they say great minds think alike but
only the greatest minds make today’s
list in 1898 an unusual experiment took
place in Tesla’s laboratory welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re counting
down our picks for the top 10 famous
inventors before Alfred Nobel for
blasting people used black powder what
we call gunpowder which was very
unstable and you could only ignite it
with a fuse you could not control very
well when it ignited or the pattern of
the explosion that was generated for
this list we’ve looked at those
inventors that have had the most
important most popular most definitive
effect upon the modern world we’re
interested in those responsible for the
inventions without which modern life
would be very different to my utter
amazement Wasson had heard me the
machine had worked number 10
Guglielmo Marconi Gilliam Oh Marconi was
an Italian inventor and the father of
long-distance radio transmission and
winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize for
Physics he was not the first person
experimenting with wireless technology
but Marconi can be credited with turning
the idea of radio waves into a
commercial practical reality Marconi
remodeled wireless apparatus throughout
his early career lengthening the
distance between which messages could be
sent and received like many physicists
of his day Marconi thought that
electromagnetic waves traveled like
light in a straight line what would
happen he wondered when sending a signal
thousands of miles beyond the horizon
best known for being the first person to
successfully send a transatlantic
message
Marconi’s radio was also crucial in
monitoring the 1912 sinking of the
Titanic and saving at least some
survivors indeed in 1912 it was the SOS
from the Titanic’s Marconi room that
brought the Carpathia steaming to the
seven
five survivors number nine James Watt
what obtained a job at the University of
Glasgow repairing astronomical
instruments and set up a small workshop
there a steam power pioneer James Watts
work became a foundation for the
Industrial Revolution which swept across
the UK and the u.s. in the 18th and 19th
centuries and eventually reached the
entire planet
when watt was a young man the new common
engine was used by most major factories
but he realized that that system was
wasting large amounts of energy cue
endless experimentation until eventually
Watt developed an efficient method for
continuous rotary motion and
unprecedented power a rise of the
machines magnificently followed in 1781
after much financial hardship and
struggle Watt patented a steam engine
that produced continuous rotative motion
number eight Benjamin Franklin a
founding father of the United States
Benjamin Franklin was a master of many
trades inventing wise his efforts were
widespread but his most famous
experiment centred around his casting a
kite into a lightning storm drying
electrical charge and subsequently
developing the lightning rod as a means
of ensuring safety in tall buildings
Franklin suggested that during a storm
a wooden century box be placed atop a
hill or inside a steeple with a pointed
rod attached to the roof if a man inside
the box held a wire touching the rod
Franklin predicted he would see a shower
of sparks when lightning struck the rod
other inventions that can be attributed
to Franklin include a glass harmonica
bifocal eyeglasses and a urinary
catheter with added flexibility as we
said his efforts were widespread but
many of Benjamin Franklin’s
contributions are still used at today so
if you wear bifocals or talk about
electric charge or survive a
thunderstorm don’t forget to cut out a
hundred dollar bill Thank You grandpa
dirt number seven the Wright brothers
Orville and Wilbur for one
pair of ohio brothers it took a little
ingenuity passion and determination to
turn their dream of flight into reality
Orville and Wilbur Wright are probably
the most important names in the history
of aviation and heavier-than-air flight
in the very early 1900’s inventors
across America and the world were racing
to develop a reliable and practical
machine in which human beings could
controllably fly the Wright brothers won
that race
although the rights had managed to lift
off on the beach of Kitty Hawk North
Carolina they hadn’t found a way to stay
in the air for more than a minute but
that was about to change
their invention of a 3-axis control
enabled multi-dimensional movement on a
fixed-wing aircraft
far outstripping any innovation of their
peers
from there the sky really was the limit
it’s powerful engine and 40-foot
wingspan could carry pilot and passenger
over 50 miles in the relative comfort of
padded seats
as a model B lands on the White House
lawn flight becomes the American dream
number six John Logie Baird this
apparatus was shown to members of the
Royal Institution and others On January
27th 1926 and showed through television
images in lightened shades for the first
set one of many great minds associated
with the development of television John
Logie Baird’s seemed always prominent
when the most significant advances were
made many historians credit him with
being the first to produce a live moving
grayscale TV image did it really would
originally he could show just basically
a black cross it’s a bit flickery and a
bit wobbly and he could just about with
some special focusing just about get a
white blob of a face and he’s also noted
as the man behind the first publicly
demonstrated color TV system transmitted
on July 3rd 1928 a similar figure to
Marconi and Radio Barrett also worked to
lengthen the distances between which TV
could be broadcast leading the way for
the International applications that it
has today it is now 12 years ago since I
produced the first little flickering
television image today we have in London
a regular television service twice daily
with parity facilities number five
Archimedes a scientists work to recover
the text from this fragile document they
