Engineers and Scientists in history

Claudius Ptolemy

(100 - 170): He was a Greco-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer. He developed a model of the solar system that included circular planetary orbits used to make near accurate predictions of planetary positions. His model was so mathematically sound it remained in use for many centuries.

Leonardo Da Vinci

(11452-1519) Itailan scientist, engineer and inventor who is known for his early designs and inventions including a flying machine and a machine to concentrate solar powers. Though his ideas were often far ahead of his time, his smaller inventions and sketches helped to construct a foundation for the advancement of architecture and engineering. He also made significant discoveries in math, astronomy, anatomy an many other fields. Also known for painting the Mona Lisa, and his drawing the Vitruvian Man.

Johannes Gutenberg

(1398-1468) First European to create and use a mechanical printing press, which utilized movable type (letters/punctuation) and could mass produce books at low cost. Gutenberg's printing press changed Europe by making books and learning available to the general public and was a key catalyst to the Renaissance and scientific revolutions.

Galileo Galilei

(1564-1642) Father of Modern observational astronomy and Father of modern physics and father of modern science. Italian astronomer physicist engineer philosopher and mathematician played major role in scientific revolution during renaissance. His achievements include improvements to telescope which lead to astronomical observations and support for heliocentric , the astronomical model that places the sun at the center of the solar system.

Isaac Newton

(1642-1727) Father of Calculus . the English scientist/ mathematician is mainly known for his laws of motion and universal gravitation. He also invented the Reflecting Telescope, but rumors say he also invented the dog door.

Daniel Bernoulli

(1700-1782) Swiss doctor, mathematician, and physicist, he has numerous awards from the Paris Academy of Sciences. He is famous for his contributions to both math and physics with the publication of "hydrodynamica". The Bernoulli principle outlined the theory and fundamental relationship of fluid flow in regards to density pressure and velocity being the general relationship of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics. He also set the basis for the kinetic theory of gases and heat.

Ben Franklin

(1706-1790) Founding father of US in addition to inventing several devices such as bifocals, urinary catheter, lightning rod, and franklin stove. He proved lightning to be a form of electricity through his key and kite experiment and he discovered the conservation of charge principle.

John Wilkinson

(1728-1808)British industrialist and inventor. He advanced the use of cast iron for industrial purposes, and developed a precise boring machine, able to drill deep, accurate holes in cast iron cylinders. This resulted in a method for making accurate, better sealing pistons for devices like steam engines. He also was a primary force behind the construction of the Iron Bridge, the first arch bridge to be constructed from cast iron.

Charles Augustin de Coulomb

(1736-1806) French Engineer physicist who studied torsion and magnetism. He is best known for the definition of electrostatic force (Coulomb's Law). He also created improvements to design of retaining walls.

Edward Jenner

(1749-1823) Physician who founded small pox vaccine, the very first form of vaccine. Smallpox was regarded as one of the most reard and common killer of infants. He discovered that a tamer form of smallpox called cowpox was protecting farmers from the deadly disease. Referred to as father of Immunology.

Robert Fulton

(1765-1815) American who designed first practical submarine for Napoleon, first commercial steamboat, first steam powered warship. Largely accredited for integrating the steam engine to naval vessels thus revolutionizing naval transportation during his time.

Eli Whitney

(1765-1825) American inventor who popularized and promoted the idea of interchangeable parts, a precursor to mass produced parts. He mainly used this for muskets so they could be fixed easily and for his other big invention, the cotton gin.

Michael Faraday

(1791-1867) English Scientist who made monumental discoveries in electromagnetism. Discovered concept of an electromagnetic field and the principles of electromagnetic induction , diamagnetism and the laws of electrolysis. Also his discoveries were the foundation for the electric motor and widespread use of technology.

Samuel Morse

(1791-1872)- American painter turned inventor who developed the single wire telegraph system which could communicate over long distances using a language he co-invented called morse code. This code is a system of dots and dashes that could be sent through the telegram and received on the other end

Niels Henrik Abel

(1802-1829) Norwegian mathematician who made pioneering contributions in various fields. He is most famous for proving that quintic equations cannot be solved in radicals

Henry Bessemer

(1813-1898) English inventor and engineer who designed an extremely efficient process for making steel by blowing oxygen through pig iron. He patented this highly profitable idea in 1856 thereby allowing the rise of the modern factory. Highlights of his life include being knighted for his gifts to the scientific community and becoming a fellow of the Royal Society.

