Inventors
Who turned the wheel
Technology is not only machines. It is people who noticed, argued, failed, and taught. This volume is a first-edition gallery of outstanding inventors and scientists — East and West — whose work still sits under later tools.
Plates are original engravings invented for this atlas, not copies of copyrighted photographs.
78–139
Zhang Heng
Astronomer and instrument maker
c. 50–121
Cai Lun
Court official; papermaking reform
c. 287–212 BCE
Archimedes
Mathematician of machines
1136–1206
Ismail al-Jazari
Mechanical engineer
c. 965–1040
Ibn al-Haytham
Experimenter of light
c. 990–1051
Bi Sheng
Inventor of clay movable type
c. 1400–1468
Johannes Gutenberg
Printer of a system
1736–1819
James Watt
Improver of the steam engine
1745–1827
Alessandro Volta
Maker of continuous current
1791–1867
Michael Faraday
Discoverer of induction
1815–1852
Ada Lovelace
First commentator of the general machine
1844–1929 / 1849–1944
Carl and Bertha Benz
Automobile as a usable product
1867–1912 / 1871–1948
Wilbur and Orville Wright
Engineers of controlled flight
1868–1934
Fritz Haber
Ammonia from air — and a dual ledger
1912–1954
Alan Turing
Theorist of the universal machine
1906–1992
Grace Hopper
Compiler as a bridge to English
1947 demonstration
Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley
The transistor at Bell Labs
1958–1959
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce
The integrated circuit
1913–2001
Malcom McLean
The shipping box as protocol
1922–2023
John Goodenough
Cathode chemist of lithium-ion
b. 1930
Tu Youyou
Artemisinin from a cold extraction
b. 1955
Tim Berners-Lee
Author of the Web’s three small standards
1914–2000
Hedy Lamarr
Frequency-hopping co-inventor