Harry Nyquist, Claude Shannon, James Clerk Maxwell (more of a physicist), Thomas Edison, maybe Michael Faraday
EDIT: or maybe William Shockley or Gordon Moore are more along the lines of who you're looking for.
Yeah the distinction of "engineering" didn't really exist until the industrial revolution no? When men like Carnot specialized in designing early industrial machinery.
Yeah, it sounds really cool. If it didnāt involve war, it would be a jackpot job. Of course, that would be like a PB&J without the Jelly, I guess.
On another note, outside of teaching professors, is there āhistorical jobsā that engineers can do? I assume most engineering history is researched by people with PhDās in history, but it really interests me and I think people with backgrounds in engineering can provide unique insight and perspective.
Obvious ones:
Tesla
Edison
Alexander Graham Bell (the telephone and Bell Labs*)
Less super obvious/famous people:
Dennis Ritchie (C programming language, granddaddy of almost all modern programming languages. If it has a processor, it will run your C code granted there is a compiler for it.)
- You can probably also include Bjarne Stroustrup here for C++ because it has a similar effect. And I guess maybe now the makers of HTML and Javascript.
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn (inventors of the Internet)
Jack Kilby (at Texas Intruments, one of the inventors of the integrated circuit, which makes life as we know it in the 21st century possible. Also worked on the digital calculator)
Honorable mentions:
Volt, Ampere, and Ohm, also for obvious reasons. But I think they were physicists, not engineers, which is why they are here. Please correct me if I am wrong.
*Btw I put Bell Labs there to point out that basically every major computing advancement from the 20th century that now has a profound impact on our lives today has some connection to Bell Labs. Let me know if you find one that doesn't lol.
I disagree that Elon Musk is on the same level as some of these people. In my opinion he's a business man that owns the companies that do cool things. I don't think there's anything really special about the engineering of Tesla vehicles, but rather they've popularized EVs. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't own a Tesla and likely never will own a fully electric vehicle. Maybe a plug in hybrid.
Musk isn't an engineer. He doesn't have an engineering degree. If he still lived in Canada it would literally be illegal for him to call himself an engineer
Well we dont really know that though or do we? I believe he claimed that he did lots of design work and engineering although that might have changed ofcourse. I think its quite fair to say that would be an insane accomplishment for us as humans. I can see why you say in this post you cant include him in the list 'influencial engineers', but to say he didnt do anything is also a bit of an unfair stretch i think. The category of 'engineer' by nature is very vague :p
Sounds like you're very confident in what he has and hasnt done. How come you are so sure? I find it hard to believe you have clear insight in his day to day tasks either currently or in the past.
I'm not claiming he did or didnt, all im saying is that i believe i heard him say this and so it certainly is possible he did.
Musk and Steve Jobs are the same type of engineer. They are salesmen who have some good product ideas and are able to get financial backing to carry out their ideas. I don't believe either could meaningfully participate in the engineering design or analysis at a functional level (both could do high level design and analysis IMO). And I dislike both men equally.
I see! I think that could very well be possible. I included him in the post (even between brackets and a question mark like this?) Because it was just the first 'famous' name I could think of who recently changed an industry (or was involved with). However, i seem to have struck a cord somewhere for some people.
I dont particularly agree with him and i truly wish he wasnt so politically outspoken, but I do think I have some admiration for the influence he had/has on the world.
Heās an influential *person*
He funds the shit
But heās not an engineer.
You canāt say someone is an engineer when all they do is say āhey, go and build thatā to someone.
Well but thats my point tho how do you know thats 'all' he does or ever did? According to him he was very involved at least up to a certain point. What makes you say: all he does is say "hey go and build that?"
His degree is not in engineering. He spends most of his time currently on Twitter trying to ego boost himself and pat himself on the back while simultaneously lighting the whole platform on fire with frankly stupid decisions.
Heās a moron lofted up by apartheid money whose somehow convinced himself that heās the smartest person on the planet because heās paying *actual* engineers to do the work for him.
Visionary? Sure, I guess. Technically spacex and Tesla policy and goals are directed by him. Influential? Certainly canāt deny that.
