Recently Ohio citizens chose a new statue to represent the state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Thomas Edison won, followed closely by the Wright Brothers. I find the choice of Edison ironic, since he left the state to do great things. But another issue comes to mind – in this great era of technological innovation, why are contemporary inventors so anonymous? I don't know the answer, but here are names of people who made useful inventions that we did not have (or use) when we were first married (1960). My original list of inventions contained only one person that I have heard of – Steve Jobs, inventor of the personal computer. The list plus sources:
Kidney Dialysis – Willem Kolff (abt. 1942) – washingtonpost.com
Microwave Oven – Percy Spencer (1947) – galawa.com
Velcro – George de Mestral (1955) – Inventors Hall of Fame (?)
Hand Calculator – Jack Kirby, et al. (1967) – pbs.org
Digital Watch – Peter Petroff (abt. 1970) – allbusiness.com
E-Mail – Ray Tomlinson (1971) – itmanagement.earthweb.com
Statin Drugs – Akira Endo (1973) – tracerkinetics.engr.iupui.edu
Voice Mail – Steven J. Bois, et al. (abt. 1975) – en.wikipedia
Wheeled Luggage – Bob Plath (1985) – guide4home.com
In addition, I could not find the names of the inventors of the DVD (Introduced 1994), Saran Wrap (Dow Chemical, 1949), and Zip-Lok Bags.
No comments:
Post a Comment