Charles Galton Darwin

Known for assisting Henry Moseley on X-ray diffraction, Darwin was an English physicist and the grandson of Charles Darwin who also served as Director of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) during the...

Conrad (Conny) Palm

Contributor to teletraffic engineering and queueing theory, Palm also led the project that developed the first Swedish computer, the BARK. He enrolled at the School of Electrical Engineering at the Royal Institute...

Francis (Frank) E. Hamilton

Responsible for the primary organization, design, and construction of the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (Mark I) and the IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), Hamilton was a pivotal figure in early computing....

Philibert Maurice d'Ocagne

Pioneer of nomography — the systematization of graphical calculation methods using nomograms — d'Ocagne was a French engineer and mathematician whose scientific personality soon fell into oblivion, leaving only a few milestones...

Francis Bacon

Considered the father of the scientific method and of empiricism, Bacon transformed natural philosophy and the theory of knowledge. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his...

Vilhelm Friman Koren Bjerknes

His experiments with electric oscillations contributed much to the development of wireless telegraphy. Bjerknes was a Norwegian physicist and meteorologist who did much to found the modern practice of weather forecasting. He...

Allan Marquand

Builder of a mechanical logical machine that is still extant, Marquand is described as having created "…mills into which the premises are fed and which turn out the conclusions by the revolution...

Thomas (Tommy) Harold Flowers

Designer of Colossus, the first programmable electronic computer, Flowers made one of the most significant contributions to wartime codebreaking. His first contact with the wartime codebreaking effort came when he was asked...

Allessandro Volta

Inventor of the battery in 1800 and a remotely operated pistol that was a significant forerunner of the telegraph, Volta transformed the understanding of electricity. He was born in Como, Italy, and taught...

Gustav Tauschek

Developer of numerous improvements for punched card-based calculating machines, Tauschek was an Austrian pioneer of information technology who worked in this field from 1922 to 1945. During the years 1926–1930 he worked...

Hedwig (Hedy) Eva Maria Lamarr (née Kiesler)

Co-inventor of an early technique for spread spectrum and frequency hopping, Lamarr paved the way for today's wireless communications. An Austrian actress and inventor, Lamarr was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. She was a...

Stephen Cole Kleene

American mathematician who helped lay the foundations for theoretical computer science, Kleene was best known as a founder of the branch of mathematical logic known as recursion theory. One of many distinguished...

Pierre Jaquet-Droz

Creator of animated dolls, or automata, devices which some consider to be the oldest examples of the computer, Jaquet-Droz lived in Paris, London, and Geneva, where he designed and built these mechanisms...

Leslie John Comrie

Pioneer in mechanical computation and astronomy, Comrie was also the founder of the world's first private company for scientific computing. He was born in Pukekohe (south of Auckland), New Zealand, and attended Auckland...

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...

Nikola Tesla

A major contributor to the birth of commercial electricity and revolutionary developer in the field of electromagnetism, Tesla was an inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer who is best known for his...

George Barnard Grant

One of the few Americans to make a significant contribution to mechanical computation prior to the end of the nineteenth century, Grant improved on the Difference Machine calculator and is recognized as...

Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci

Among those who designed a calculator, da Vinci stands as one of history's most remarkable minds — an Italian polymath regarded as the epitome of the "Renaissance Man", displaying skills in numerous...

George F. Daly

Co-developer of the IBM 285 and 297 series accounting machines and co-inventor of the automatic multiplying machines known as Types 600 and 601, Daly was a pivotal figure in IBM's early engineering...

Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen

Famous for constructing The Turk, a chess-playing automaton later revealed to be a hoax, Kempelen was also a Hungarian author and inventor with Irish ancestors, born in Pressburg, Kingdom of Hungary, Habsburg...