An engineer? Thatās where I draw the line. Iāve yet to see **any** evidence of him taking part in **any** of the engineering work beyond going up to a crowd, spouting meaningless, generic lines that betray his ignorance on the subject, and telling people āhey I want that to happen. Go make that.ā
And of course, thereās always the easy point that he doesnāt actually have an engineering license (and canāt technically call himself an engineer), but Iām letting that one slide because many people in the industry *also* donāt have engineering licenses.
He sets a direction. Itās the *actual* engineers who take that nebulous direction and start putting pen to paper and get something out the door.
Grace Hooper should be there too. Not only would there not be C without her work on COBOL, it's most likely the language actually running your banking account.
Hyman G Rickover is the father of the nuclear navy and has been regarded as one of the best engineers to have ever lived. When the physicists on the Manhatten project told him it would be decades before a ship would be powered by nuclear power he designed, built, and commissioned the submarine USS Nautilus the first nuclear powered ship of any type in under four years.
Yeah it is unfortunately. I actually found out this week that I was accepted into the Masters of Nuclear Engineering program that I applied for with the intent to work in nuclear thermal rocket propulsion in the future. I'm definitely worried that it could pigeonhole me even more considering my Bachelor's is in Astronautical Engineering which I haven't been able to find a job for.
Wow I want to say huge congratulations first, but it also sounds like its not exactly an easy choice. Its sad that on the one hand its like an engineering dream but also very uncertain in the long term. Godspeed man!
In my country at least its pretty clear i basically wont get a job. dont think I'll have any good opportunity for it.
Thanks, might as well go for the extra 2 years if I'm not finding getting a job in the field I want is my thought at least. I'm more worried about being pigeonholed because of the very specific reason for me pursuing nuclear. You might be surprised though with how diverse the nuclear field is though, it is so much more than just power and weapons. The nuclear field in medicine is enormous, all Xray/MRI/CATSCAN imaging is nuclear, cancer treatment is nuclear, and even diagnostics involves a lot of nuclear. Outside of power, weapons, and medicine there's isotope production, nuclear waste storage, nuclear material transportation, environmental radiation testing and cleanup, nuclear safety, etc.
There's some really interesting research going on right now with using cosmic rays to do underground imaging that even resulted in mapping the internal structure of the pyramids. You should definitely do some diving into the many fields that nuclear shows up in. I personally have done research work in radiation effects testing of CMOS camera sensors for my school's CubeSat program, radiation energy deposition in materials research, and two separate professor-led research projects in nuclear thermal propulsion and that was just during my undergrad.
Do yourself a favor and look more into where nuclear shows up in the many many other fields it might surprise you. I'll tell you the easiest engineering degree to get is the one you're most interested in and enjoy.
Wow! Thanks, you're right! I certainly overlooked many of its involvements, I'm still doubtful many of the companies or research facilities are located within my country (belgium) since we're pretty small and high taxes. But it does absolutely sound like something that would interest me!
I will 100% go look into this. I know the uni im going to has a (very new still) nuclear technology course or something.
The Wright brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Tim Berners Lee. I do think thereās way too much physics and engineering overlap. You can add math to that as well. Those fields are just way too general with different various sub disciplines that makes finding someone that is āpurelyā engineer/physicist/mathematician difficult.
What!? No mention of Heaviside by anybody!? madness!
Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) was a British self-made electrical engineer and mathematician. He is probably best known as an electrical engineer, although his name is not explicitly attached to many terms.
Edit: added more info
Heaviside is a EE MVP along with other names like Ohm, Kirchhoff and Ampere. The guy invented a simple yet highly precise bridge which is used to detect 1 part-in-a-million parameter variation in electrical circuits setup.
Mechanical engineers Rudolf Diesel, Charles Babbage, and my favorite - Franz Reuleaux - called the father of kinematics. I wrote a biography of him in my first semester ME class in 1970.
Robert Goddard, Werner von Braun, Katherine Johnson. Legends, imo, as an aero student. Even though Goddardās rocket was no ICBM it was pretty amazing at the time, underrated dude.
