The 16 Greatest Inventors of All Time

Some names here hold a thousand patents. One refused to file a single one.

1. 1
   Benjamin Franklin

   Invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove and swim fins, and patented none of them.
2. 2
   Thomas Edison

   Held over a thousand US patents, including the practical incandescent lamp and the phonograph.
3. 3
   Nikola Tesla

   Engineer behind the alternating-current induction motor and much of modern power transmission.
4. 4
   Leonardo da Vinci

   Renaissance painter whose notebooks sketched flying machines, gears and diving suits centuries early.
5. 5
   Alexander Graham Bell

   Patented the telephone in 1876 and spent decades on hearing, flight and hydrofoils.
6. 6
   James Watt

   His separate-condenser steam engine made industrial power efficient enough to change economies.
7. 7
   Johannes Gutenberg

   Brought movable-type printing to Europe and made books cheap enough to spread ideas.
8. 8
   Marie Curie

   Pioneered radioactivity research and developed mobile X-ray units used in the field.
9. 9
   George Washington Carver

   Agricultural scientist who developed hundreds of uses for peanuts and sweet potatoes.
10. 10
    Archimedes

    Greek engineer credited with the screw pump, compound pulleys and the principle of buoyancy.
11. 11
    The Wright Brothers

    Built and flew the first controlled, powered aeroplane at Kitty Hawk in 1903.
12. 12
    Hedy Lamarr

    Film star who co-patented a frequency-hopping system that anticipated modern wireless.
13. 13
    Tim Berners-Lee

    Wrote the specifications for the World Wide Web and released them without charge.
14. 14
    Nikolaus Otto

    Built the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine in 1876.
15. 15
    Grace Hopper

    Computer scientist who built the first compiler and shaped early programming languages.
16. 16
    Guglielmo Marconi

    Turned radio waves into a working long-distance telegraph and won a Nobel for it.

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