Gian Farrant

The answer is an enormous amount of the technology, infrastructure, medicine, engineering and scientific knowledge underpinning modern civilisation. • Telephone — Alexander Graham Bell • Electric light bulb — Joseph Swan / Thomas Edison • AC induction motor — Nikola Tesla • Electric generator — Michael Faraday • Electric battery — Alessandro Volta • Electromagnet — William Sturgeon • Steam engine improvements — James Watt • Petrol automobile — Karl Benz • Diesel engine — Rudolf Diesel • Motorcycle — Gottlieb Daimler • Powered aeroplane — Wright Brothers • Helicopter — Igor Sikorsky • Jet engine — Frank Whittle / Hans von Ohain • Steam locomotive — George Stephenson • Electric railway — Werner von Siemens • Modern bicycle — John Kemp Starley • Pneumatic tyre — John Boyd Dunlop • Three-point seatbelt — Nils Bohlin • Automotive crumple zones — Béla Barényi • Modern shipping container — Malcolm McLean • Underground railway — British engineers • World Wide Web — Tim Berners-Lee • HTML — Tim Berners-Lee • HTTP — Tim Berners-Lee • Computer science foundations — Alan Turing • Programmable computer concepts — Charles Babbage • Early computer algorithms — Ada Lovelace • Electronic computer — Tommy Flowers and collaborators • Transistor — John Bardeen / Walter Brattain / William Shockley • Integrated circuit — Jack Kilby / Robert Noyce • Computer mouse — Douglas Engelbart • Ethernet — Robert Metcalfe / David Boggs • Linux — Linus Torvalds • C programming language — Dennis Ritchie • C++ — Bjarne Stroustrup • Python — Guido van Rossum • JavaScript — Brendan Eich • Relational databases — Edgar F. Codd • Spreadsheet software — Dan Bricklin / Bob Frankston • MP3 compression — Karlheinz Brandenburg and collaborators • Bluetooth — Jaap Haartsen and collaborators • Computer graphics foundations — Ivan Sutherland • Modern computer operating systems — Multiple pioneers • Smallpox vaccination — Edward Jenner • Penicillin — Alexander Fleming • Insulin treatment — Frederick Banting and collaborators • X-rays — Wilhelm Röntgen • CT scanner — Godfrey Hounsfield / Allan Cormack • MRI advances — Peter Mansfield / Paul Lauterbur • Stethoscope — René Laennec • Antiseptic surgery — Joseph Lister • Surgical handwashing — Ignaz Semmelweis • Blood-group discovery — Karl Landsteiner • Polio vaccine — Jonas Salk • Oral polio vaccine — Albert Sabin • Pasteurisation — Louis Pasteur • Modern epidemiology advances — John Snow • Dialysis machine — Willem Kolff • Artificial heart-lung machine — John Gibbon • IVF — Robert Edwards / Patrick Steptoe / Jean Purdy • DNA double-helix model — Watson / Crick, drawing on Franklin and Wilkins • DNA sequencing methods — Frederick Sanger • PCR — Kary Mullis • Modern air conditioning — Willis Carrier • Microwave oven — Percy Spencer • Mechanical dishwasher — Josephine Cochrane • Electric vacuum cleaner — Hubert Cecil Booth / James Spangler • Automatic pop-up toaster — Charles Strite • Electric iron — Henry Seeley • Pressure cooker — Denis Papin • Modern food canning — Nicolas Appert • Automatic electric kettle — Russell Hobbs • Sewing machine improvements — Elias Howe / Isaac Singer • Safety razor — King C. Gillette • Electric shaver — Jacob Schick • Ballpoint pen — László Bíró • Adhesive tape — Richard Drew • Hook-and-loop fastener — George de Mestral • Modern zipper — Gideon Sundback • Safety pin — Walter Hunt • Modern pencil manufacturing — Nicolas-Jacques Conté • Lawn mower — Edwin Beard Budding • Photography — Nicéphore Niépce • Daguerreotype — Louis Daguerre • Photographic negative-positive process — William Henry Fox Talbot • Instant photography — Edwin Land • Digital camera prototype — Steven Sasson • Phonograph — Thomas Edison • Gramophone — Emile Berliner • Stereo recording — Alan Blumlein • FM radio — Edwin Armstrong • Wireless telegraphy — Guglielmo Marconi • Television development — John Logie Baird and collaborators • Motion-picture cinematograph — Lumière Brothers • Laser — Theodore Maiman • Holography — Dennis Gabor • Modern loudspeaker — Chester Rice / Edward Kellogg • Audio noise reduction — Ray Dolby • Bessemer steelmaking — Henry Bessemer • Stainless steel — Harry Brearley and other pioneers • Portland cement — Joseph Aspdin • Hydraulic press — Joseph Bramah • Precision screw-cutting lathe — Henry Maudslay • Industrial assembly-line advances — Henry Ford and collaborators • Industrial robot — George Devol / Joseph Engelberger • 3D printing — Chuck Hull • Vulcanised rubber — Charles Goodyear • Bakelite — Leo Baekeland • Nylon — Wallace Carothers and team • Kevlar — Stephanie Kwolek • Teflon — Roy Plunkett • Haber-Bosch fertiliser process — Fritz Haber / Carl Bosch • Mechanical seed drill improvements — Jethro Tull • Mechanical reaper — Cyrus McCormick • Mechanical threshing machine — Andrew Meikle • Centre-pivot irrigation — Frank Zybach • Modern refrigerated food transport — Multiple pioneers • Modern municipal sewer engineering — Joseph Bazalgette and others • Modern road surfacing — John Loudon McAdam • Elevator safety brake — Elisha Otis • Electric elevator — Werner von Siemens • Escalator — Jesse Reno / Charles Seeberger • Shield tunnelling — Marc Isambard Brunel • Automatic fire sprinkler — Henry Parmelee • Barometer — Evangelista Torricelli • Fahrenheit temperature scale — Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit • Celsius temperature scale — Anders Celsius • Classical mechanics — Isaac Newton • Universal gravitation — Isaac Newton • Calculus — Isaac Newton / Gottfried Leibniz • Planetary motion laws — Johannes Kepler • Heliocentric mathematical model — Nicolaus Copernicus • Electromagnetic field theory — James Clerk Maxwell • Special relativity — Albert Einstein • General relativity — Albert Einstein • Quantum theory — Max Planck • Wave mechanics — Erwin Schrödinger • Uncertainty principle — Werner Heisenberg • Exclusion principle — Wolfgang Pauli • Electron discovery — J. J. Thomson • Neutron discovery — James Chadwick • Nuclear fission — Otto Hahn / Fritz Strassmann, interpreted by Lise Meitner / Otto Frisch • Periodic table — Dmitri Mendeleev • Modern chemical nomenclature — Antoine Lavoisier and collaborators • Modern genetics foundations — Gregor Mendel • Evolution by natural selection — Charles Darwin / Alfred Russel Wallace • Modern taxonomy — Carl Linnaeus • Continental drift hypothesis — Alfred Wegener • Big Bang cosmological model — Georges Lemaître • Boolean algebra — George Boole • Modern mathematical logic — Gottlob Frege and others • Typewriter — Christopher Latham Sholes and collaborators • QWERTY keyboard — Christopher Latham Sholes and collaborators • Cash register — James Ritty • Barcode — Norman Woodland / Bernard Silver • Photocopier — Chester Carlson • Laser printer — Gary Starkweather • ATM development — John Shepherd-Barron / James Goodfellow and others • Adjustable wrench — Johan Petter Johansson • Portable electric drill — Wilhelm Fein • Modern mechanical staplers — European and American inventors