Greatest Inventors of the past 50yrs

[Geez Louise]

Yesterday my son and I were having a discussion about inventors. (Not so much the inventions but the inventors)

He commented on how everyone knows of or remembers great inventors of the past such as Thomas Edison and Leonardo Di Vinci but he asked what I thought was a valid question....who are the great inventors of our time in the past 50yrs?

Well, it had me stumped for a bit. I kept saying things such as, well..there has been Television, the Mobile phone, Ipads, Iphones, I-everything and that was all good, but who actually invented them? He challenged me to come up with a product and the name of the inventor, WITHOUT the use of google.

There was only one invention I could think of and who invented it - Liquid Paper. Bette Nesmith (the mother of one of The Monkees) - How sad is that?

So I place this challenge to all AFF Members, who are the great inventors of the past 50 or so years and do you know them without the use of google or another search engine? Surely the next generation will look back on inventors of our time and know their names or with the technological age, will it all be left up to just looking it up online?

Cheers
Col

[DaveD]

One guy who instantly came to mind is Tim Berners-Lee who invented the world wide web.

[Kevxr8Leexr6]

Not sure of the person or individual. but superglue, was originally designed for skin adhesion of sorts. then came superglue.

Good to see your son has the modern outlook not taught in schools as well.

[Charliewool]

Bionic ear.. Prof. Graham Clarke.
Black Box flight recorder... (without googling forget his name, but WAS an Aussie)

[Dr Jekkyl]

Kary Mullis > polymerase chain reaction

Otherwise a complete ******.

[karj]

Ian Frazer and those who developed the HPV vaccine.
Fiona Wood for spray-on skin burns treatment.

[Ducati888]

It's a difficult one in the modern age. R&D by and large occurs within companies and universities, and these entities therefore own the intellectual property (IP) - not the individual within the company who makes a discovery. Hence, in the modern age, when you ask who invented something, it's Microsoft or Apple, not the individuals within their R&D departments.

Unlike the age of Edison, or Fleming with Penicillin, where things were invented/discovered by individuals, or teams led by individuals. IP and money have changed the philosphy completely.

Excellent question.

[Geez Louise]

I have to agree that it appears to now be a "company entity" who is identified as the inventor and not the actual person.

One of the most significant scientific experiments of our recent times has taken place, the Super Hadron collider and yet I have no idea who the scientist are who were involved in that project.

Sad isn't it really when you think about it....but such is the way of the modern world.

[zilo]

Originally Posted by Geez Louise

Yesterday my son and I were having a discussion about inventors. (Not so much the inventions but the inventors)


Well, it had me stumped for a bit. I kept saying things such as, well..there has been Television, the Mobile phone, Ipads, Iphones, I-everything and that was all good, but who actually invented them? He challenged me to come up with a product and the name of the inventor, WITHOUT the use of google.


So I place this challenge to all AFF Members, who are the great inventors of the past 50 or so years and do you know them without the use of google or another search engine? Surely the next generation will look back on inventors of our time and know their names or with the technological age, will it all be left up to just looking it up online?

Cheers
Col

All of the inventions you've described are due to a team of guys led by a bloke called Shockley.

He invented a crude germanium based device and called it a transistor.

The transistor is the fundamental building block of ALL electronic devices.

Even the first moon landing was possible due to the reduced energy requirements and increased speed of the transistor over the thermionic valve...I would have mentioned the valve but you said about 50 years.

You wouldn't have phones, ecu in cars, tv, computers etc if it wasn't for Shockley.

[karj]

Originally Posted by Geez Louise

I have to agree that it appears to now be a "company entity" who is identified as the inventor and not the actual person.

One of the most significant scientific experiments of our recent times has taken place, the Super Hadron collider and yet I have no idea who the scientist are who were involved in that project.

Sad isn't it really when you think about it....but such is the way of the modern world.

I agree that in some respects it's sad that individuals don't receive the public acknowledgement/notoriety they perhaps deserve, but on the other hand, we wouldn't have progressed at the same rate if R&D wasn't funded and owned by public or private institutions. Technological development would have been much slower and our overall quality of life much worse I think.

The LHC is a very good example of a project that would not have been possible without the significant contributions by many engineers/scientists and funding from many different countries. This article is worth a look to understand the contributions made by many countries to that project.

[BHDOGS]

Thomas edisons greatest invention was a way to steal credit for other peoples work.

[MNM96]

My wife and I worked together to invent my children, perhaps the best invention ever!

Just sayin'!

