General Knowledge - Inventions and Inventors MCQs

Correct Answer: Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in 1876 and made the first intelligible telephone call that year.

Correct Answer: Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison's 1879 carbon-filament bulb burned for hours and made electric lighting practical; Joseph Swan developed a similar bulb independently in England.

Correct Answer: James Watt

James Watt's separate-condenser improvement (1765, patented 1769) made the steam engine efficient enough to power the Industrial Revolution; earlier atmospheric engines were built by Savery and Newcomen.

Correct Answer: Johannes Gutenberg

Johannes Gutenberg's movable-type printing press (c. 1440, Mainz) made books cheap and plentiful in Europe; movable type had been used earlier in China and Korea.

Correct Answer: Wright Brothers

Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk on 17 December 1903.

Correct Answer: Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi sent the first wireless signals in 1895 and the first transatlantic wireless signal in 1901, building on Hertz's proof of radio waves.

Correct Answer: John Logie Baird

John Logie Baird demonstrated the first working mechanical television system in London in 1926; Farnsworth later developed the first fully electronic television.

Correct Answer: Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine in 1837, a programmable mechanical computer with input, memory and processing - the conceptual ancestor of the modern computer.

Correct Answer: Hans Lippershey

Hans Lippershey, a Dutch spectacle-maker, applied for a patent for the refracting telescope in 1608; Galileo then improved it and turned it to the sky.

Correct Answer: William Cullen

William Cullen demonstrated artificial refrigeration in 1748, producing ice by evaporating ether under a vacuum.

Correct Answer: Elias Howe

Elias Howe patented the first practical lockstitch sewing machine in 1846; Isaac Singer later commercialised it for mass use.

Correct Answer: Joseph Nicephore Niepce

Joseph Nicephore Niepce made the first permanent photograph in 1826-1827, a heliograph exposed for hours on a pewter plate.

Correct Answer: Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel patented dynamite in 1867, stabilising the explosive nitroglycerine (discovered by Sobrero) by absorbing it in kieselguhr.

Correct Answer: Alessandro Volta

Alessandro Volta built the voltaic pile in 1800, the first device to deliver a steady electric current, settling his dispute with Galvani over animal electricity.

Correct Answer: Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, recording sound on tinfoil wrapped around a cylinder; it was his first major invention.

Correct Answer: Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday demonstrated electromagnetic rotation in 1821, the principle behind the electric motor, after Oersted showed that electric currents deflect compass needles.

Correct Answer: Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramid-shaped parachute design around 1485, centuries before any working parachute was built.

Correct Answer: Cornelis Drebbel

Cornelis Drebbel built a rowed, leather-covered wooden submarine that was tested on the Thames in 1620, the first navigable underwater vessel.

Correct Answer: Chinese (Han Dynasty)

The Chinese of the Han Dynasty (around 200 BC) made lodestone compasses, first used for divination and later for navigation at sea.

Correct Answer: Zacharias Janssen

Zacharias Janssen, a Dutch spectacle-maker, is traditionally credited with building one of the first compound microscopes around 1590.

Correct Answer: Evangelista Torricelli

Evangelista Torricelli, a pupil of Galileo, invented the mercury barometer in 1643, proving that air has weight and that a vacuum can exist.

Correct Answer: Christopher Latham Sholes

Christopher Latham Sholes patented the first commercially successful typewriter in 1868; the Remington company marketed it from 1873 with the QWERTY layout.

Correct Answer: Jesse Reno

Jesse Reno patented the inclined elevator, the forerunner of the escalator, in 1891 and installed the first one as a Coney Island ride in 1896.

Correct Answer: Mary Anderson

Mary Anderson patented the first hand-operated windshield wiper in 1903 after watching a New York streetcar driver struggle to see through sleet.

Correct Answer: Igor Sikorsky

Igor Sikorsky's VS-300 (1939) was the first practical single-rotor helicopter, with the tail-rotor layout still used today.

