Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos

invention: Quick Facts

Written and fact-checked by
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of  Encyclopædia Britannica, and create and manage the relationships between them.
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Photos

A glowing light bulb radiates bright yellow light with its reflection visible below, set against a vibrant orange and yellow background.
Stone tools
Sumerian cuneiform tablet
Johannes Gutenberg, wearing a fur-trimmed robe, examines his first printed proof sheet with two assistants in a workshop beside an early printing press.
Engraved portrait of Evangelista Torricelli with shoulder-length hair, mustache, and goatee, wearing a fur-trimmed coat and wide collar, set within an oval frame.
Thomas Edison
carburetor
Illustration showing two types of human hand grips: a power grip holding a stick with the whole hand and a precision grip holding a small object between the thumb and fingertips.
Imhotep
An illustration of Archimedes' screw shows a helical screw inside a slanted tube, lifting water from a lower pool to a higher level when the handle at the top is turned.
See All Images →

Related Topics and References

Topics

Key People

Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci drawn in red chalk, showing an elderly man with long hair and a flowing beard, with a serious, contemplative expression.
Leonardo da Vinci
Italian artist, engineer, and scientist
Galileo
Galileo
Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician
Watch a silent short of Thomas Edison, who invented the phonograph and incandescent electric light
Thomas Edison
American inventor
Portrait of Alexander Graham Bell with white hair and beard, wearing a suit and patterned tie, looking directly at the camera.
Alexander Graham Bell
British-American inventor
Engraving portrait of Carl Friedrich Gauss wearing a cap and formal 19th-century clothing, with detailed shading around his face and upper body.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
German mathematician
Sir Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy
English chemist
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi
Italian physicist
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel
Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist
James Watt
James Watt
Scottish instrument maker and inventor
default image
Marcel Schlumberger
German geophysicist
default image
Conrad Schlumberger
German geophysicist
default image
Robert Moog
American electrical engineer
default image
Sir Christopher Cockerell
British inventor
Samuel F.B. Morse
Samuel F.B. Morse
American painter and inventor
Lori Greiner smiling in a posed portrait, wearing a red strapless dress and white shawl
Lori Greiner
American entrepreneur and inventor
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens
Dutch scientist and mathematician
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Serbian American inventor and engineer
Palmer Luckey smiles at the camera wearing a black-and-white Hawaiian shirt against a dark background.
Palmer Luckey
American inventor and tech entrepreneur
Jean-Joseph Étienne Lenoir
(Jean-Joseph-) Étienne Lenoir
Belgian inventor
Garrett Morgan
Garrett Morgan
American inventor

Related Quizzes

ornithopter. Airplane and Aircraft. 3D illustration of Leonardo da Vinci's plans for an ornithopter, a flying machine kept aloft by the beating of its wings; about 1490.
Inventions: From Bayonets to Jet Engines
Clock face of Big Ben.
Scientists and Their Inventions Quiz
vintage Leica photo camera at KPI Museum, July 24, 2015, in Kiev, Ukraine
Some Practical Inventions Quiz
Beet. Beta vulgaris. Sugar beet. Two rows of harvested beets.
History of Scientists, Inventors, and Inventions Quiz
ball bearing. Disassembled ball bearing. rotational friction Automobile Industry, Engineering, Industry, Machine Part, Metal Industry, Sphere, Steel, Wheel
Inventors and Inventions