Ada Lovelace

(1815-1852) English Mathematician often considered to be the first computer programmer because of her work with Charles Babbage on his mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine, including the first machine algorithm.

Richard Jordan Garling

(1818-1903) American inventor from NC most known for his invention of the first successful machine gun, created for the union forces during the civil war dubbed the Gatling Gun. He also invented a steam plow and an early tractor.

Gregor Mendel

(1822-1884) Austrian known as father of modern genetics. He performed the famous plant hybridization experiments with pea plants which was teh basis of the laws of segregation and independent assortment. With the experiments he also discovered the concepts of dominant and recessive traits. His work was not widely accepted until after his death.

James Clerk Maxwell

(1831-1879) Created the classical teory of electromagnetic radiation supported by the formulas that came to be called Maxwell's equations. With the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, he helped describe the kinetic theory of gases. He did work in optics, control theory, and bridge analysis and made the first durable color photograph.

Gustave Eiffel

(1832-1932)An innovative French civil engineer and architect famous for his work and specialization in metal structure. He is credited with his contributions to monuments such as the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the dome of the Nice Observatory, and the Garabit viaduct.

Alfred Nobel

(1833-1896) Swedish engineer and chemist known for his work in explosives. Nobel is most famous for creating dynamite and a explosive substance known as Gelignite. His work in explosives redefined the world of mining but also made mass destruction easier.

Dimitri Mendeleev

(1834-1907) Russian chemist organized known elements of his time into the periodic table, highlighting the relationship between atomic weight and chemical properties. Additionally using his periodic table, he was able to identify elements whose atomic weigh measure were inaccurate and to predict the existence of properties of 8 new elements.

Emily Warren Roevling

(1843-1903) American who essentially took over for her husband as Chief Engineer for the Brooklyn Bridge after he contracted a crippling illness. She spent 14 years completing the project in collaboration with her husband, working with him to develop ideas and then acting as foreman to implement them.

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen

(1845-1923) German physics who researched the specific heats of gasses, thermal conductivity of crystals, influence of pressure on fluids and modification of planes of polarized light by electromagnetic influences. He is most famously noted for his discovery of Xrays while researching cathode rays by passing an electric current through a gas of a low pressure. He received the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901

Alexander Graham Bell

(1847-1922) Scottish engineer, scientist inventor who is best known for inventing the telephone and being awarded the first US patent for the phone. Much of his work revolved around aiding the deaf, telecommunications and aeronautics, and he became one of the founding members of the National Geographic.

Thomas Edison

(1847-1931) prolific American inventor with more than 1000 patents related to electrical lighting, power distribution, telegraphs, microphones, phonographs, and motion pictures. He advocated DC power distribution versus the AC alternative favored by Westinghouse and Tesla.

George Eastman

(1854-1932) Founder of Eastman Kodak company who invented the dry flexible transparent roll film and the cameras that used them.. His work simplified the process for developing negatives and allowed cameras to be smaller and cheaper making photography more enjoyable for and accessible to the avg person.

Nikola Tesla

(1856-1943) Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist and futurist. He made important contribution to the AC power distribution system in contrast with the DC one promoted by Edison. He also has other designs including induction motor, rotating magnetic field, Tesla coil and radio controlled vehicle.

Frank Sprague

(1857-1934) Introduced math to early electrical experiments while working with Thomas Edison until he left and founded the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company. He went on to invent a regenerative brake that was crucial in the development of the electric train and electric elevator

Rudolf Disel

(1858-1913) German engineer who had a thorough understanding of thermodynamics, especially the carnot engine and its cycle. Through experimentation, he pioneered a new engine designed to run on peanut oil; the diesel engine. The diesel engine is unique because it relies on compression inducted auto ignition rather than spark plugs for combustion. He obtained both US and German patents for his invention.

Max Planck

(1858-1947)Was a pioneer in theoretical physics and one of the founding fathers of the quantum theory; his theory revolutionized how people think of atomic and subatomic processes.Furthermore, a whole set of measurements is based off of Max Planck, including the planck time, planck length, and the planck temperature.

George Washington Carver

(1860-1943) African American inventor who discovered over 300 uses for peanuts including things like cooking oil, printer ink and peanut butter. Carvers research including improving soils growing crops with lower inputs and producing replacements from various common crops.