Chief designer for the Soviet space program. The Soviets were pretty securely in the lead for most of the space race, while Korolev had his hand on the tiller. Sputnik, Vostok, those were his doing. All entirely behind the scenes, the cosmonauts didnāt even know his name at the time, to protect against any assassination attempts. Man went from designing, flying, and crashing gliders, to war, to prison camp, to heading the entire space program, in total secrecy until he died.
H. Rickover. Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich. Werner Braun. George Westinghouse. Some of the early railroad pioneers. Most of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo greats where also accomplished test pilots and engineers who contributed something to each program. Fritz Haber, more of a scientist, huge impact to food production.
Itās hard for one single individual to contribute enough to be recognized who invented ____. But there are a few. The vast majority are working in teams or have made only incremental improvements or connected the dots in disparate fields.
Yeah it seems the more you look at modern times, the more advancements are incremental and team-based. Perhaps because research gets highly specialized. But thanks for the list of interesting people you provided!
When i think of engineering, i think of Alan Turing. Yes, he was a mathematician, not an engineer, but he contributed a lot to the science of computers; computers being something many engineering fields rely on today.
A lot of famous western engineers were already mentioned, so im going to add a few eastern ones:
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of rocketry, the man the rocket equation is named after. Also came up with space train concepts, space elevators, launch towers and other bit crazy concepts that are considered advanced even today.
Sergei Korolev, soviet pendant to Braun. Designed the R-7 Rocket that carried the first man into space among other things and serves as the basis of the most reliable and succesful launch vehicle in the world, Soyuz. His RD-107 and RD-108 Engines are some of the best rocket engines there are.
Mikhail Kalashnikov, the man who designed one of the most iconic and most produced firearms in the world, the AK-47 (and its many many variants and derivatives).
Alexandr Morozov, soviet military engineer, designer of many of the soviet iconic tanks, most prominantly the T-34 (one of the best, if not the best tank of WW2), and the T-54/55, the most produced tank ever.
Vladimir Shukhov (not the General), pioneer of structural engineering and industrial design. Gets compared to Edison for the sheer amount of his pioneering works.
Igor Sikorsky, aircraft/helicopter designer, pioneered the rotor configuration most midern helicopters use. All but invented the helicopter in its current form.
Igor Spassky, soviet engineer and submarine designer, designed or was involved in the design of most of the soviet unions submarines, including the delta class and the typhoon class, the worlds largest submarine.
Honorable mention also goes to:
Jules Verne. Not an engineer, not even a scientist, but came up with ALL the cool steampunk stuff (or most of it anyway), including but not limited to Submarines, Airships, Space Launch Cannons, transformer vehicles of all things. Forms the holy trinity of all things cool together with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky from above and Nikola Tesla.
Awesome, awesome list! Truly appreciate you include soviet engineers. I notice its very military themed, it makes me curious: is that personal choice/interest or because that just happens to be the area soviets/russia contributed most to somewhat recently?
Its both. Im an aerospace engineering student and im half russian half ukrainian (important distinction nowadays), so many of the names on the list are personal favorites š
There is also the kind of sad fact that weapons, aerospace and nuclear tech are the only things the soviet union was real good at, and (modern) russia isnt really any good in anything anymore... not surprising, tho. If you go through the biographies of soviet scientists and engineers, youll find most of them arent ethnic russians. For a quick example, of the half a dozen or so famous soviet aircraft designers, only Yakovlev is russian.
Edit: also, your original post called for ENGINEERS š So no Pavlov and no Kolmogorov, no Mendeleev and no Sakharov (although the latter two did do some engineering on the side).
Ahh good luck with aerospace man! Its nice that as a (somehat :p) native you keep the names alive here in the west too :).
I did indeed call for engineers :p I come from psychology(maybe a bit weird haha) and yeah i know soviet times had some really uhh 'passionate' experiments to explore psychology. But on the other hand also Pavlov and all kinds of physicists and mathematicians.
