PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: technology
Italian artist, engineer, and scientist
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal....
American inventor
Thomas Edison was an American inventor who, singly or jointly, held a world-record 1,093 patents. In addition, he created the worldâs first industrial research laboratory. Edison was the quintessential...
German astronomer
Johannes Kepler German astronomer who discovered three major laws of planetary motion, conventionally designated as follows: (1) the planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus; (2) the...
prime minister of Cape Colony
Cecil Rhodes was a financier, statesman, and empire builder of British South Africa. He was prime minister of Cape Colony (1890â96) and organizer of the giant diamond-mining company De Beers Consolidated...
American industrialist
Henry Ford was an American industrialist who revolutionized factory production with his assembly-line methods. (Read Henry Fordâs 1926 Britannica essay on mass production.) Ford spent most of his life...
French chemist and microbiologist
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist who was one of the most important founders of medical microbiology. Pasteurâs contributions to science, technology, and medicine are nearly without...
Swiss architect
Le Corbusier was an internationally influential Swiss architect and city planner, whose designs combine the functionalism of the modern movement with a bold sculptural expressionism. He belonged to the...
German scientist and philosopher
Hermann von Helmholtz was a German scientist and philosopher who made fundamental contributions to physiology, optics, electrodynamics, mathematics, and meteorology. He is best known for his statement...
Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician
Galileo was an Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, and strength of materials and to the development of the...
French philosopher and scientist
Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as Pascalâs...
American architect
Daniel Burnham was an American architect and urban planner whose impact on the American city was substantial. He was instrumental in the development of the skyscraper and was noted for his highly successful...
French chemist
Antoine Lavoisier was a prominent French chemist and leading figure in the 18th-century chemical revolution who developed an experimentally based theory of the chemical reactivity of oxygen and coauthored...
German physicist and philosopher
Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist and philosopher who discovered (1925) a way to formulate quantum mechanics in terms of matrices. For that discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics...
Greek mathematician and inventor
Archimedes was the most famous mathematician and inventor in ancient Greece. He is especially important for his discovery of the relation between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing...
Scottish engineer, mathematician, and physicist
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin was a Scottish engineer, mathematician, and physicist who profoundly influenced the scientific thought of his generation. Thomson, who was knighted and raised to the peerage...
American mathematician
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-born American mathematician. As an adult, he appended von to his surname; the hereditary title had been granted his father in 1913. Von Neumann grew from child prodigy...
Indian engineer and activist
Sonam Wangchuk began his professional life as an engineer working to reform education in his native Ladakh, in the Indian Trans-Himalayas, gaining international recognition as an innovator and a climate...
English clergyman and scientist
Joseph Priestley was an English clergyman, political theorist, and physical scientist whose work contributed to advances in liberal political and religious thought and in experimental chemistry. He is...
American businessman
Steve Jobs was the cofounder of Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.), and a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer era. Jobs was raised by adoptive parents in Cupertino, California, located in what...
British-German astronomer
William Herschel was a German-born British astronomer, the founder of sidereal astronomy for the systematic observation of the stars and nebulae beyond the solar system. He discovered the planet Uranus,...
British artist and author
William Morris was an English designer, craftsman, poet, and early socialist, whose designs for furniture, fabrics, stained glass, wallpaper, and other decorative arts generated the Arts and Crafts movement...
British social reformer
Robert Owen was a Welsh manufacturer turned reformer, one of the most influential early 19th-century advocates of utopian socialism. His New Lanark mills in Lanarkshire, Scotland, with their social and...
British-American inventor
Alexander Graham Bell was an inventor, scientist, and teacher of the deaf whose foremost accomplishments, during a life lived in Canada and the United States, were the invention of the telephone (patented...
American engineer
Theodore von KĂĄrmĂĄn was a Hungarian-born American research engineer best known for his pioneering work in the use of mathematics and the basic sciences in aeronautics and astronautics. His laboratory at...
American engineer
Vannevar Bush was an American electrical engineer and administrator who developed the Differential Analyzer and oversaw government mobilization of scientific research during World War II. The son of a...
British mathematician and logician
Alan Turing was a British mathematician and logician who made major contributions to mathematics, cryptanalysis, logic, philosophy, and mathematical biology and also to the new areas later named computer...
American industrialist and inventor
George M. Pullman was an American industrialist and inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, a luxurious railroad coach designed for overnight travel. In 1894, workers at his Pullmanâs Palace Car Company...