Zhan Tianyou

(1861-1919): pioneering Chinese railroad engineer, also known as "Father of China's Railroad". Educated in the United States, Zhan led the construction of the Peking-Kalgan Railway, which is the first railway constructed in China without foreign assistance

Mary Anderson

(1866-1953) Inventing simple yet indispensable windshield wiper. There was a lever inside the vehicle that controlled a spring loaded arm to move back and forth against the windshield. She was rejected when trying to sell basic rights to her invention through a canadian firm. However the automobile industry was multiplying and soon after her baisc design became standard equipment starting in Cadillac manufacturing.

Miller Reese Hutchison

(1867-1904) American electric engineer with more than 1000 patents who developed many of the first portable electric devices, most notably the hearing aid, as well as other devices like the car horn, electric tachometer and the Klaxon warning device. Many of his inventions were forerunners for modern day technologies.

Wright Brothers

(1867-1912) American brothers and inventors who designed built and flew the first practical fixed wing airplane which featured their patented three axis control system. Their historic flight also marked the first powered and controlled heavier than air human flight.

Ernest Rutherford

(1871-1937) Also known as the father of nuclear physics this British physicist and chemist is most famous for his gold foil experiment in which he discovered the nucleus of an atom. He also contributed to the discovery of alpha radiation, beta radiation and introduced several laws of radioactive decay as well as the nuclear model of the atom.

Alberto Santos-Dumont

(1873-1932) Brazilian aviation pioneer. Designed balloons, powered airships and later on aircraft. From 1898 to 1905 the inventor was able to build and fly a total of 11 dirigibles. He performed the first public heavier than air aircraft flight verified by Aero-Club de France in 1906

Guglielmo Marconi

(1874-1937) Italian electrical engineer, physicist and inventor known for being the first to develop wireless telegraphy. He founded the Marconi Telegraph Company in 1900 and sent the first transatlantic signal in 1901.

Ferdinand Porsche

(1875-1951) German automotive engineer who founded Porsche car company and worked on important developments that preceded the cars today. Some of his more famous achievements are the engineering of the worlds first gas and electric hybrid car, the first race car with a mid engine rear wheel drive layout, the VW beetle and most of Germanys tanks and weapons systems during WWII. He was posthumously given the award of Car engineer of the century by the global auto elections foundations in 1999

Willis Carrier

(1876-1950) American engineer who invented the world's first modern air conditioning system by designing a mechanical humidity controller that passed air through a filter and over coils containing coolant. He developed the Rational Psychometric Formulae to explain the for air conditioning while also determining the exact correlation between temperature and humidity.

Charles Franklin Kettering

(1876-1958): An American inventor and holder of over 160 patents, mainly known for his creation of the electric automobile self-starter. Also was the co-founder of DELCO electronics, the head director of research for General Motors (GM), co-founder of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the founder of the Kettering Foundation

Albert Einstein

(1879-1955) world renowned theoretical physicist with Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of law of photoelectric effect, a pivitol step in the evolution of quantum theory. He discovered mass- energy equivalence formula, and developed general theory of relativity , one of two pillars of modern physics (along side quantum mechanics).

Alexander Fleming

(1881-1955) Scottish Biologist pharmacologist and botanist. His most famous discoveries are lysozyme (enzyme that plays an important role in prevention of bacterial infections) and penicillin, which made antibiotic possible.

Robert Goddard

(1882-1945) American engineer and physicist who build the worlds first liquid fueled rocket in 1926. He is credited with 214 patents and his inventions of the liquid fueled rocket and the multi stage rocket have made him become known as the father of modern rocket propulsion

Niels Bohr

(1885-1962) Danish scientist whose research made huge strides in our understanding of atomic structure and quantum theory. He is most well known for the Bohr model of the atomic structure which states that electrons revolve in stable orbits through the gain and loss of energy. he was awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 1922

Edwin Hubble

(1889-1953)revolutionary American astronomer who made breakthroughs in the field of astronomy such as disproving that the Milky way was all there was to the Universe and establishing, from the discovery that the Universe is expanding, Hubble's Law - a law which states that all galaxies recede from Earth with velocities that increased in proportion to distance from Earth. He also classified all known nebulae at the time and calculated their velocities

Igor Sikorsky

(1889-1972) Russian engineer that invented the first four engine plane and the first fling helicopter. He also created the company called the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation.

Edwin Armstrong

(1890-1954) American electrical engineer who made many contributions in the fields of circuits and radio. His most famous contribution came when he revolutionized radio by developing the frequency modulation FM system, which earned him a Franklin Medal.

Enrico Fermi

(1901-1954) Italian scientist with a famous set of statistics relating to some subatomic particles named after him. He developed the beta decay theory, conducted the first controlled nuclear reaction in 1942 and was one of the lead physicists on the Manhattan Project.