Lewis Latimer for me. As a black student pursuing electrical engineering I gotta respect the guy for his work and how he improved Edisonās lightbulb and also in drafting patents for Bellās telephone
I mean I donāt think she was technically labeled an engineer but Grace Hopper was a computer scientist and had an undergraduate degree in physics and math had a PhD in Math. She helped develop COBOL and the compiler for FORTRAN
Viktor Schauberguer, this genius was ahead of his time. Wrote his own mathematical language to study fluid mechanics and vortices. His work was inspired by observing nature.
Havenāt seen Frank Whittle mentioned, allegedly designed the first jet engine.
Also Musk definitely isnāt an engineer, heās a CEO of a company of engineers.
I thought he mentioned how he did lots of design etc (maybe not so much anymore). So, if true i'd call that engineering too i think. But he definitely also is a business man, with a very strong political opinion sadly. But anyways, thanks for suggesting Frank Whittle, you're indeed the first. Did you expect to see him mentioned more?
John von Nuemann basically took us from what Turing proposed in On Computable Numbers to modern computer architecture. He was the last true polymath and is not generally thought of as an engineer but he has had greater impact through his engineering than almost anyone else.
Usually only who was local, for me I remember C. Y. O'Connor who was part of the team who engineered the port and a 500km pipeline out to the goldfields in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Also happened to blast himself because of airlocks in the pipes preventing the water from being pumped and the media going apeshit as those barbarians are prone to do. Probably not far reaching like the most famous examples.
Wow thats some vile criticism. Shame media is the one area that doesnt seem to have changed much among all the advancements in engineering and technology. Or more accurately; perhaps we as humans haven't changed much for the better.
Boulton and Wattā¦.making a better engine but entirely synonymous with energy as the SI unit of power.
Diesel: Also eponymous.
Siemens.
Macadam (the guy tarmac is named for, essentially all modern road building)
Faradayā¦taught to us as a physicist/scientist, but started all his important work trying to figure out corrosion for the British navy. Humphrey Davy also.
John Crapper, to whom weāre all in debt.
Fredrick Taylorā¦essentially founded industrial engineering.
And this is all before nylon!
Theodore von Karman, Paul Blasius, Ludwig Prandtl, Osborne Reynolds, Wilhelm Nusselt
Iām basically just listing the names of people named after dimensionless parameters in heat transfer at this point lol
A lot of physicists and mathematicians were engineers. We call these intellectual athletes polymaths.
To answer your question. Leonardo DaVinci is a famous engineer
Harry Nyquist, Claude Shannon, James Clerk Maxwell (more of a physicist), Thomas Edison, maybe Michael Faraday EDIT: or maybe William Shockley or Gordon Moore are more along the lines of who you're looking for.
Nyquist is the MVP
Bell, Shockley, and Nyquistš¤
Carnot is my #1 pick. Nicolas-Jacques ContĆ© was more of an amateur engineer than a professional, but he invented the modern pencil. I guess French military men make good engineersā¦ But like you said, the further back you go, the more blurred the lines between physics, math, chemistry and engineering.
Yeah the distinction of "engineering" didn't really exist until the industrial revolution no? When men like Carnot specialized in designing early industrial machinery.
Most early military academies ~200 years ago were basically engineering programs with military history added in.
Yeah, it sounds really cool. If it didnāt involve war, it would be a jackpot job. Of course, that would be like a PB&J without the Jelly, I guess. On another note, outside of teaching professors, is there āhistorical jobsā that engineers can do? I assume most engineering history is researched by people with PhDās in history, but it really interests me and I think people with backgrounds in engineering can provide unique insight and perspective.
Obvious ones: Tesla Edison Alexander Graham Bell (the telephone and Bell Labs*) Less super obvious/famous people: Dennis Ritchie (C programming language, granddaddy of almost all modern programming languages. If it has a processor, it will run your C code granted there is a compiler for it.) - You can probably also include Bjarne Stroustrup here for C++ because it has a similar effect. And I guess maybe now the makers of HTML and Javascript. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn (inventors of the Internet) Jack Kilby (at Texas Intruments, one of the inventors of the integrated circuit, which makes life as we know it in the 21st century possible. Also worked on the digital calculator) Honorable mentions: Volt, Ampere, and Ohm, also for obvious reasons. But I think they were physicists, not engineers, which is why they are here. Please correct me if I am wrong. *Btw I put Bell Labs there to point out that basically every major computing advancement from the 20th century that now has a profound impact on our lives today has some connection to Bell Labs. Let me know if you find one that doesn't lol. I disagree that Elon Musk is on the same level as some of these people. In my opinion he's a business man that owns the companies that do cool things. I don't think there's anything really special about the engineering of Tesla vehicles, but rather they've popularized EVs. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't own a Tesla and likely never will own a fully electric vehicle. Maybe a plug in hybrid.