German mathematician
Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician, generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time for his contributions to number theory, geometry, probability theory, geodesy, planetary...
French military engineer
SĂ©bastien Le Prestre de Vauban was a French military engineer who revolutionized the art of siege craft and defensive fortifications. He fought in all of Franceâs wars of Louis XIVâs reign (1643â1715)....
English chemist
Sir Humphry Davy was an English chemist who discovered several chemical elements (including sodium and potassium) and compounds, invented the minerâs safety lamp, and became one of the greatest exponents...
Italian physicist
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian physicist and inventor of a successful wireless telegraph, or radio (1896). In 1909 he received the Nobel Prize for Physics, which he shared with German physicist Ferdinand...
American computer programmer and entrepreneur
Bill Gates (born October 28, 1955, Seattle, Washington) is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur who cofounded Microsoft Corporation, the worldâs largest personal-computer software company....
American inventor
Robert Fulton was an American inventor, engineer, and artist who brought steamboating from the experimental stage to commercial success. He also designed a system of inland waterways, a submarine, and...
Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other more powerful explosives and who also founded the Nobel Prizes. Alfred Nobel was the fourth son of Immanuel...
Taiwanese-born American engineer and business executive
When Lisa Su became chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in 2014, the semiconductor company was struggling to compete with industry leader Intel (INTC). AMDâs market share had declined,...
American rocket scientist and chemist
Jack Parsons was an American rocket scientist and chemist who made significant contributions to the development of rocket technology and missile systems and was a cofounder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
Finnish architect
Alvar Aalto was a Finnish architect, city planner, and furniture designer whose international reputation rests on a distinctive blend of modernist refinement, indigenous materials, and personal expression...
English architect and artist
Inigo Jones was a British painter, architect, and designer who founded the English classical tradition of architecture. The Queenâs House (1616â19) at Greenwich, London, his first major work, became a...
WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange is an Australian computer programmer who founded the media organization WikiLeaks. Practicing what he called âscientific journalismââi.e., providing primary source materials with a minimum...
Russian author and scientist
Mikhail Lomonosov was a Russian poet, scientist, and grammarian who is often considered the first great Russian linguistics reformer. He also made substantial contributions to the natural sciences, reorganized...
Scottish instrument maker and inventor
James Watt was a Scottish instrument maker and inventor whose steam engine contributed substantially to the Industrial Revolution. Watt was also known for patenting the double-acting engine and an early...
American chemist
Irving Langmuir was an American physical chemist who was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize for Chemistry âfor his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry.â He was the second American and the first...
German printer
Johannes Gutenberg was a German craftsman and inventor who originated a method of printing from movable type. Elements of his invention are thought to have included a metal alloy that could melt readily...
Polish-born French physicist
Marie Curie was a Polish-born French physicist, famous for her work on radioactivity and twice a winner of the Nobel Prize. With Henri Becquerel and her husband, Pierre Curie, she was awarded the 1903...
American engineer
Igor Sikorsky was a pioneer in aircraft design who is best known for his successful development of the helicopter. Sikorskyâs father was a physician and professor of psychology. His mother also was a physician...
Italian automobile manufacturer
Enzo Ferrari was an Italian automobile manufacturer, designer, and racing-car driver whose Ferrari cars often dominated world racing competition in the second half of the 20th century. Enzo Ferrari was...
áčąafavid shah of Persia
ÊżAbbÄs I was the shah of Persia from 1588 to 1629, who strengthened the Safavid dynasty by expelling Ottoman and Uzbek troops from Persian soil and by creating a standing army. He also made EáčŁfahÄn the...
American engineer and automobile manufacturer
Walter P. Chrysler was an American engineer and automobile manufacturer, founder of Chrysler Corporation. (Read Lee Iacoccaâs Britannica entry on Chrysler.) Chrysler was the third of four children of Henry...
American painter and inventor
Samuel F.B. Morse was an American painter and inventor who developed an electric telegraph (1832â35). In 1838 he and his friend Alfred Vail developed the Morse Code. He was the son of the distinguished...
American manufacturer, aviator, and film producer
Howard Hughes was an American manufacturer, aviator, and motion-picture producer and director who acquired enormous wealth and celebrity from his various ventures but was perhaps better known for his eccentricities,...