Werner Heisenberg

(1901-1976): German physicist who made great contributions to quantum mechanics. He is best known for the uncertainty principle which states the exact locations of an atom's electrons are unknown, winning him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932. Much of Heisenberg's work is considered confidential due to his affiliation with Nazi Germany during WWII.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

(1904-1967) Jewish American theoretical physicist who published many articles on quantum theory. He was a physics professor at UC Berkely and work don many topics including black holes, molecular wave functions and quantum tunneling. He is best known for being the father of the Atomic Bomb, one of the chief engineers of the Manhattan Project.

Peter Carl Goldmark

(1906-1977) Hungarian engineer that spent time working at columbia records. During his time there he worked to develop the long playing microgroove phonogrpah disc. At the time this was the best way to store multiple works on one disc. He also created his own color tv system while working at CBS. It used a wheel to alternate different colors. He had better picture quality than competitors but ultimately was unsuccessful due to compatibility issues.

Grace Hopper

(1906-1992) American CS who most notably is given credit for inventing the first computer compiler and helping to poplarize machine independent programmings. She was also significant in the creation of COBOL and popularized the term debugging ( from removing real bugs from first computers) in CS. She was also one of the first programmers on the Harvard Mark Iaa.

Sergei Korolev

(1907-1966): Russian/Soviet rocket scientist and former aircraft designer. Also referred to as "The Chief Designer" due to Cold War tensions and secrecy. He was the lead scientist and engineer behind the Soviet space program during the early Space Race

George de Mestral

(1907-1990) swiss inventor who created a simple but brilliant invention no known as Velcro. He got his ideas from burrs sticking onto clothes. He created both the hook and loops fasteners of Velcro and created a mulitmillion dollar company selling his invention.

Edward Teller

(1908-2003): Commonly known as the father of the hydrogen bomb, this Hungarian-born American physicist was largely known for his contributions and advances to the infamous Manhattan Project. He was a large propagator for the usage of the hydrogen bomb despite its destructive qualities. Later in life, Teller proposed highly controversial techniques to solve military and civilian problems, one notable instance being when he decided to excavate an Alaskan mine through the use of thermonuclear explosives

Edwin Herbert Land

(1909-1991) American scientist and inventor who studied the polarization of light and went onto invent a cheap polarizing filter and the Polaroid Land Camera. He founded and managed his company, the Polaroid Corporation, and the work he did on light polarization lead to improved sunglasses and color animation

Ian Donald

(1910-1987)A Scottish physician who, during WWII, investigated the use of radar and sonar for medical examination. After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he came up with an alternative use for ultrasound, which was mainly used to detect flaws in metal. With the help of engineer Tom Brown, the first ultrasound diagnostic machine was built, and was successfully used to measure foetal development.

Dorothy Hodgkin

(1910-1994) Biochemist who developed protein crystallography; a method she used to advance the process of X-ray crystallography. She confirmed both the structure of penicillin and vitamin B12, an accomplishment for which she won a Nobel prize.

Christopher Cockerell

(1910-1999) English engineer who worked on radar technology developed a wave powered hydraulic device and most notably invented the hovercraft. Cockerell discovered that air could be channeled around the edges of a hovercraft to create a momentum curtain that limited the amount of air that escaped and would allow the hovercraft to use a smaller engine and rise completely out of the water.

Hans von Ohain

(1911-1998) German engineer built the first operating model fo the turbo jet engine in 1936. The jet engine would allow aircrafts to fly higher in the atmosphere while exhausting less fuel. His innovation on previous engines led to the production of the first jet airplanes. He later went to be a research scientist in the US at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He registered 19 patents while working in the US.

Alan Turing

(1912-1954) British Mathematician who worked at Bletchley Park during WWII and built a machine that was responsible for cracking the German's Enigma Code. After his success as a cryptologist, he turned to algorithms and computing and is widely considered the father of computer science.

Wernher von Braun

(1912-1977) Inventor of V2 rocket he was one of the leading aerospace engineers of Nazi Germany. Following WWII, he and many other scientists surrendered to the US. While working for NASA he developed the Saturn V rocket and in 1975 was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Simon Ramo

(1913-)an American engineer, businessman, and author who was an integral part of the development of microwave and missile technology. Some consider him to be the father of the intercontinental ballistic missile

Jonas Salk

(1914-1995) American scientist and medical researcher who developed the first successful polio vaccine in 1952 utilizing an injection of a killed version of the virus. He chose not to patent his invention due to moral reasons forfeiting potentially billions of dollars but beginning a widespread fight against the paralysing disease that today has been almost eliminated from the globe in par to his work

Hedy Lamarr

(1914-2000) Actress coinvented a "Secret communications system" with George anthiel that manipulated radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception thus making messages unable to be intercepted by third parties. Her technologies were widely used to Nazi forces in WWII and her later developments of spread spectrum technology have become the backbone to a wide array of wireless technology like cell phones and fax machines.