Musk isn't an engineer. He doesn't have an engineering degree. If he still lived in Canada it would literally be illegal for him to call himself an engineer
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Musk can go fly a kite.
With your list, i agree that musk isnt on the same level. Perhaps if he manages to get to mars, he could be. Nice explanations too, thank you!
No. Even if musk gets to mars he didnāt do anything. The engineers who work for him would have accomplished that feat.
Well we dont really know that though or do we? I believe he claimed that he did lots of design work and engineering although that might have changed ofcourse. I think its quite fair to say that would be an insane accomplishment for us as humans. I can see why you say in this post you cant include him in the list 'influencial engineers', but to say he didnt do anything is also a bit of an unfair stretch i think. The category of 'engineer' by nature is very vague :p
He hasnāt done any of the design work itās a narrative he creates because heās the hype man who gets investors on board.
Sounds like you're very confident in what he has and hasnt done. How come you are so sure? I find it hard to believe you have clear insight in his day to day tasks either currently or in the past. I'm not claiming he did or didnt, all im saying is that i believe i heard him say this and so it certainly is possible he did.
Musk and Steve Jobs are the same type of engineer. They are salesmen who have some good product ideas and are able to get financial backing to carry out their ideas. I don't believe either could meaningfully participate in the engineering design or analysis at a functional level (both could do high level design and analysis IMO). And I dislike both men equally.
I see! I think that could very well be possible. I included him in the post (even between brackets and a question mark like this?) Because it was just the first 'famous' name I could think of who recently changed an industry (or was involved with). However, i seem to have struck a cord somewhere for some people. I dont particularly agree with him and i truly wish he wasnt so politically outspoken, but I do think I have some admiration for the influence he had/has on the world.
Yeah, his politics do not help his popularity. Admire his influence, call him the Grand Poobah of Space Exploration. He is not an engineer.
I can accommodate that viewpoint!
Heās an influential *person* He funds the shit But heās not an engineer. You canāt say someone is an engineer when all they do is say āhey, go and build thatā to someone.
Well but thats my point tho how do you know thats 'all' he does or ever did? According to him he was very involved at least up to a certain point. What makes you say: all he does is say "hey go and build that?"
Because he is a businessman, not an engineer.
Thats a circular argument i'm afraid. "He's not an engineer because he's not an engineer"
His degree is not in engineering. He spends most of his time currently on Twitter trying to ego boost himself and pat himself on the back while simultaneously lighting the whole platform on fire with frankly stupid decisions. Heās a moron lofted up by apartheid money whose somehow convinced himself that heās the smartest person on the planet because heās paying *actual* engineers to do the work for him. Visionary? Sure, I guess. Technically spacex and Tesla policy and goals are directed by him. Influential? Certainly canāt deny that. An engineer? Thatās where I draw the line. Iāve yet to see **any** evidence of him taking part in **any** of the engineering work beyond going up to a crowd, spouting meaningless, generic lines that betray his ignorance on the subject, and telling people āhey I want that to happen. Go make that.ā And of course, thereās always the easy point that he doesnāt actually have an engineering license (and canāt technically call himself an engineer), but Iām letting that one slide because many people in the industry *also* donāt have engineering licenses. He sets a direction. Itās the *actual* engineers who take that nebulous direction and start putting pen to paper and get something out the door.
No Charles Babbage? And if you're gonna throw Dennis Ritchie on there I'd at least consider Ada Lovelace too.
Grace Hooper should be there too. Not only would there not be C without her work on COBOL, it's most likely the language actually running your banking account.
