Inventors and inventions

Famous inventors

Many inventors worked on a number of inventions. Others made discoveries which later were developed into new or better inventions by other inventors or were part of a team that combined their inventing. Here is a list of some of them.

Alexander Graham Bell: Invented a dehusking machine, telephone, photophone, and made other technological discoveries which future inventors carried further.

Alfred Nobel: A detonator, Dynamite, Gelignite.

Benjamin Franklin: Lightning rod, bifocal glasses and many others.

Isaac Newton: Reflecting telescope and other discoveries.

Johannes Gutenberg: Designed and built the first printing press using movable type and mechanised ink. This helped print a large number of books at a lower cost for the first time.

Josephine Cochrane: Invented the dishwasher.

Leonardo da Vinci: Made designs for inventions such as the flying machine, war machines and more.

Marion Donovan: Developed the first waterproof disposable diaper.

Margaret Knight: Invented the square-bottomed paper bag.

Thomas Edison: Worked with electricity, light bulbs, telephones, motion picture cameras and more.

Famous inventions

Here is a list of some inventions and their inventors but there are many more. You will find information about these on the websites we have chosen for this entry.

Chocolate chip cookies: Ruth Graves Wakefield.

Clock: Various inventors at different stages - from the sundial to atomic clocks.

Computer: Charles Babbage, Howard Aiken and others.

Flush toilet system: Sir John Harrington.

Light bulb: Joseph Swan (UK) Thomas Edison (US).

Pencil: Prehistoric with various modifications through the centuries.

Plastic: Alexander Parkes.

Telegraph (wireless): Guglielmo Marconi.

Television: John Logie Baird.

General websites

Here are some good places to find out more about inventors and their inventions.

Inventor Archive

This has an extensive list of international inventors. It is part of the Lemelson-MIT programme to encourage young inventors.

• You can Filter by fields such as electronics or transportation, or look for name alphabetically.

• Each entry is a short biography of the inventor and what they invented.

Tips: A website’s address (URL) can give you a hint about how reliable it is. Look for addresses in the results that include .gov or .edu in the URL. These are quality sites from overseas government or educational organisations.

World History Encyclopedia

This is an educational website on ancient history around the world. It had information about prehistoric and classical era inventions and inventors.

• Use keywords 'Archimedes' to search for information.

• Select the article Archimedes about this Greek mathematician and engineer.

Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. Usually it’s better to leave out small words like ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘of’ and just choose the main ones, e.g. 'Archimedes' We can always change our keywords or add more if we need to.

ExplainThatStuff

This website is all about how technology works and includes information about how different technologies were invented. You can find out who is behind the website by checking the About us page.

• Search for 'inventions' using the bar at the top of the page.

• This will bring up general articles like Inventors and inventions and History of invention: a science and technology timeline.

• There are also articles about the history of particular inventions, like cars and computers.

Tips: Look at the date on each article to see when the information was last updated.

EPIC resources

A good place to look for reliable information is EPIC, a collection of reliable databases covering lots of different topics. It is put together especially for New Zealand school students.

You may need a password from your school or local library to access EPIC, or you can ask a librarian on AnyQuestions to help you.

Britannica School

This is an online version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

• Choose the level best suited to you.

• Search for an invention or inventor eg wheel.

• Or find inventors by selecting Biographies from the main page.

• In the box for Known for, find the heading for Technology, and select Invention.

• Select an inventor eg Hedy Lamarr, a famous actress who developed a device that is now part of cellphone, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth technology.

Science (Gale In Context)

This database has lots of articles from encyclopedias, magazines and journals.

• Search using keywords eg steam engines.

• Limit your results by subject or type of information.

Biography (Gale In Context)

This database includes historical and current biographies of famous people.

• Go to Browse People and from the Topics menu choose Inventors.

• The list is in alphabetical order by surname.

• Choose an inventor eg Louis Braille.

• Or search using keywords such as Richard Pearse.

• Limit your results by subject or type of information.

World History (Gale In Context)

This database provides an overview of world history that includes inventors and inventions.

• Search using keywords such as clocks.

• Limit your results by subject or type of information.

Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.

Books

There are a number of books and stories that have been written about inventors and inventing - check out your local public or school library to see what they have there.

• The greatest inventions of all time by Jillian Powell.

• 50 things you should know about inventions by Clive Gifford.

• 1000 inventions and discoveries by Roger Francis Bridgman.

• Great inventors from A to Z by Valter Fogato.

• Inventions : a visual encyclopedia by John Farndon et al.

SCIS no: 1919313