Richard Feynman

(1918-1988): American theoretical physicist whom received the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his work in quantum electrodynamics. Also know for his work on the Manhattan Project, the development of the atomic bomb during WWII.

Rosalind Franklin

(1920-1958) Chemist and molecular biologist who contributed much of the research which led to what we know and understand to be the structrure of DNA. 2 years after earning her doctorate she id research at Laboratoire Central des Serrvices Chimiques de LEtat in Pris where she learned xray diffracting techniques which she later used to take xray photographs of DNA, pushing closer to the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Roger L Easton

(1921-2014) American Scientist who wrote a proposal for a US satellite program an designed the Naval Space Surveillance System to detect and track Earth orbiting objects. Additionally, designed and led development of the US Global Positioning System (GPS).

Theodore H Mainman

(1927-2007) American physicist and engineer known for contributions in the field of optics specifically lasers. He is famous for the invention of the first laser in the form of a solid state design called the ruby laser. He hold patents on other laser designs, masers and optical devices.

George Samuel Hurst

(1927-2010)American inventor who served as a professor of physics at the University of Kentucky where he attended university. Hurst went on to invent the first resistive touch screen. One of the earliest types of touch screens, resistive screens were popular due to their low cost and high durability. Hurst also held over 30 patents by his passing.

Martin Cooper

(1928) American inventor that made the first mobile phone and was the first to make a wireless phone call in public. Developed the mobile phone while with Motorola Inc but left before it was launched to the public and co-founded Cellular Business Systems Inc.

Carl Sagan

(1934-1996)An American cosmologist, astronomer, astrobiologist, astrophysicist, science popularizer, author, and science communicator in astronomy as well as many other natural sciences. The first physical messages sent into outer space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, were assembled by him

Margaret Hamilton

(1936-) computer scientist and systems engineer known for her creation of the term "software engineering" and her work with NASA on the Apollo 11 space program. At NASA her team developed the onboard flight software for the Apollo space program and prevented an abort landing on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

James Watt

(1936-1819) Scottish engineer and inventor who inspired the Newcommen steam engine, created the Watt steam engine, a driving force in the industrial revolution. He also improved on his own design adding the use of a rotary motion expanding the potential of the engine

Leonard Susskind

(1940-) Elementary particle physicist who currently heads the Department of Theoretical Physics at Stanford. He is known as one of the founding fathers of string theory. He also developed the holographic principle which directly countered stephen haawking's theory that information was lost at the singularity of a black hole. One of his most famous works, The Black Hole War, details his and Hawking's scientific conflict over their competing theories. he was awarded the Pomeranchuk Prize in 2008 for his accomplishments in the realm of particle physics.

Stephen Hawking

(1942-) English theoretical physicist and cosmologist with work on gravitational singularity theorems, black hole radiation emission and many-world interpretation of quantum mechanics. Graduated from Cambridge, he was the author of the best seller book A Brief History of Time.

Burt Rutan

(1943-) Aerospace engineer known for his design of the Voyager (first plane to circumnavigate the globe without stopping or refueling) and the suborbital SpaceShipOne. Retired in 2011

Kees Schouhammer Immink

(1946-present): A Dutch scientist and inventor with a degree in electrical engineering and almost 40 patents for coding systems who played a key role in the development of modern day digital media. Working with Philips Research Laboratories and Sony, Immink led teams that developed the CD, the DVD, and BluRay disks.

Steve Wozniak

(1950-) American computer computer inventor and scientist who designed the Apple I computer which launched Apple Computer. HE and Jobs sold their possessions and assembled the first motherboards together, eventually selling the device for $666.66. He later designed the Apple II with Jobs which went on to become one of the most successful PC of the time.

Bjarne Stroustrup

(1950-) computer scientist from Denmark credited with the creation of C++ one of he most popular programming languages that expands upon C language. He was named a Fellow of the CS history museum for his invention of C++

Dean Kamen

(1951-) American inventor and entrepreneur who is best known for inventing the Segway PT and the Ibot wheelchair, along with many other bio-mechanical devices. He founded the program FIRST which is for students interested in science technology and engineering.

