Inventor, a person who brings ideas or objects together in a novel way to create an invention, something that did not exist before.
Inventors defy definition; as a result, they are frequently defined by what they are not. For example, though there is a close relation between invention and science and engineering, an inventor is not necessarily a scientist or an engineer. A scientist is said to be a discoverer—that is, somebody who by acute observation and brilliant analysis is able to find and explain something that already exists in nature. An engineer, meanwhile, uses existing technology and scientific understanding to design better objects or processes. But an inventor, it is said, creates something that had never previously existed.
Such distinctions are useful to an extent, but they also ignore the fact that science, engineering, and invention often work together. In fact, a large part of inventors’ efforts throughout history have been devoted not to the creation of something new but to the improvement and development of existing devices—traditionally the domain of the engineer. Furthermore, invention and scientific discovery are frequently so closely intertwined that it is difficult to draw any clear-cut distinction between them. For instance, Thomas Edison’s “invention” of the incandescent lamp was based partially on his “discovery” that a carbon filament possessed the desired physical properties to incandesce, or emit light when heated, in a vacated bulb—and “discovery” was itself obtained not by the scientist’s vaunted methodology but by an engineer’s dogged persistence, trying many different possible filament materials until he found the one that worked.
Notable inventors throughout history are listed in the table below.
Chronology of inventors and inventions| inventor | nationality | invention | year of invention | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Homo habilis | stone tools | c. 2 million years ago | |
 | Imhotep | Egyptian | step pyramid | 27th century BCE |
 | Archimedes | Greek | Archimedes screw | 3rd century BCE |
 | Ctesibius of Alexandria | Greek | float-type clepsydra (water clock) | 3rd century BCE |
 | Heron of Alexandria | Greek | aeolipile (steam-powered turbine) | 1st century CE |
| Cai Lun | Chinese | paper | 2nd century CE | |
 | Johannes Gutenberg | German | printing press | c. 1450 |
| William Lee | English | knitting machine | 1589 | |
 | Hans Lippershey | German-Dutch | compound microscope; telescope | c. 1590; 1608 |
| Cornelis Drebbel | Dutch | oar-powered submarine | 1620 | |
 | Evangelista Torricelli | Italian | mercury barometer | 1643 |
 | Otto von Guericke | Prussian | air pump | 1650 |
 | Christiaan Huygens | Dutch | pendulum clock | 1658 |
| Giuseppe Campani | Italian | lens-grinding lathe | 1664 | |
 | Antonie van Leeuwenhoek | Dutch | single-lens microscope | c. 1670 |
 | Denis Papin | French-English | pressure cooker | 1679 |
| Daniel Quare | English | repeating watch mechanism for sounding the nearest hour and quarter hour | 1680 | |
 | Thomas Savery | English | steam-driven vacuum pump | 1698 |
 | Jethro Tull | English | mechanical seed drill | 1701 |
| Abraham Darby | English | used coke to smelt iron | 1709 | |
 | Thomas Newcomen | English | atmospheric steam engine | 1712 |
 | John Hadley | English | quadrant for determining latitude | 1730 |
| Thomas Godfrey | American | quadrant for determining latitude | 1730 | |
 | Henri Pitot | French | pitot tube | 1732 |
 | John Kay | English | flying shuttle | 1733 |
 | John Harrison | English | marine chronometer | 1735 |
| Benjamin Franklin | American | Franklin stove | c. 1740 | |
| Benjamin Huntsman | English | crucible steel | c. 1740 | |
 | Thomas Boulsover | English | Sheffield plate | c. 1742 |