Correct Answer: Willis Carrier

Willis Carrier built the first modern electrical air-conditioning unit in 1902 to control humidity in a Brooklyn printing plant.

Correct Answer: Alexander Graham Bell and Tivadar Puskas

Tivadar Puskas devised the telephone exchange in 1877, and the first commercial exchange opened in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878 under Bell's company.

Correct Answer: James Ritty

James Ritty, an Ohio saloon keeper, patented the first cash register in 1879 to stop his staff pocketing takings; Patterson's National Cash Register company later made it universal.

Correct Answer: Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin in 1793; it separated cotton fibre from seed fifty times faster than by hand and transformed the American South's economy.

Correct Answer: Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei built an improved telescope in 1609 and was the first to use it for systematic astronomy, discovering Jupiter's moons and the phases of Venus.

Correct Answer: Frederick Banting and Charles Best

Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921; the first diabetic patient was treated successfully in January 1922.

Correct Answer: Edwin Land

Edwin Land demonstrated instant photography in 1947 and sold the first Polaroid Land Camera in 1948, producing a finished print in about a minute.

Correct Answer: Walter Hunt

Walter Hunt patented the modern safety pin in 1849, reportedly inventing it in three hours to pay off a fifteen-dollar debt.

Correct Answer: Karel Capek

Karel Capek introduced the word 'robot' in his 1920 play R.U.R. (premiered 1921), about artificial workers who rebel against their makers.

Correct Answer: Percy Spencer

Percy Spencer, a Raytheon engineer, noticed a chocolate bar melting near a magnetron in 1945 and built the first microwave oven from radar technology.

Correct Answer: Theodore Maiman

Theodore Maiman built the first working laser, a ruby laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in 1960, following Townes and Schawlow's maser theory.

Correct Answer: Isaac Singer

Isaac Singer's 1851 sewing machine, with its straight needle and presser foot, was the first practical for factory use, and his instalment-plan selling made it a household machine.

Correct Answer: John Harington

John Harington, a courtier of Elizabeth I, installed the first flushing toilet (the 'Ajax') in 1596; the valve closet of Cummings (1775) made it practical.

Correct Answer: Samuel Morse

Samuel Morse patented his electromagnetic telegraph in 1837 and, with Alfred Vail, developed Morse code; the first Washington-Baltimore line opened in 1844.

Correct Answer: Alexander Bain

Alexander Bain patented the first electric clock in 1840, driven by an electromagnetic pendulum rather than weights or springs.

Correct Answer: Andre-Jacques Garnerin

Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent by a human in 1797, jumping from a balloon over Paris at about 900 metres.

Correct Answer: Martin Cooper

Martin Cooper of Motorola made the first handheld mobile-phone call in New York in April 1973, on a prototype weighing over a kilogram.

Correct Answer: Charles Goodyear

Charles Goodyear discovered vulcanisation in 1839, heating rubber with sulphur so it stayed flexible in heat and cold instead of melting or cracking.

Correct Answer: Christopher Cockerell

Christopher Cockerell patented the hovercraft in 1955 and built the first working model, the SR.N1, which crossed the Channel in 1959.

Correct Answer: Rene Laennec

Rene Laennec invented the stethoscope in 1816, rolling paper into a tube to listen to a patient's chest without placing his ear on it.

Correct Answer: Louis Braille

Louis Braille, blind from childhood, published his raised-dot reading system in 1824 at the age of fifteen, adapting Barbier's night-writing code.

Correct Answer: Tim Berners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989, writing the first web browser and server and releasing the system free of charge in 1993.

Correct Answer: Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin's 1752 kite experiment showed lightning was electricity, and his pointed lightning rod, grounded to the earth, protected buildings from strikes.

Correct Answer: Karl Benz

Karl Benz built the three-wheeled Patent-Motorwagen in 1885, powered by a single-cylinder petrol engine, and patented it in January 1886.