James Gosling

(1955-) Canadian Computer Scientist and father of the Java programming language. He started coding at 13 by literally breaking into the computer science department at the university his father worked at, where he made friends with the undergraduate students researching there.

Bill Nye

(1955-) Cornell Grad worked for Boeing and helped develop sundials used in the Mars Exploration Rover missions. When not doing scientific research, this engineer also hosted his own TV series that focused on teaching science to kids.

William Henry "bill" Gates III

(1955-) a philanthropist, computer programmer and influential entrepreneur during the personal computer revolution. He co founded the world's largest software company, microsoft, and is currently the richest man in the world.

Steve Jobs

(1955-2011) American businessman and entrepreneur who revolutionized the personal computer, animated movie, music, phone and tabelt computing industries as CEO of Apple, Pixar and NeXT. his notable line of products included iMac, iTunes, Apple Stores, iPod, iPhone, App store and iPad.

Horacio Pagani

(1955-present): He was a Chief Engineer at Lamborghini before forming his own supercar company because Lamborghini refused to spend money on an autoclave to produce carbon fiber car parts. Revolutionized the supercar industry by producing the Pagani Zonda out of mostly carbon fiber, a material that is ubiquitous in modern supercars due its lightweight, yet strong properties.

Ellen Ochoa

(1958-) Hispanic engineer an astronaut who attended SDSU where she received her BS in physics and later attended Stanford where she received her masters and doctorate in electrical engineering. She went on to become the worlds first Hispanic female astronaut in 1991 and was able to log more than 950 hours in space for NASA who granted her numerous awards for her work, including NASAs exceptional service medal in 1997.

Lisa Perez Jackson

(1962-) American chemical engineer who in 2008 became the first African American to be the head of the EPA. She implemented many policies and environmental regulations including the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act and hazardous waste cleanup regulations.

Sebastian Thrun

(1967-) German computer scientist and robotics developer who confounded Udacity a educational company offering massive open online courses. He is also leading the Google Self Driving Car project and was one of the co inventors of google street view. His main research focus is artificial intelligence and some of his past positions include being a research computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford. He was elected into the National Academy of Engineering in 2007 and received the Max Planck Research Award in 2011

Elon Musk

(1971-) South African engineer inventor and entrepreneur who founded SpaceX and confounded Zip2, Paypal and Tesla Motors, of which he is the CEO and product architect. He is currently working on prototypes from the Hyperloop, a high speed transportation system which would revolutionize traveling through its reduced pressure tubes and air compressors making it energy efficient.

Christian von Koenigsegg

(1972-) Founder of swedish high performance automobile manufacturer sharing his own last name. He introduced many innovations to the high performance automobile industry, such as the triplex suspension system or camshaft-replacing free valve technology. One of the company cars the Agera R held the speed record for a period of time before the release of the Bugati Veyron SS

Debbie Sterling

(1983-) engineer and founder/ceo of GoldieBlox, a company that makes toys to promote enthusiasm in young girls for science, math and engineering. She is a leading voice in the movement to get more women involved in engineering and technology.

Archimedes of Syracuse

(287 BC- 212 BC) Ancient Greek mathematician and inventor. While he is rumored to have invented a solar powered death ray, his most important work was in the field of hydro statics. He formulated a principle relating the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribe cylinder allowing the volume of an irregular shaped object to be calculated.

Thales of Miletus

(624 BC-546BC) Regarded as the first Greek philosopher by Aristotle. Tried to explain natural phenomena without use of mythology, hypothesized that water is the originating principle of nature and the nature of matter is from said substance and is the first known individual to use deductive reasoning applied to geometry.

Henry Ford

1863-1947):American inventor and businessman best known for his perfection and implementation of the assembly line process and creating the "model T" - the first american automobile that was truly accessible to the everyday man. He revolutionized industry by using standardized interchangeable parts, making for cheap and easy repair, and producing in large factories using lower-wage, unskilled workers, both of which created a more time and cost efficient production method.

Charles Drew

1904-1950): African American researcher and surgeon who invented new methods of storing the blood plasma used in transfusions and subsequently organized the first large-scale blood banks during World War II. Drew also became one of the leading scientists involved in establishing a national blood bank, but resigned because of policies of racial segregation in blood donation

Francis Bacon

British engineer who developed the first practical hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells, which convert air and fuel directly into electricity through electrochemical reactions. The first application of this technology was in the Apollo space vehicles.