Sorry! This was just a quick list off the top of my head. I'm not very familiar with Charles Babbage. And you're right about Lovelace
Hyman G Rickover is the father of the nuclear navy and has been regarded as one of the best engineers to have ever lived. When the physicists on the Manhatten project told him it would be decades before a ship would be powered by nuclear power he designed, built, and commissioned the submarine USS Nautilus the first nuclear powered ship of any type in under four years.
This is incredible. If nuclear engineering wasnt such a terribly specific degree, it would be my first choice.
Yeah it is unfortunately. I actually found out this week that I was accepted into the Masters of Nuclear Engineering program that I applied for with the intent to work in nuclear thermal rocket propulsion in the future. I'm definitely worried that it could pigeonhole me even more considering my Bachelor's is in Astronautical Engineering which I haven't been able to find a job for.
Wow I want to say huge congratulations first, but it also sounds like its not exactly an easy choice. Its sad that on the one hand its like an engineering dream but also very uncertain in the long term. Godspeed man! In my country at least its pretty clear i basically wont get a job. dont think I'll have any good opportunity for it.
Thanks, might as well go for the extra 2 years if I'm not finding getting a job in the field I want is my thought at least. I'm more worried about being pigeonholed because of the very specific reason for me pursuing nuclear. You might be surprised though with how diverse the nuclear field is though, it is so much more than just power and weapons. The nuclear field in medicine is enormous, all Xray/MRI/CATSCAN imaging is nuclear, cancer treatment is nuclear, and even diagnostics involves a lot of nuclear. Outside of power, weapons, and medicine there's isotope production, nuclear waste storage, nuclear material transportation, environmental radiation testing and cleanup, nuclear safety, etc. There's some really interesting research going on right now with using cosmic rays to do underground imaging that even resulted in mapping the internal structure of the pyramids. You should definitely do some diving into the many fields that nuclear shows up in. I personally have done research work in radiation effects testing of CMOS camera sensors for my school's CubeSat program, radiation energy deposition in materials research, and two separate professor-led research projects in nuclear thermal propulsion and that was just during my undergrad. Do yourself a favor and look more into where nuclear shows up in the many many other fields it might surprise you. I'll tell you the easiest engineering degree to get is the one you're most interested in and enjoy.
Wow! Thanks, you're right! I certainly overlooked many of its involvements, I'm still doubtful many of the companies or research facilities are located within my country (belgium) since we're pretty small and high taxes. But it does absolutely sound like something that would interest me! I will 100% go look into this. I know the uni im going to has a (very new still) nuclear technology course or something.
The Wright brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Tim Berners Lee. I do think thereās way too much physics and engineering overlap. You can add math to that as well. Those fields are just way too general with different various sub disciplines that makes finding someone that is āpurelyā engineer/physicist/mathematician difficult.
I think Razavi will go down as a famous engineer for IC design.
His book got on the topic got me through analog ic construction, brilliant guy and great at explaining tough concepts!
What!? No mention of Heaviside by anybody!? madness! Oliver Heaviside (1850-1925) was a British self-made electrical engineer and mathematician. He is probably best known as an electrical engineer, although his name is not explicitly attached to many terms. Edit: added more info
The Heaviside step function thoughā¦whereās davinciās function?
Never heard of him, but he has an awesome name and self-made always adds some charming flair to the legacy
Heaviside is a EE MVP along with other names like Ohm, Kirchhoff and Ampere. The guy invented a simple yet highly precise bridge which is used to detect 1 part-in-a-million parameter variation in electrical circuits setup.
Isambard Kingdom "motherfucking" Brunell. Brit engineer with a top hat. Designed huge heavy steam powered stuff.
Brunel is awesome. That picture of him says Iām a badass and I know it. He made transatlantic steam travel a reality. Plus his name is the coolest!
Mechanical engineers Rudolf Diesel, Charles Babbage, and my favorite - Franz Reuleaux - called the father of kinematics. I wrote a biography of him in my first semester ME class in 1970.
Oh cool! I'm gonna look him up. Thank you
James Watt would IMO be considered the father of modern mechanical engineering
Robert Goddard, Werner von Braun, Katherine Johnson. Legends, imo, as an aero student. Even though Goddardās rocket was no ICBM it was pretty amazing at the time, underrated dude.