Correct Answer: Rudolf Diesel

Rudolf Diesel patented the compression-ignition engine in 1893; his first successful engine ran in 1897 and was far more efficient than the steam engines of the day.

Correct Answer: Italo Marchiony

Italo Marchiony, a New York street vendor, patented a mould for edible ice-cream cups in 1903; the cone became famous at the 1904 St Louis World's Fair.

Correct Answer: Thomas Parker

Thomas Parker built an electric car in London in 1884, using rechargeable batteries of his own design, and ran electric tramways from Wolverhampton.

Correct Answer: John Boyd Dunlop

John Boyd Dunlop patented the pneumatic tyre in 1887 after making an air-filled tyre for his son's tricycle; Thomson had patented the idea earlier (1845) but never commercialised it.

Correct Answer: Elisha Otis

Elisha Otis invented the safety brake in 1852, a device that stopped an elevator car if its cable broke, and demonstrated it dramatically at the 1854 New York World's Fair.

Correct Answer: Emile Berliner

Emile Berliner patented the gramophone in 1887, using flat discs instead of Edison's cylinders, which made records cheap to press in quantity.

Correct Answer: Shane Chen

Shane Chen invented the Hovertrax self-balancing scooter, patented in 2013, which became the 'hoverboard' craze of 2015.

Correct Answer: Kirkpatrick Macmillan

Kirkpatrick Macmillan, a Scottish blacksmith, built a pedal-driven velocipede around 1839, the first bicycle driven by pedals rather than pushed by foot.

Correct Answer: Laszlo Biro

Laszlo Biro, a Hungarian journalist, patented the first commercially successful ballpoint pen in 1938, using quick-drying newspaper ink fed by a rotating ball tip.

Correct Answer: Charles Seeberger

Charles Seeberger patented the moving-step escalator in 1899, improving on Reno's inclined elevator, and installed the first one at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Correct Answer: Emile Berliner

Emile Berliner's 1887 gramophone used flat discs, and his lateral-cut disc record became the standard format, replacing Edison's cylinders.

Correct Answer: Frank Whittle

Frank Whittle patented the turbojet in 1930 and his engine first ran in 1937; Hans von Ohain's engine flew first, in a Heinkel He 178 in 1939.

Correct Answer: Paul Langevin

Paul Langevin developed the first practical underwater sound-detection system during the First World War, using piezoelectric quartz to send and receive sound pulses for submarine detection.

Correct Answer: Robert Fulton

Robert Fulton's steamboat Clermont made the first commercially successful steam voyage, up the Hudson from New York to Albany, in 1807.

Correct Answer: Josephine Cochrane

Josephine Cochrane patented a machine that washed dishes in a wire rack with jets of soapy water in 1886, and founded the company that became KitchenAid.

Correct Answer: Robert Goddard

Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fuelled rocket in 1926; his work proved rockets could work in a vacuum and pointed the way to space travel.

Correct Answer: Norman Joseph Woodland

Norman Joseph Woodland, with Bernard Silver, devised the barcode, drawing lines in the sand at Miami Beach from Morse code, and patented it in 1952.

Correct Answer: Thomas Rudolphus Dallmeyer

Thomas Rudolphus Dallmeyer produced the first practical photographic telephoto lens, applying for a British patent in 1891, the same year Adolph Miethe applied in Germany.

Correct Answer: Sir Robert Watson-Watt

Robert Watson-Watt demonstrated radio detection of aircraft in 1935, and his Chain Home radar network gave Britain early warning in the Battle of Britain.

Correct Answer: Hubert Cecil Booth

Hubert Cecil Booth patented the first powered suction vacuum cleaner in 1901, after demonstrating that sucking, not blowing, removed dust.

Correct Answer: Nikolaus Otto

Nikolaus Otto built the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine in 1876, using Beau de Rochas's four-stroke cycle of intake, compression, power and exhaust.