

Cosmic Rays

Victor Hess (but the term ‘cosmic rays’ first used by Robert Millikan

Automobile

Karl Benz

Magnetic Tape

Fritz Pfleumer

Transformer

Michael Faraday (later Ottó Titusz Bláthy)

Electromagnetic Induction

Michael Faraday

Quantum mechanics

Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual Jordan

Wave mechanics

Erwin Schrödinger

Nuclear Reactor

Enrico Fermi

Fuel Cell

William Grove

Airplane

Wright Brothers

Barometer

Evangelista Torricelli

Camera

Nicéphore Niépce

Diesel Engine

Rudolf Diesel

Helicopter

Igor Sikorsky

Dynamite

Alfred Nobel

Lift

Elisha Otis

Laser Printer

Gary Starkweather

Mobile Phone

Martin Cooper

Printing Press

Johannes Gutenberg

Video Games

Ralph Baer

Steam engine

Thomas Newcomen

Railway Engine

George Stephenson

Jet Engine

Frank Whittle

Seismograph

John Milne

Electric Generator

Michael Faraday

Television

John Logie Baird

Refrigerator

William Cullen (later Oliver Evans)

Carburetor

Luigi De Cristoforis & Enrico Bernardi

Air Brake

George Westinghouse

Atomic bomb

Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller et al

Air conditioner

Willis Carrier

Machine Gun

Sir Hiram Maxim

Radar

Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt

Submarine

Cornelius Drebbel (later) David Bushnell

First military submarine

Yefim Nikonov

Transistor

John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley

Galvanometer

Johann Schweigger

Laser

Theodore H. Maiman (first demonstrated)

Neon lamp

Georges Claude

Rocket Engine

Robert Goddard

Typewriter

Christopher Latham Sholes