Famous inventors taught in school

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
In schools I remember the following inventions and their inventors being taught:
eli whitney - cotton gin
joseph lister - antiseptic
louis pasteur - pasteurizing
ford - assembly line
Thomas Edison - light bulb, DC
alexander graham bell - telephone
whoever invented the nickelodeon theater - TV
(this is not complete; I know I learned other stuff; I may add it as I remember it)

I remember at the time interrogating my teacher about why we had to learn about the cotton gin, which isn't even used anymore. The answer was that it's invention sparked the industrial revolution.

So what process do they use to determine what inventions/inventors get notoriety in the textbooks? Is it inventions that made things possible that were previously impossible? or things that greatly improved efficiency?

Here's some I think at least deserve an honorable mention:

Nikola tesla - AC - WHY ON EARTH WAS NIKOLA TESLA NOT MENTIONED? If you can find a place for eli whitney's cotton gin, then can you not find a place for ALTERNATING F'N CURRENT?
wright brothers - airplanes - To give my teachers credit, I may have been taught this, but I only remember my father teaching it to me
farm tractor?
photography?
radio? > Cell phones?
guns?
missiles?
chainsaw?
welder?
personal computer?
credit cards?
semiconductors?
internal combustion engine?
the internet?
plastic?
sewing machine?
air conditioning?/ refrigeration cycle?
 
Last edited:

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Dr. Tesla was the real deal, as was Edwin Armstrong. Both were screwed over by big business, and died broke.
 

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782

magnet18

Joined Dec 22, 2010
1,227
I had never heard of Claude Shannon, and I hate how teachers always skip Tesla.
My history teacher did actaully mention him in passing once, by saying how he "supposedly" invented the radio but someone else had the patent. I happily corrected her by informing her that the supreme court reversed the patent decision and gave Tesla credit for the invention.
This was after we spent all day talking about Eli Whitney. Grr.
 

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
i had never heard of claude shannon, and i hate how teachers always skip tesla.
My history teacher did actaully mention him in passing once, by saying how he "supposedly" invented the radio but someone else had the patent. I happily corrected her by informing her that the supreme court reversed the patent decision and gave tesla credit for the invention.
This was after we spent all day talking about eli whitney. Grr.
ggggggrrrrrrrr
 

someonesdad

Joined Jul 7, 2009
1,583
What you rank as important depends on your criteria and judgment.

Here's my list, but of course it won't match anyone else's. My criteria are that the invention must have wide and (temporally) long impact and be such that our modern world would be difficult or impossible without it. Note I might include a technology under an item rather than a particular invention. And many of these don't have someone's name to stick beside them as they were either evolutionary/group efforts or they're lost in time (or I'm just too ignorant to know :p).

  1. Utilization of the axle and wheel (and ancillary related things like bearings)
  2. Plumbing etc. to deal with human waste products
  3. Soap
  4. The printed book
  5. Agriculture and animal husbandry
  6. Steel
  7. Utilization of exothermic reactions (resulting in steam and internal combustion power sources)
  8. Vulcanized rubber
  9. Transmission of electrical power (both for energy and communications)
  10. Electrical motors
  11. Weaving
  12. Anesthetics
  13. Canning of foods
  14. Digital computation
In my opinion, the printed book, plumbing, and steel are, by far, our most important inventions.

I was a young grad student and one of the teachers in the EE department let me audit his communications class (I had taken my one EE course on network theory from him). It was a great class and I still remember the hair on my arms raising when I learned about Nyquist's theorem and Shannon's work. Shannon was a giant.
 

VoodooMojo

Joined Nov 28, 2009
505
I had to look up claude shannon. That's sad. That's what I'm talking about. Why did I not learn of him in school?
sad but there are some (thankfully not all) in our educational system that are working feverishly to ensure there are fewer and fewer Shannons and Teslas
 
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