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...

Thomas Alva Edison

Credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications, Edison also developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera,...

James Wares Bryce

Inventor and pioneer in magnetic data storage, Bryce was one of America's most prolific inventors, credited with more than 500 U. S. and foreign patents. His death in 1949 took from the...

Galileo Galilei

Called "the Father of Modern Science," Galilei played a major role in the Scientific Revolution, including landmark improvements to the telescope and the invention of an improved military compass. He was born...

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...

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...

John Ambrose Fleming

Inventor of the first thermionic valve or vacuum tube, Fleming transformed the foundations of modern electronics. After leaving the University of Nottingham in 1882, Fleming took up the post of "Electrician" to...

Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope

Inventor of two calculating machines, Stanhope was also a British statesman and scientist and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). Also known as Charles Mahon, 3rd Earl Stanhope, he was the...

Emil Leon Post

Best known for his work in the field that eventually became known as computability theory, Post made foundational contributions to mathematical logic and the theory of computation. In his doctoral thesis, Post proved,...

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

The first to satisfactorily demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic waves, Hertz clarified and expanded the electromagnetic theory of light that had been put forth by Maxwell. He was born in Hamburg, Germany,...

Konrad Zuse

German engineer who, completely independently of British and American computing efforts, built the Z3 (1941), the first working program-controlled general-purpose digital computer. The Z3, destroyed in the bombing of Berlin, never got...

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...

Lewis Fry Richardson

Pioneer of fractals and the modified Richardson iteration method for solving systems of linear equations, Richardson was also an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist, and pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of...

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...

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....

Dorothy Du Boisson

Operator of the prototype Colossus and the "Mark 2" Colossi at Bletchley Park, Du Boisson is recognized for her role in the wartime codebreaking effort. She joined the WRNS in 1943 and...

Jerzy Witold Różycki

Inventor of the "clock" method for determining Enigma rotor positions, Różycki was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who worked at breaking German Enigma-machine ciphers. He was born in what is now Ukraine,...

Rudolf Hell

Inventor of the Hellschreiber, an early forerunner to the fax machine, Hell was a German engineer born in Eggmühl, Germany, who studied electrical engineering in Munich from 1919 to 1923. While there...

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.

Charles Xavier Thomas

Known for designing and patenting the first mechanical calculator, Thomas introduced the Arithmometer in 1820, though more than thirty years passed before its true commercialization in 1852, as he spent that intervening...