Bette Nesmith Graham

Bette Nesmith Graham, inventor of Liquid Paper

It was originally called "mistake out" and was the invention of Bette Nesmith Graham, a secretary in Dallas and a single mother raising a son, Michael (The Monkees). Bette was an artist and use to handling paints and inks. She used her own kitchen blender to mix up her first batch of liquid paper, the substance used to cover up mistakes made on paper.

Gordon Gould

Gordon Gould, inventor of the laser

Gordon Gould was the first person to use the word "laser," and there is good reason to believe he made the first light laser. Gould was a doctoral student at Columbia University under Charles Townes, the inventor of the maser. Gould was inspired to build his optical laser starting in 1958. He failed to file for a patent his invention until 1959. As a result, Gould's patent was refused and his technolgy was exploited by others. In1977 Gould finally won his patent war and received his first patent for the laser.

Art Fry

Art Fry, inventor of Post-It notes

In the early 1970s, Art Fry was in search of a bookmark for his church hymnal that would neither fall out nor damage the hymnal. Fry soon realized that his "bookmark" had other potential functions when he used it to leave a note on a work file, and co-workers kept dropping by, seeking "bookmarks" for their offices. This "bookmark" was a new way to communicate and to organize. 3M Corporation crafted the name Post-it® note for Fry’s bookmarks and began production in the late 70s for commercial use.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, inventor of the lightning rod, bifocal glasses, the Franklin stove and the odometer

Franklin's innovations include bifocal glasses and the iron furnace stove, a small contraption with a sliding door which burns wood on a grate, thus allowing people to cook food and heat their homes at the same time. Mid-eighteenth century scientists and inventors considered electricity to be Franklin's most remarkable area of investigation and discovery.

Philo T. Farnsworth

Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of modern television

In 1927, Farnsworth was the first inventor to transmit a television image comprised of 60 horizontal lines. The image transmitted was a dollar sign. Farnsworth developed the dissector tube, the basis of all current electronic televisions. He filed for his first television patent in 1927 (pat#1,773,980.)

Douglas C. Engelbart

Douglas C. Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse

In 1964, the first prototype computer mouse was made to use with a graphical user interface (GUI), 'windows'. Engelbart received a patent for the wooden shell with two metal wheels (computer mouse) in 1970, describing it in the patent application as an "X-Y position indicator for a display system." "It was nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end," Engelbart revealed about his invention.

Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the phonograph, lightbulb and motion pictures

August 12, 1877, is the date popularly given for Thomas Alva Edison's completion of the model for the first phonograph. It is more likely, however, that work on the model was not finished until November or December of that year, since Edison did not file for the patent until December 24, 1877.

Marion Donovon

Marion Donovon, inventor of the disposable diaper

Marion Donovan was a young mother in the post-war baby boom era. She came from a family of inventors and inherited the inventing 'gene'. Unhappy with leaky, cloth diapers that had to be washed, she first invented the 'Boater', a plastic covering for cloth diapers. Donovan made her first Boater using a shower curtain. A year later she carried her ideas further. Using disposable absorbent material and combining it with her Boater design, Donovan created the first convenient disposable diaper. Manufacturers thought her product would be too expansive to produce. Donovan, left unable to sell or license her diaper patent, went into business for herself.

Rudolph Diesel

Rudolph Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine

In 1893, he published a paper describing an engine with combustion within a cylinder, the internal combustion engine. In 1894, he filed for a patent for his new invention, dubbed the diesel engine. Diesel was almost killed by his engine when it exploded - however, his engine was the first that proved that fuel could be ignited without a spark. He operated his first successful engine in 1897.

George de Mestral

George de Mestral, inventor of Velcro

By trial and error, he realized that nylon when sewn under infrared light, formed tough hooks for the burr side of the fastener. This finished the design, patented in 1955. The inventor formed Velcro Industries to manufacture his invention.

Josephine Garis Cochrane

Josephine Garis Cochrane, inventor of the dishwasher

In 1886, Josephine Cochran proclaimed in disgust, "If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I'll do it myself." And she did, Cochran invented the first dishwasher. Cochran had expected the public to welcome the new invention, unveiled at the 1893 World's Fair, but only the hotels and large restaurants were buying her ideas. It was not until the 1950s that dishwashers caught on with the general public.

Alexander Graham

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone

In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won.

Thomas Adams

Thomas Adams, inventor of chewing gum

Adams Sons and Company was formed in 1876 by the glass merchant Thomas Adams (1818-1905) and his two sons. As a result of experiments in a warehouse of Front Street, Adams made chewing gum that had chicle as an ingredient, large quantities of which had been made available to him by General Antonio de Santa Anna of Mexico, who was in exile in Staten Island and at whose instigation Adams had tried to use the chicle to make rubber. Adams sold the gum with the slogan "Adams' New York Gum No. 1 -- Snapping and Stretching." The firm was the nation's most prosperous chewing gum company by the end of the century: it built a monopoly in 1899 by merging with the six largest and best-known chewing gum manufacturers in the United States and Canada, and achieved great success as the maker of Chiclets

ARCHIMEDES

ARCHIMEDES
Archimedes (287-212 BC) was a prolific ancient Greek mathematician. Archimedes invented the water screw, a device for raising water using an encased screw open at both ends. The screw is set an an angle, and as the screw turns, water fills the air pockets and is transported upwards. The Archimedes screw is still in use today. Among his many accomplishments was the first description of the lever (around 260 BC). Levers are one of the basic tools; they were probably used in prehistoric times. Many of our basic tools use levers, including scissors (two class-1 levers), pliers (two class-1 levers), hammer claws (one class-1 lever), nutcrackers (two class-2 levers), and tongs (two class-3 levers).