| Jacques de Vaucanson | French | automated loom | 1745 | |
 | Sir Richard Arkwright | English | water frame (spinning machine) | 1764 |
 | James Watt | Scottish | improved steam engine with separate condenser | 1765 |
 | Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot | French | steam-driven gun carriage | 1769 |
 | David Bushnell | American | hand-powered submarine | c. 1775 |
| Patrick Ferguson | Scottish | breech-loading flintlock rifle | 1776 | |
 | Samuel Crompton | English | spinning mule | 1779 |
| Jonathan Hornblower | English | reciprocating compound steam engine | 1781 | |
 | William Murdock | Scottish | Sun-and-planet motion for steam engines | c. 1781 |
  | Montgolfier brothers | French | hot-air balloon | 1782 |
 | Josiah Wedgwood | English | pyrometer | 1782 |
| Claude-François-Dorothée, marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans | French | early paddlewheel steamboat | 1783 | |
 | John Fitch | American | early steamboat | 1787 |
 | Andrew Meikle | Scottish | threshing machine | 1788 |
 | Edmund Cartwright | English | wool-combing machine | 1789 |
 | Oliver Evans | American | high-pressure steam engine (U.S.) | 1790 |
| William Nicholson | English | hydrometer | 1790 | |
 | Claude Chappe | French | semaphore telegraph | 1794 |
 | Eli Whitney | American | cotton gin | 1794 |
 | Joseph Bramah | English | hydraulic press | 1795 |
 | Nicolas-Jacques Conté | French | graphite pencil | 1795 |
 | Alois Senefelder | German | lithography | 1798 |
| Henry Maudslay | English | metal lathe | c. 1800 | |
 | Alessandro Volta | Italian | electric battery | 1800 |
 | John Stevens | American | screw-driven steamboat | 1802 |
 | Richard Trevithick | English | steam railway locomotive | 1803 |
 | Joseph-Marie Jacquard | French | Jacquard loom | 1804–05 |
| William Congreve | English | military rocket | 1805 | |
| Alexander John Forsyth | Scottish | percussion-lock musket | 1805–07 | |
| Robert Fulton | American | commercial steamboat | 1807 | |
 | John Heathcoat | English | lace-making machine | 1809 |
 | John Blenkinsop | English | geared steam locomotive | 1812–13 |
 | John Loudon McAdam | Scottish | macadam road surface | 1815 |
| Robert Stirling | Scottish | Stirling external-combustion engine | 1816 | |
 | Marc Isambard Brunel | French-English | geared steam tunneling shield | 1818 |
| René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec | French | stethoscope | 1819 | |
| Thomas Hancock | English | rubber masticator | 1821 | |
 | Charles Macintosh | Scottish | mackintosh waterproof fabric | 1823 |
 | Louis Braille | French | Braille writing system | 1824 |
 | Richard Roberts | Welsh | automatic spinning mule | 1825 |
 | George Stephenson | English | passenger train pulled by steam locomotive | 1825 |
 | Nicéphore Niépce | French | permanent photographic image | 1826–27 |
| Nikolaus von Dreyse | German | needle-firing rifle | 1827 | |
| Benoît Fourneyron | French | water turbine | 1827 | |
| Goldsworthy Gurney | English | steam carriage | 1830 | |
 | Peter Cooper | American | Tom Thumb steam locomotive | 1830 |
| Henri-Gustave Delvigne | French | cylindrical bullet | c. 1830 | |
 | Cyrus Hall McCormick | American | mechanical reaper | 1831 |
| Jeanne Villepreux-Power | French | glass aquarium | 1832 | |
| Obed Hussey | American | mechanical reaper | 1833 | |
 | Thomas Davenport | American | electric motor | 1834 |
 | Charles Babbage | English | Analytical Engine mechanical computer | c. 1835 |
 | Samuel Colt | American | revolver | 1835 |
| Rowland Hill | English | postage stamp | 1835–40 | |
 | John Frederic Daniell | English | Daniell cell battery | 1836 |
| Edward Davy | English | electromagnetic telegraph repeater | c. 1836 | |
 | Isambard Kingdom Brunel | English | Great Western transatlantic steamer | 1837 |