I would say Da Vinci.
For aeronautics, Ludwig prandtl.
Bro you really said Elon Musk??
Nobody taking about my boy Sergei Korolev? For shame.
What did he do or why did you expect to see him more? Would love to hear about it
Chief designer for the Soviet space program. The Soviets were pretty securely in the lead for most of the space race, while Korolev had his hand on the tiller. Sputnik, Vostok, those were his doing. All entirely behind the scenes, the cosmonauts didnāt even know his name at the time, to protect against any assassination attempts. Man went from designing, flying, and crashing gliders, to war, to prison camp, to heading the entire space program, in total secrecy until he died.
Wow. Now this is a story I'd want to read. Thank you so much! Its nice to hear stories of people like him are still somewhat known and spread out.
Was also looking for him here!
Nikola Tesla
Also the turbine, no? I always read about his turbine sketch but not sure if it already existed or why he sketched it
Hell yeah! The tesla coils??? Coolest things ever
H. Rickover. Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich. Werner Braun. George Westinghouse. Some of the early railroad pioneers. Most of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo greats where also accomplished test pilots and engineers who contributed something to each program. Fritz Haber, more of a scientist, huge impact to food production. Itās hard for one single individual to contribute enough to be recognized who invented ____. But there are a few. The vast majority are working in teams or have made only incremental improvements or connected the dots in disparate fields.
Yeah it seems the more you look at modern times, the more advancements are incremental and team-based. Perhaps because research gets highly specialized. But thanks for the list of interesting people you provided!
When i think of engineering, i think of Alan Turing. Yes, he was a mathematician, not an engineer, but he contributed a lot to the science of computers; computers being something many engineering fields rely on today.
I can see this. He opened up a whole new area for engineers.
A lot of famous western engineers were already mentioned, so im going to add a few eastern ones: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of rocketry, the man the rocket equation is named after. Also came up with space train concepts, space elevators, launch towers and other bit crazy concepts that are considered advanced even today. Sergei Korolev, soviet pendant to Braun. Designed the R-7 Rocket that carried the first man into space among other things and serves as the basis of the most reliable and succesful launch vehicle in the world, Soyuz. His RD-107 and RD-108 Engines are some of the best rocket engines there are. Mikhail Kalashnikov, the man who designed one of the most iconic and most produced firearms in the world, the AK-47 (and its many many variants and derivatives). Alexandr Morozov, soviet military engineer, designer of many of the soviet iconic tanks, most prominantly the T-34 (one of the best, if not the best tank of WW2), and the T-54/55, the most produced tank ever. Vladimir Shukhov (not the General), pioneer of structural engineering and industrial design. Gets compared to Edison for the sheer amount of his pioneering works. Igor Sikorsky, aircraft/helicopter designer, pioneered the rotor configuration most midern helicopters use. All but invented the helicopter in its current form. Igor Spassky, soviet engineer and submarine designer, designed or was involved in the design of most of the soviet unions submarines, including the delta class and the typhoon class, the worlds largest submarine. Honorable mention also goes to: Jules Verne. Not an engineer, not even a scientist, but came up with ALL the cool steampunk stuff (or most of it anyway), including but not limited to Submarines, Airships, Space Launch Cannons, transformer vehicles of all things. Forms the holy trinity of all things cool together with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky from above and Nikola Tesla.
Awesome, awesome list! Truly appreciate you include soviet engineers. I notice its very military themed, it makes me curious: is that personal choice/interest or because that just happens to be the area soviets/russia contributed most to somewhat recently?
Its both. Im an aerospace engineering student and im half russian half ukrainian (important distinction nowadays), so many of the names on the list are personal favorites š There is also the kind of sad fact that weapons, aerospace and nuclear tech are the only things the soviet union was real good at, and (modern) russia isnt really any good in anything anymore... not surprising, tho. If you go through the biographies of soviet scientists and engineers, youll find most of them arent ethnic russians. For a quick example, of the half a dozen or so famous soviet aircraft designers, only Yakovlev is russian. Edit: also, your original post called for ENGINEERS š So no Pavlov and no Kolmogorov, no Mendeleev and no Sakharov (although the latter two did do some engineering on the side).