are discovering but Archimedes was
further ahead of his time than they had
ever believed of course inventors were
inventing things in ancient times as
well and none more so than Archimedes
the brains behind the self-titled and
still widely used Archimedes screw a
device enabling efficient pumping of
water the ancient Greek engineer is
probably best remembered as a
mathematician he is the most famous of
the ancient mathematicians and the first
to discover the value for pi the
mathematical equivalent of inventing the
wheel the most famous Archimedes
anecdote involves his creating a method
to measure the volume of an irregularly
shaped object perhaps he was sitting in
the bath house one day wondering how a
heavy bathtub can float why
inspiration came to him upon working it
out in the bath he ran down the street
naked shouting Eureka which is now the
unofficial catchphrase of inventors
everywhere
Eureka did you build the smella sculpt
no I remembered that I built one last
year
number four Leonardo da Vinci he’s
well-known as a great artist but in fact
he also made great contributions to
foundations of science
another indisputable genius Leonardo da
Vinci’s inventions are often overlooked
or at least overshadowed because of his
legendary art work Leonardo was among
most important painters of the Italian
Renaissance and the father of the high
Renaissance style but da Vinci was more
than just the Mona Lisa in fact many of
his ideas were so advanced they weren’t
physically possible for hundreds of
years after his death within his designs
a helicopter a calculator and even
suggestions of solar power his technical
and anatomical drawing was also largely
unrivaled he was more than
outside-of-the-box he was intellectually
adrift from the entire human race but to
understand how scientifically brilliant
and innovative he was we got to
understand what was going on during his
time and late 1400s when Leonardo was
coming up as a young artist Europe was
essentially devoid of most real science
in the modern sense number three Nikola
Tesla
the archetypal mad scientist throughout
much of the 20th century Nikola Tesla’s
work went a little underappreciated
these things never quite work as you
expect them to mr. NGO that’s one of the
principal beauties of science but in
recent times efforts have been made to
better preserve his story and the impact
he had on electrical engineering
especially Tesla was most taken with the
idea of wireless technology and he’s
best known for his work on alternating
current electricity the enduring images
are those of him sitting and studying
within highly charged laboratories
cleverer and crazier than almost anybody
else that ever lived
Thunder is good Thunder is impressive
but it is lightning that does the work
number two Alexander Graham Bell so the
story I will tell you begins when I was
just a boy the telephone is one of the
cornerstone inventions of modern
existence and Alexander Graham Bell was
the man who made it possible what if you
could send the sound of a human voice so
that one person could simply speak to
another even if they were far away
starting out his professional life by
working with the deaf and hard of
hearing Bell harbored a lifelong
fascination with sound and speech when I
wasn’t thinking about machines or
working on my ideas I taught deaf
children just like my father did he
first began working on the telephone in
the early 1870s and the first successful
bi-directional transmission of clear
speech was conducted on March 10th 1876
when Bell called his colleague to say
mr. Watson come here I want to see you
that first phone call was actually
conducted through this wire Alexander
Graham Bell supposedly said over the
telephone to Watson mr. Watson come here
I want you before we unveil our number
one pick here are some honorable
mentions
Morse’s idea is simple by turning a
switch on and off you can send a series
of electrical impulses across a wire to
a distant receiver
if you create a pattern or code you can
send a message
this new explosive became what we now
know as dynamite which Alfred Nobel
invented in 1866 late in the 16th
century Galileo developed a geometric
and military compass used by surveyors
and gunners Galileo constructed a
thermometer comprised of a sealed glass
cylinder containing a number of objects
inside a clear liquid the varying
densities of the objects caused them to
rise or fall depending on changes in
temperature but you might also have
found another less well-known face here
he was not a philosopher or poet but an
inventor and he almost started an
industrial revolution 2,000 years ago
then in 1450 an invention changed the
world in the German city of Mainz
Johannes Gutenberg invented the
technique of printing with movable type
number one Thomas Edison the
phenomenally prolific American inventor
Thomas Edison the holder of an
incredible 1093 US patents Thomas Edison
was an extreme inventor there were other
great inventors then there was Edison he
understood that inventing is not just
having an idea and so he made Edison a
name to be reckoned with a real rags to
riches story he’s probably best known
for his ultimate and original lightbulb
moment Edison worked to install his
electric light into towns and cities
across the globe demonstrating a knack
for big business as well the phonograph
was also his creation the alkaline
storage battery he screened early motion
pictures and he even drew up ideas for
an electric car if Edison thought about
it he did it and he usually did it well
storage battery the motion picture
projector the motion picture camera the
phonograph or record players we would
call it nowadays do you agree with our
list who is your favorite famous
inventor for more pioneering top 10s
published every day be sure to subscribe
to watchmojo.com here he could see his
futuristic ideas appear
on the screen but his ideas were only
accepted in science fiction movies and
magazines