 | Isaac Pitman | English | Pitman shorthand | 1837 |
 | Charles Wheatstone | English | electric needle telegraph | 1837 |
 | Samuel F.B. Morse | American | electric telegraph; Morse code | 1837; 1838 |
 | John Deere | American | all-steel one-piece plow | 1838 |
 | Chauncey Jerome | American | one-day brass clock movement | c. 1838 |
| Isaac Babbitt | American | babbitt metal | 1839 | |
 | Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre | French | daguerreotype | 1839 |
 | Charles Goodyear | American | vulcanized rubber | 1839 |
| Johann Georg Bodmer | Swiss | gear-making machine | 1839–41 | |
| William Howe | American | Howe truss for bridges | 1840 | |
 | Antoine-Joseph Sax | Belgian-French | saxophone | 1842 |
| Thomas Jackson Rodman | American | prismatic gunpowder | c. 1845 | |
 | Elias Howe | American | sewing machine | 1846 |
 | Richard March Hoe | American | rotary printing press | 1847 |
| Claude-Étienne Minié | French | cylindrical Minié bullet | 1849 | |
 | William Kelly | American | pneumatic steel-making process | c. 1850 |
| Frederick Scott Archer | English | wet collodion photography process | 1851 | |
| Hugh Burgess | English American | soda papermaking process | 1851 | |
| Isaac Merrit Singer | American | domestic sewing machine | 1851 | |
 | Elisha Graves Otis | American | safety elevator | 1852 |
 | George Cayley | English | first glider to carry a human | 1853 |
 | Henry Bessemer | English | Bessemer steelmaking process | 1856 |
 | Étienne Lenoir | Belgian | internal-combustion engine | 1858 |
 | Gaston Planté | French | electric storage battery | 1859 |
| Christopher M. Spencer | American | Spencer breech-loading carbine | 1860 | |
| Sondre Nordheim | Norwegian | ski bindings | 1860 | |
| Robert Parker Parrott | American | Parrott gun (rifled cannon) | 1861 | |
 | William Siemens | German English | open-hearth furnace | 1861 |
 | Warren De la Rue | English | astronomical photography | c. 1862 |
 | Richard Jordan Gatling | American | Gatling gun | 1862 |
 | Louis Pasteur | French | pasteurization | 1863 |
| Linus Yale | American | Yale cylinder lock | 1863 | |
| Siegfried Marcus | German | gasoline-powered automobile | 1864–65 | |
| Samuel Cunliffe Lister | English | silk-combing machine | 1865 | |
 | George M. Pullman | American | Pullman sleeping car | 1865 |
 | Thomas Clifford Allbutt | English | modern clinical thermometer | 1866 |
 | Georges Leclanché | French | dry-cell battery | c. 1866 |
| Alfred Ely Beach | American | pneumatic tube | 1867 | |
| Joseph Monier | French | reinforced concrete | c. 1867 | |
| Alfred Bernhard Nobel | Swedish | dynamite | 1867 | |
 | Christopher Latham Sholes | American | typewriter | 1868 |
| Louis Ducos du Hauron | French | trichrome process of colour photography | 1869 | |
 | George Westinghouse | American | air brake | 1869 |
| John Wesley Hyatt | American | celluloid | 1870 | |
| Margaret Knight | American | flat-bottomed paper bag | 1871 | |
 | James Starley | English | bicycle with centre-pivot steering | 1871 |
| Joseph Farwell Glidden | American | barbed wire | 1873 | |
 | Alexander Graham Bell | Scottish American | telephone | 1876 |
 | Elisha Gray | American | telephone | 1876 |
| Melville Reuben Bissell | American | carpet sweeper | 1876 | |
 | Nikolaus August Otto | German | four-stroke internal-combustion engine | 1876 |
 | Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov | Russian | Yablochkov candle (arc lamp) | 1876 |
| Joseph Rogers Brown | American | universal grinding machine | 1877 | |
| Ephraim Shay | American | geared steam locomotive | c. 1877 | |
 | Thomas Alva Edison | American | phonograph cylinder sound recorder; incandescent lightbulb | 1877; c. 1879 |
| Maria Beasley | English | life raft | 1880 | |
