Inventions and Discoveries

About Inventions and Discoveries

Inventions and discoveries is a list of pairings between a thing and the person credited with it. The pairs here are the ones that are settled; where credit is genuinely disputed, the entry has been left out rather than decided arbitrarily.

What you need to understand

• The nineteenth century inventions form a clear group: the telegraph by Morse, the telephone by Bell, the phonograph and the practical lamp by Edison, and wireless telegraphy by Marconi.
• The electrical pioneers are grouped together: Volta with the battery, Faraday with the first electric motor, Sturgeon with the electromagnet and Franklin with the lightning conductor.
• The textile inventions of the industrial revolution are a group of three: the spinning jenny by Hargreaves, the power loom by Cartwright and the cotton gin by Whitney.
• The steam age has three names: Watt improved the steam engine, Stephenson built the locomotive, and Parsons the steam turbine.
• The transport inventions run from the bicycle age to the air: Dunlop with the pneumatic tyre, Benz with the motor car, the Wright brothers with the aeroplane, Whittle with the jet engine and Sikorsky with the helicopter.
• The measuring and optical instruments are a group of their own: the barometer by Torricelli, the pendulum clock by Huygens, the marine chronometer by Harrison, the mercury thermometer by Fahrenheit and the compound microscope by Janssen.
• Two men appear twice in most lists and must be kept apart: Edison with the phonograph and the lamp, and Newton, who appears with the reflecting telescope as well as with gravitation.
• The electronic age begins with the transistor, credited to Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley, and runs through the integrated circuit by Kilby and the microprocessor by Hoff.
• The computing inventions of the later twentieth century are Berners-Lee's World Wide Web, Engelbart's mouse and the cash machine of Shepherd-Barron.
• The twentieth century medical and consumer inventions include Baird's television, Maiman's laser and Kapany's optical fibre for communication.
• Where an invention was made by more than one person, the answer names the group: the aeroplane is the Wright brothers' and the transistor belongs to three names together.
• The inventions named after their inventors are the easiest to remember: the diesel engine, the Biro pen, the Colt revolver and the Montgolfier balloon.
• Nothing here is a recent invention, and no entry depends on a patent dispute still running. Where two people genuinely share credit, the entry says so rather than choosing one.

How to work through these questions

1. Group the inventions by century or by field. The electrical group, the textile group, the steam group and the electronic group are four short lists.
2. Where an invention is named after a person, the name is the answer: the diesel engine is Diesel's and the Biro pen Biro's.
3. For the pairs where credit is shared, learn the whole group as one answer, because a question asking about the aeroplane expects the brothers together.
4. Use the field as a first cut. A question about a weaving machine cannot be answered by an electrical pioneer.
5. Learn the two appearances of Edison and of Newton separately, since questions distinguish them by the thing rather than by the person.
6. For the electronic age, follow the order: transistor, then integrated circuit, then microprocessor, which places the three inventions in the right century.

Mistakes that cost marks

Worked example

Practice questions with answers

A few Inventions and Discoveries questions with the full solution shown, so you can see how the method is applied before you attempt the timed set.

Frequently asked questions