only the greatest minds make today’s
list in 1898 an unusual experiment took
place in Tesla’s laboratory welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re counting
down our picks for the top 10 famous
inventors before Alfred Nobel for
blasting people used black powder what
we call gunpowder which was very
unstable and you could only ignite it
with a fuse you could not control very
well when it ignited or the pattern of
the explosion that was generated for
this list we’ve looked at those
inventors that have had the most
important most popular most definitive
effect upon the modern world we’re
interested in those responsible for the
inventions without which modern life
would be very different to my utter
amazement Wasson had heard me the
machine had worked number 10
Guglielmo Marconi Gilliam Oh Marconi was
an Italian inventor and the father of
long-distance radio transmission and
winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize for
Physics he was not the first person
experimenting with wireless technology
but Marconi can be credited with turning
the idea of radio waves into a
commercial practical reality Marconi
remodeled wireless apparatus throughout
his early career lengthening the
distance between which messages could be
sent and received like many physicists
of his day Marconi thought that
electromagnetic waves traveled like
light in a straight line what would
happen he wondered when sending a signal
thousands of miles beyond the horizon
best known for being the first person to
successfully send a transatlantic
message
Marconi’s radio was also crucial in
monitoring the 1912 sinking of the
Titanic and saving at least some
survivors indeed in 1912 it was the SOS
from the Titanic’s Marconi room that
brought the Carpathia steaming to the
seven
five survivors number nine James Watt
what obtained a job at the University of
Glasgow repairing astronomical
instruments and set up a small workshop
there a steam power pioneer James Watts
work became a foundation for the
Industrial Revolution which swept across
the UK and the u.s. in the 18th and 19th
centuries and eventually reached the
entire planet
when watt was a young man the new common
engine was used by most major factories
but he realized that that system was
wasting large amounts of energy cue
endless experimentation until eventually
Watt developed an efficient method for
continuous rotary motion and
unprecedented power a rise of the
machines magnificently followed in 1781
after much financial hardship and
struggle Watt patented a steam engine
that produced continuous rotative motion
number eight Benjamin Franklin a
founding father of the United States
Benjamin Franklin was a master of many
trades inventing wise his efforts were
widespread but his most famous
experiment centred around his casting a
kite into a lightning storm drying
electrical charge and subsequently
developing the lightning rod as a means
of ensuring safety in tall buildings
Franklin suggested that during a storm
a wooden century box be placed atop a
hill or inside a steeple with a pointed
rod attached to the roof if a man inside
the box held a wire touching the rod
Franklin predicted he would see a shower
of sparks when lightning struck the rod
other inventions that can be attributed
to Franklin include a glass harmonica
bifocal eyeglasses and a urinary
catheter with added flexibility as we
said his efforts were widespread but
many of Benjamin Franklin’s
contributions are still used at today so
if you wear bifocals or talk about
electric charge or survive a
thunderstorm don’t forget to cut out a
hundred dollar bill Thank You grandpa
dirt number seven the Wright brothers
Orville and Wilbur for one
pair of ohio brothers it took a little
ingenuity passion and determination to
turn their dream of flight into reality
Orville and Wilbur Wright are probably
the most important names in the history
of aviation and heavier-than-air flight
in the very early 1900’s inventors
across America and the world were racing
to develop a reliable and practical
machine in which human beings could
controllably fly the Wright brothers won
that race
although the rights had managed to lift
off on the beach of Kitty Hawk North
Carolina they hadn’t found a way to stay
in the air for more than a minute but
that was about to change
their invention of a 3-axis control
enabled multi-dimensional movement on a
fixed-wing aircraft
far outstripping any innovation of their
peers
from there the sky really was the limit
it’s powerful engine and 40-foot
wingspan could carry pilot and passenger
over 50 miles in the relative comfort of
padded seats
as a model B lands on the White House
lawn flight becomes the American dream
number six John Logie Baird this
apparatus was shown to members of the
Royal Institution and others On January
27th 1926 and showed through television
images in lightened shades for the first
set one of many great minds associated
with the development of television John
Logie Baird’s seemed always prominent
when the most significant advances were
made many historians credit him with
being the first to produce a live moving
grayscale TV image did it really would
originally he could show just basically
a black cross it’s a bit flickery and a
bit wobbly and he could just about with
some special focusing just about get a
white blob of a face and he’s also noted
as the man behind the first publicly
demonstrated color TV system transmitted
on July 3rd 1928 a similar figure to
Marconi and Radio Barrett also worked to
lengthen the distances between which TV
could be broadcast leading the way for
the International applications that it
has today it is now 12 years ago since I
produced the first little flickering
television image today we have in London
a regular television service twice daily
with parity facilities number five
Archimedes a scientists work to recover
the text from this fragile document they
are discovering but Archimedes was