[BHDOGS]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ1Mz7kGVf0
heres something your kid might like

[Kevxr8Leexr6]

Just on the reinventing the wheel innovators. took an initial idea to kick it off. but many minds can go further.

I bought an serviced dry cleaning and pressing equipment for 15 years. some machines sold were not what I thought were good enough. so I decided to take all the faults and problematic things and build my own. I developed a steam tunnel for repressing with all the things I had learnt . built the prototype, thrashed it for a year for component breakdown etc. then built 3 , 2 in Sydney and 1 in Tasmania. had a patent pending, couldn't afford a worldwide patent, but I am guessing that the people who copied some of the things I designed would have taken it to an even more advanced level. way of the world ..........

[BadMax]

Felix ****el, inventor of the ****el Rotary Engine.

[Burnout]

A bloke named Higgins designed the Landing Craft used in the D-Day Landings and in many other landing beaches in WWII, he built 20,000 of the things. Eisenhower claimed later, the D-Day landings would have failed without the Higgins Boats. They were largely made of wood.

[wrongwaynorris]

Jonas Salk , inventor of the Poliomyalitis vaccine . Refused to patent it in his name and refused any monetary reward .

" His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun? "

[cs123]

Here is a couple.

Elon Musk
Steve Wozinak
Werner Von Braun ( a bit older then 50 years though)
Stephen Hawking ( not so much an inventor but a brilliant mind)

Not a big list and perhaps not the "best" but they quickly come to mind for me when thinking of recent inventors.

All inventors build on the work and knowledge of those that have gone before them.

It takes a savvy businessman to take these inventions to commercial success.

[MITCHAY]

Dennis Ritchie - Inventor of the C programming language, a significant achievement which has influenced today's technology.

[290v]

The inventor of Tec screws

[cs123]

Originally Posted by 290v

The inventor of Tec screws

And post-it-notes. I think that was Romy and Michelle

[DaveD]

Originally Posted by 290v

The inventor of Tec screws

Not as cool as tec screws but... scrivets. I love those things. Whoever invented them needs a big hat-tip.

[Charliewool]

Scrivets should be on the list of WORST, most annoying, mongrel of thing ever invented!
How many stabbed fingers have they caused?
Ever found one that can be reused and holds like the bloody thing did when you spent an hour getting the damn thing out?

[Danny]

Originally Posted by cs123

And post-it-notes. I think that was Romy and Michelle

It was Romy, Michelle was the one who said that they should make them yellow.

[aussiblue]

All of the inventions you've described are due to a team of guys led by a bloke called Shockley.

He invented a crude germanium based device and called it a transistor.

Questionable see: http://www.beatriceco.com/bti/portic...ansistor1.html
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor

Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed a patent for a field-effect transistor (FET) in Canada in 1925, which was intended to be a solid-state replacement for the triode.[1][2] Lilienfeld also filed identical patents in the United States in 1926[3] and 1928.[4][5] However, Lilienfeld did not publish any research articles about his devices nor did his patents cite any specific examples of a working prototype. Because the production of high-quality semiconductor materials was still decades away, Lilienfeld's solid-state amplifier ideas would not have found practical use in the 1920s and 1930s, even if such a device had been built.[6] In 1934, German inventor Oskar Heil patented a similar device.[7

Shockley and his team rediscovered the transistor and Texas Instruments commercialised it shortly after. Shockley did make the 1st point contact transistor but is not as often claimed, the original inventor of the transistor.

In any event, whoever you credit, it was more than 50 years ago.

[Madaya]

The NZ, Martin Jetpack, still waiting for them to get on the market though, but they look pretty cool...
http://martinjetpack.com/
iow, when this flying wonder gets on the market, it will be huge.

[Full Noise]

What about the bloke who invented Spandex leggings, otherwise known as yoga pants?
One of the greatest inventors of all time. He should be up for the Nobel prize for blokeisim.

[burnz]

Ralf Sarich, orbital engine
Ralf Miller, cycle engine

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by Ducati888

Unlike the age of Edison, or Fleming with Penicillin, where things were invented/discovered by individuals, or teams led by individuals. IP and money have changed the philosphy completely.

Flemming observed the effects but didn't realise the potential of penicillin. It was actually developed by a team of four in England and then the USA during WWII (lead by an Australian) as half the soldiers killed in wars were dying from infections.

Even then they just got it all sorted before D-day and that was because pzifer (who made soft drink at the time) worked out a way to mass produce the stuff.

[Ducati888]

Yes - the Australian that led the team of four was Howard Florey.