Famous Inventors: fun facts and quiz

Thomas Edison held over 1,000 US patents, for things like the phonograph and improved light bulbs. His lab at Menlo Park was an invention factory.

Key fact
His phonograph, of 1877, could record and play back sound.

Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current motor and system that power most of the world. He also experimented with wireless power and radio.

Key fact
The tesla, a unit of magnetic field strength, is named after him.

Marie Curie discovered the elements polonium and radium and pioneered research on radioactivity. She was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes.

Key fact
She won in both physics (1903) and chemistry (1911).

Film star Hedy Lamarr co-invented a radio technique called frequency hopping in 1942. Ideas like it later helped make Wi-Fi and Bluetooth possible.

Key fact
She patented it with the composer George Antheil.

Many inventors got little credit. Mary Anderson patented the windscreen wiper in 1903, and Stephanie Kwolek invented Kevlar, the fibre in bulletproof vests, in 1965.

Key fact
Kevlar is about five times stronger than steel, weight for weight.

A patent gives an inventor the sole right to make and sell an invention for a limited time, usually 20 years, in exchange for publishing how it works.

Key fact
Abraham Lincoln is the only US president to hold a patent.

Some inventions were accidents: the microwave oven, Post-it notes, penicillin and the Slinky all came from experiments that went unexpectedly.

Key fact
Post-it notes used a glue that was “too weak”.