further ahead of his time than they had
ever believed of course inventors were
inventing things in ancient times as
well and none more so than Archimedes
the brains behind the self-titled and
still widely used Archimedes screw a
device enabling efficient pumping of
water the ancient Greek engineer is
probably best remembered as a
mathematician he is the most famous of
the ancient mathematicians and the first
to discover the value for pi the
mathematical equivalent of inventing the
wheel the most famous Archimedes
anecdote involves his creating a method
to measure the volume of an irregularly
shaped object perhaps he was sitting in
the bath house one day wondering how a
heavy bathtub can float why
inspiration came to him upon working it
out in the bath he ran down the street
naked shouting Eureka which is now the
unofficial catchphrase of inventors
everywhere
Eureka did you build the smella sculpt
no I remembered that I built one last
year
number four Leonardo da Vinci he’s
well-known as a great artist but in fact
he also made great contributions to
foundations of science
another indisputable genius Leonardo da
Vinci’s inventions are often overlooked
or at least overshadowed because of his
legendary art work Leonardo was among
most important painters of the Italian
Renaissance and the father of the high
Renaissance style but da Vinci was more
than just the Mona Lisa in fact many of
his ideas were so advanced they weren’t
physically possible for hundreds of
years after his death within his designs
a helicopter a calculator and even
suggestions of solar power his technical
and anatomical drawing was also largely
unrivaled he was more than
outside-of-the-box he was intellectually
adrift from the entire human race but to
understand how scientifically brilliant
and innovative he was we got to
understand what was going on during his
time and late 1400s when Leonardo was
coming up as a young artist Europe was
essentially devoid of most real science
in the modern sense number three Nikola
Tesla
the archetypal mad scientist throughout
much of the 20th century Nikola Tesla’s
work went a little underappreciated
these things never quite work as you
expect them to mr. NGO that’s one of the
principal beauties of science but in
recent times efforts have been made to
better preserve his story and the impact
he had on electrical engineering
especially Tesla was most taken with the
idea of wireless technology and he’s
best known for his work on alternating
current electricity the enduring images
are those of him sitting and studying
within highly charged laboratories
cleverer and crazier than almost anybody
else that ever lived
Thunder is good Thunder is impressive
but it is lightning that does the work
number two Alexander Graham Bell so the
story I will tell you begins when I was
just a boy the telephone is one of the
cornerstone inventions of modern
existence and Alexander Graham Bell was
the man who made it possible what if you
could send the sound of a human voice so
that one person could simply speak to
another even if they were far away
starting out his professional life by
working with the deaf and hard of
hearing Bell harbored a lifelong
fascination with sound and speech when I
wasn’t thinking about machines or
working on my ideas I taught deaf
children just like my father did he
first began working on the telephone in
the early 1870s and the first successful
bi-directional transmission of clear
speech was conducted on March 10th 1876
when Bell called his colleague to say
mr. Watson come here I want to see you
that first phone call was actually
conducted through this wire Alexander
Graham Bell supposedly said over the
telephone to Watson mr. Watson come here
I want you before we unveil our number
one pick here are some honorable
mentions
Morse’s idea is simple by turning a
switch on and off you can send a series
of electrical impulses across a wire to
a distant receiver
if you create a pattern or code you can
send a message
this new explosive became what we now
know as dynamite which Alfred Nobel
invented in 1866 late in the 16th
century Galileo developed a geometric
and military compass used by surveyors
and gunners Galileo constructed a
thermometer comprised of a sealed glass
cylinder containing a number of objects
inside a clear liquid the varying
densities of the objects caused them to
rise or fall depending on changes in
temperature but you might also have
found another less well-known face here
he was not a philosopher or poet but an
inventor and he almost started an
industrial revolution 2,000 years ago
then in 1450 an invention changed the
world in the German city of Mainz
Johannes Gutenberg invented the
technique of printing with movable type
number one Thomas Edison the
phenomenally prolific American inventor
Thomas Edison the holder of an
incredible 1093 US patents Thomas Edison
was an extreme inventor there were other
great inventors then there was Edison he
understood that inventing is not just
having an idea and so he made Edison a
name to be reckoned with a real rags to
riches story he’s probably best known
for his ultimate and original lightbulb
moment Edison worked to install his
electric light into towns and cities
across the globe demonstrating a knack
for big business as well the phonograph
was also his creation the alkaline
storage battery he screened early motion
pictures and he even drew up ideas for
an electric car if Edison thought about
it he did it and he usually did it well
storage battery the motion picture
projector the motion picture camera the
phonograph or record players we would
call it nowadays do you agree with our
list who is your favorite famous
inventor for more pioneering top 10s
published every day be sure to subscribe
to watchmojo.com here he could see his
futuristic ideas appear
on the screen but his ideas were only
accepted in science fiction movies and
magazines
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