about german inventors

About The Rich, The Famous and The Beautiful:

German Inventors

by Bernd Ebersberger

Dec. 2002

VTT TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUS

What does an invention mean to a German inventor?

• The invention turns into an innovation.

• The inventor is credited for the invention.

• Eventually the invention, a street, a university or a whole industrial trust is named after the inventor.

Money, a lot of money.

Fame, quite a lot of fame.

• Let’s have a look at German inventors...


1440

Movable type printing

J. Gutenberg


1709

Alcohol thermometer

D. G. Fahrenheit


1850

Geissler flourescent tube

Heinrich Geissler


1867

Dynamo generator

Werner von Siemens


1876

Ammonia refrigerator

Karl von Linde


1877

4-stroke internal combustion engine

Nikolaus August Otto


1884

Nipkow scanning disk

Paul Nipkow


1885

Automobile

Karl Benz / Gottlieb Daimler


1885

Diesel engine

Rudolf Diesel


1888

Electro magnetic waves

Heinrich R. Hertz


1895

X-ray

Willhelm C. Röntgen


1896

Glider

Otto Lilienthal


1897

Cathode-ray tube

Karl Ferdinand Braun


1899

Aspirin

Felix Hoffmann


1900

Rigid airship

Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin


1920

Athletic shoe

Adi Dassler


1945

Z1 - Z4 computers

Konrad Zuse


1954

Rotary cylinder engine

Felix Wankel


Gutenberg, Fahrenheit, Daimler, Benz, Diesel, Hertz, Wankel, Zuse, Dassler ...

The German inventions are a success story.

Money and fame everywhere.

NO...


What also can happen is:

• The inventor becomes famous

but not for the invention.

• The inventor is ahead of anybody else

but not credited for his / her invention.

• The invention is technically a success

but it is not economically successful.

NO MONEY

NO FAME

but stories that are fun to tell...


Hedy Lamarr (1913 - 2000)

• In 1942 together with the composer George Antheil she patented a technology to encode the remote control signals for torpedoes the frequency hopping technology

• The patent expired 1956. • The U.S. military never used this patent before it

expired.• First used in experiments in the 1960s.

no money

• Today the spread spectrum technology used for cellular phones is similar to the frequency hopping technology.



• What is she known for?

• Hedy Lamarr was an actress.

• She had 6 husbands.

• Movies together with Clarke Gable, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and Judy Garland

• Delilah in “Samson and Delilah” (1949)

• First nude scene in a cinema movie “Ecstasy” (1933)

at least some fame


Anton Flettner (1885 - 1960)

• Developed the Flettner-Rotor (approx. 1924)

• The idea is an application of the Magnusen-effect:


Anton Flettner (1885 - 1960)

• Used to propel a ship in 1924

• one prototype vessel and one commercial vessel

• victims of the great depression and of cheap fuel

no money

no fame


Johann Philipp Reis (1834 - 1874)

• Telephone invented by four different people:

• Alexander G. Bell

• Elisha Gray

• Antonio Meucci

• Johann Philipp Reis

• First experiments for the artificial ear in 1852.



• Prototype of the first telephone in 1861

• Lecture ‘Telephony Using Galvanic Current’

• Sold 50 telephones in Germany and more than 50 in Great Britain.

no money

no fame



• For his experiments for the artificial ear in 1852, Reis used

• a violin

• a knitting needle

• a large cork

• a coil of wire

and

• a sausage

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