 | Nikola Tesla | Serbian American | alternating-current electric motor | 1880–88 |
| Hilaire Bernigaud de Chardonnet | French | rayon | 1884 | |
 | Hiram Maxim | American British | Maxim machine gun | 1884 |
 | Ottmar Mergenthaler | German American | Linotype typesetting machine | 1884 |
| Charles Algernon Parsons | English | multistage steam turbine | 1884 | |
 | Karl Friedrich Benz | German | practical automobile with an internal-combustion engine | 1885 |
 | Gottlieb Daimler | German | high-speed internal-combustion engine | 1885 |
| Josephine Cochrane | American | mechanical dishwasher | 1886 | |
| Charles Sumner Tainter | American | graphophone cylinder sound recorder | 1886 | |
 | Charles Martin Hall | American | electrolytic aluminum smelting | 1886 |
 | Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult | French | electrolytic aluminum smelting | 1886 |
 | Emil Berliner | German American | Gramophone disc sound recorder | 1887 |
| John Boyd Dunlop | Scottish | pneumatic rubber tire | 1887 | |
 | George Eastman | American | Kodak camera | 1888 |
 | Franklin Hiram King | American | cylindrical grain silo | 1889 |
 | Herman Hollerith | American | tabulating machine | c. 1890 |
 | Ferdinand von Zeppelin | German | zeppelin airship | 1890–1900 |
 | James A. Naismith | Canadian American | basketball | 1891 |
| William Seward Burroughs | American | adding machine | 1892 | |
 | James Dewar | Scottish | vacuum flask | c. 1892 |
 | Rudolf Diesel | German | diesel engine | 1892 |
| Hayward A. Harvey | American | carburizing (surface hardening of steel plate) | c. 1892 | |
| Edward Goodrich Acheson | American | Carborundum | 1893 | |
 | Otto Lilienthal | German | Lilienthal standard glider | 1894 |
 | Lumière brothers | French | Cinématographe motion-picture camera and projector | 1894 |
| King Camp Gillette | American | disposable razor | 1895 | |
 | Guglielmo Marconi | Italian | wireless telegraph | 1896 |
| John Philip Holland | Irish American | gasoline-electric submarine | 1898 | |
| Valdemar Poulsen | Danish | telegraphone magnetic wire recorder | 1900 | |
 | Reginald Aubrey Fessenden | Canadian American | amplitude modulation (AM) of radio waves | 1900 |
 | Willis Haviland Carrier | American | air-conditioning | 1902 |
| Mary Anderson | American | windshield wiper | 1903 | |
 | Wilbur and Orville Wright | American | powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight | 1903 |
 | John Ambrose Fleming | English | vacuum diode rectifier | 1904 |
 | Lee De Forest | American | Audion vacuum tube amplifier | 1906 |
| Ole Evinrude | Norwegian American | marine outboard motor | 1906–09 | |
| Melitta Bentz | German | coffee filters | 1908 | |
 | Hans Geiger | German | Geiger counter | 1908 |
 | Leo Hendrik Baekeland | Belgian American | Bakelite | c. 1909 |
 | Paul Ehrlich | German | arsphenamine anti-syphilis drug | 1910 |
 | Isaac Newton Lewis | American | Lewis machine gun | 1911 |
| Elmer Ambrose Sperry | American | gyroscopic compass | 1911 | |
| Charles F. Kettering | American | automobile electrical starter | 1912 | |
 | Henry Ford | American | automobile assembly line | 1913–14 |
| Irving Wightman Colburn | American | Colburn flat-glass machine | 1916 | |
| William D. Coolidge | American | X-ray tube | 1916 | |
 | John Moses Browning | American | Browning automatic rifle | 1918 |
 | Vladimir Kosma Zworykin | Russian American | Iconoscope and Kinescope electronic television camera and receiver | 1923–31 |
 | John Logie Baird | Scottish | electromechanical television | 1924 |
 | Clarence Birdseye | American | rapid-frozen food | c. 1924 |
 | Robert Hutchings Goddard | American | liquid-fueled rocket engine | 1926 |
| Philo Taylor Farnsworth | American | Image Dissector electronic television camera | 1927 | |