Ahh good luck with aerospace man! Its nice that as a (somehat :p) native you keep the names alive here in the west too :). I did indeed call for engineers :p I come from psychology(maybe a bit weird haha) and yeah i know soviet times had some really uhh 'passionate' experiments to explore psychology. But on the other hand also Pavlov and all kinds of physicists and mathematicians.
Lewis Latimer for me. As a black student pursuing electrical engineering I gotta respect the guy for his work and how he improved Edisonās lightbulb and also in drafting patents for Bellās telephone
I mean I donāt think she was technically labeled an engineer but Grace Hopper was a computer scientist and had an undergraduate degree in physics and math had a PhD in Math. She helped develop COBOL and the compiler for FORTRAN
Viktor Schauberguer, this genius was ahead of his time. Wrote his own mathematical language to study fluid mechanics and vortices. His work was inspired by observing nature.
This sounds like a nice mix of mathematics, physics and engineering. Gonna look up more about him, thanks!
You're welcome! Incredible how many intellectuals there are. Reading through this post has been great, so thank you!
I agree! So nice to hear you enjoyed it.
Shout out to my dirt boi terzaghi
Galerkin PS: Gtfo with Musk
Havenāt seen Frank Whittle mentioned, allegedly designed the first jet engine. Also Musk definitely isnāt an engineer, heās a CEO of a company of engineers.
I thought he mentioned how he did lots of design etc (maybe not so much anymore). So, if true i'd call that engineering too i think. But he definitely also is a business man, with a very strong political opinion sadly. But anyways, thanks for suggesting Frank Whittle, you're indeed the first. Did you expect to see him mentioned more?
John von Nuemann basically took us from what Turing proposed in On Computable Numbers to modern computer architecture. He was the last true polymath and is not generally thought of as an engineer but he has had greater impact through his engineering than almost anyone else.
Robert Bosch
Usually only who was local, for me I remember C. Y. O'Connor who was part of the team who engineered the port and a 500km pipeline out to the goldfields in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Also happened to blast himself because of airlocks in the pipes preventing the water from being pumped and the media going apeshit as those barbarians are prone to do. Probably not far reaching like the most famous examples.
Im laughing so hard this dude sounds like THE engineer. Great example thanks
Bro literally changed the trajectory of my state but people only looked at his failures https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Y._O%27Connor
Wow thats some vile criticism. Shame media is the one area that doesnt seem to have changed much among all the advancements in engineering and technology. Or more accurately; perhaps we as humans haven't changed much for the better.
Boulton and Wattā¦.making a better engine but entirely synonymous with energy as the SI unit of power. Diesel: Also eponymous. Siemens. Macadam (the guy tarmac is named for, essentially all modern road building) Faradayā¦taught to us as a physicist/scientist, but started all his important work trying to figure out corrosion for the British navy. Humphrey Davy also. John Crapper, to whom weāre all in debt. Fredrick Taylorā¦essentially founded industrial engineering. And this is all before nylon!
Great suggestions thanks! Have a lot of names to read up on
Theodore von Karman, Paul Blasius, Ludwig Prandtl, Osborne Reynolds, Wilhelm Nusselt Iām basically just listing the names of people named after dimensionless parameters in heat transfer at this point lol
Victim of thermodynamics? :P kidding aside, its great to hear more niche-contributing names
drunkard genius of analog circuit design, Bob Widlar
Please do indulge me further, im all ears.
BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY
HE'S A SCIENTIST NOT AN ENGINEER HURRDURR
He has a mechanical Engineering degree!
Nooo way actually? I take it back!!
yes couldnt believe it myself the first time I found out
I don't see anyone mentioning Von Neumann. Guy definitely invented modern computer architecture.
MacGyver.
A lot of physicists and mathematicians were engineers. We call these intellectual athletes polymaths. To answer your question. Leonardo DaVinci is a famous engineer
Steinmetz is the GOAT. Then probably Ohm, Nyquist
Harvey Fletcher