Willgodt Theophil Odhner

Inventor of one of the most popular portable mechanical calculators, Odhner based his solution on a geared pinwheel mechanism, resulting in the well-known barrel-shaped calculating machines bearing his name. Although calculating machines...

Joseph Henry

Inventor of the electromagnetic relay that formed the basis of the electrical telegraph, Henry was also the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and a founding member of the National Institute for...

Helmut Theodor Schreyer

Co-developer of the Z3, one of the first computers, Schreyer also developed an electrical circuit to convert decimal to binary numbers. He was a German inventor and the son of the minister...

Samuel Morland

Credited with early developments in relation to computing, hydraulics and steam power, Morland was a notable English academic, diplomat, spy, inventor and mathematician of the 17th century. He was educated at Winchester...

Doulgas Rayner Hartree

English mathematician and physicist, Hartree was most famous for the development of numerical analysis and its application to the Hartree-Fock equations of atomic physics and the construction of the meccano differential analyzer.

Percy Edwin Ludgate

Designer of an Analytical Engine, Ludgate helped advance calculators by expanding Charles Babbage's design for the first programmable computer. An Irish accountant working alone in Dublin, he was unaware of Charles Babbage's...

Samuel Hawks Caldwell

Best known for his contributions to early computers, Caldwell was an American electrical engineer who completed his degrees in electrical engineering at MIT. His M.Sc. thesis was entitled Electrical Characteristics and Theory...

Johannes Kepler

Best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer and a key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution. His laws were codified by...

Grace M. Hopper

Developer of COBOL and pioneering computer scientist, Hopper was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and she developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. She...

Edith Clarke

Pioneer of electrical engineering and the inventor of the Clarke calculator, Clarke broke barriers as the first woman to earn an M.S. in electrical engineering from MIT. Clarke studied mathematics and astronomy at...

William Oughtred

Credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622, Oughtred was the first to use two logarithmic scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division. Oughtred also introduced the...

Dorr Eugene Felt

Inventor of the Comptometer, the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator, Felt built his first prototype during the US Thanksgiving holidays of 1884. Because of his limited amount of money, he used...

Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet

Considered one of the fathers of information science, Otlet was an author, entrepreneur, visionary, lawyer, and peace activist whose writings have sometimes been called prescient of the current World Wide Web. He...

Wallace John Eckert

A part of the creation of the research division of IBM, Eckert directed the Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau at Columbia University, which evolved into that division.

Ramon Llull

A pioneer of computation theory, Llull was a Majorcan writer and philosopher who wrote the first major work of Catalan literature. Recently-surfaced manuscripts show him to have anticipated, by several centuries, prominent...

John Adam Presper Eckert, Jr.

Co-inventor of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, Eckert was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly, he presented the first course in computing topics (the Moore School...

Karl Ferdinand Braun

Inventor of the cathode-ray tube, Braun built the first such device in 1897 — known as the "Braun Tube" in German-speaking countries. During the development of radio, he also worked on wireless...

René Descartes

Credited as the father of analytical geometry, Descartes built the bridge between algebra and geometry that proved crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. The Cartesian coordinate system—allowing algebraic equations...

John Logie Baird

Inventor of the first publicly demonstrated television system, Baird was also credited with creating the world's first fully electronic colour television tube. Although Baird's electromechanical system was eventually displaced by purely electronic...

Alexander Bain

Inventor of the electric clock and pioneer of the telegraph, Bain transformed early communications technology. His first patent was dated January 11, 1841, and was in the names of John Barwise, chronometer...