 | Robert Jemison Van de Graaff | American | Van de Graaff generator for particle accelerators | 1929 |
 | László József Bíró | Hungarian | ballpoint pen | 1931 |
| Isaac Shoenberg | Russian English | high-definition electronic television system | 1931–35 | |
 | Edwin H. Armstrong | American | frequency modulation (FM) of radio waves | 1933 |
| Ernst Ruska | German | electron microscope | 1933 | |
| Laurens Hammond | American | Hammond organ (electronic keyboard) | 1934 | |
 | Ernest Orlando Lawrence | American | cyclotron particle accelerator | 1934 |
 | Wallace Hume Carothers | American | nylon | 1935 |
| Robert Alexander Watson-Watt | Scottish | radar early warning | 1935 | |
 | Frank Whittle | English | jet engine | 1937 |
| Katharine Blodgett | American | nonreflective glass | 1938 | |
 | Chester F. Carlson | American | xerography | 1938 |
 | Albert Hofmann | Swiss | LSD | 1938 |
 | Paul Hermann Müller | Swiss | DDT | 1939 |
 | Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain | German | jet aircraft | 1939 |
 | Igor Sikorsky | Russian American | production helicopter | 1939 |
| Hedy Lamarr | American | spread-spectrum technology | 1942 | |
| George Antheil | American | spread-spectrum technology | 1942 | |
 | Jacques-Yves Cousteau | French | Aqua-Lung | 1943 |
| John W. Mauchly | American | ENIAC general-purpose electronic computer | 1946 | |
 | John Bardeen | American | transistor | 1947 |
 | Walter H. Brattain | American | transistor | 1947 |
 | William B. Shockley | American | transistor | 1947 |
 | R. Buckminster Fuller | American | geodesic dome | c. 1947 |
| Edwin Herbert Land | American | Polaroid instant-print camera | 1947 | |
| Willard Frank Libby | American | carbon-14 dating | c. 1947 | |
 | Les Paul | American | eight-track tape recorder | c. 1947 |
| Leo Fender | American | electric guitar | 1948 | |
 | Mária Telkes | American | solar-heated home | 1948 |
| Charles Stark Draper | American | inertial guidance systems for aircraft | c. 1949 | |
 | Tom Kilburn | English | Manchester Mark I stored-program digital computer | 1949 |
 | Grace Hopper | American | compiler | 1952 |
 | Virginia Apgar | American | Apgar Score System | 1952 |
| Charles Hard Townes | American | maser | 1953 | |
 | Uziel Gal | Israeli | Uzi submachine gun | 1954 |
 | Felix Wankel | German | Wankel rotary gasoline engine | 1954 |
| Jack Kilby | American | integrated circuit | 1958 | |
| Robert Noyce | American | integrated circuit | 1958 | |
 | Theodore H. Maiman | American | ruby laser | 1960 |
 | Michael DeBakey | American | coronary artery bypass | 1964 |
 | Seymour Cray | American | supercomputer | 1964 |
 | Douglas Engelbart | American | computer mouse | 1964 |
| Stephanie Kwolek | American | Kevlar | 1965 | |
 | Kenneth L. Thompson | American | UNIX operating system | 1969 |
| Dennis M. Ritchie | American | UNIX operating system | 1969 |
| Stephanie Kwolek | American | Kevlar | c. 1971 | |
 | Paul Lauterbur | American | magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) | 1973 |
| Peter Mansfield | English | magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) | 1973 |
 | Vinton Cerf | American | Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) | 1974 |
| Robert Kahn | American | Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) | 1974 | |
| Erno Rubik | Hungarian | Rubik's cube | 1974 | |
| Frederick Sanger | English | DNA sequencing | 1977 | |
 | Stephen Wozniak | American | Apple II personal computer | 1977 |
 | Gerd Binnig | German | scanning tunneling microscope | 1981 |
| Heinrich Rohrer | Swiss | scanning tunneling microscope | 1981 | |
| Patricia Bath | American | Laserphaco Probe | 1981 | |
 | Tim Berners-Lee | English | World Wide Web | 1990–91 |
 | Linus Torvalds | Finnish | Linux open-source operating system | 1991 |
