field list

A course in Engineering

The people who built engineering as we practise it, in the order they arrived.

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Imhotep

2650 BCE – 2600 BCE

Architect of the first pyramid and the earliest named physician in history.

Egypt·Medicine · Engineering

Cai Lun

50 – 121

Standardised papermaking, the substrate of recorded civilisation.

China·Engineering

Zhang Heng

78 – 139

Built the first seismoscope and mapped 2,500 stars.

China·Astronomy · Engineering · Literature

Su Song

1020 – 1101

Built an astronomical clock tower with the first known escapement chain drive.

China·Engineering · Astronomy

Shen Kuo

1031 – 1095

Described the magnetic compass and deduced geological deep time.

China·Astronomy · Engineering · History

Sejong the Great

1397 – 1450

Commissioned Hangul, the alphabet that made Korea literate.

South Korea·Literature · Engineering

Johannes Gutenberg

1400 – 1468

Industrialised the word and detonated the modern world.

Germany·EngineeringFull profile

Leonardo da Vinci

1452 – 1519

Proved that art and science are one act of looking.

Italy·Engineering · Biology · Astronomy · LiteratureFull profile

Mimar Sinan

1489 – 1588

Built over 300 structures including the Selimiye Mosque; Ottoman master architect.

Türkiye·Engineering

Benjamin Franklin

1706 – 1790

Electricity, bifocals, and the American public sphere.

United States·Physics · Literature · Engineering

Nikolaus Otto

1832 – 1891

The four-stroke engine that moved the 20th century.

Germany·Engineering

Alfred Nobel

1833 – 1896

Invented dynamite, then endowed the prizes to redeem the legacy.

Sweden·Chemistry · Engineering

Karl Benz

1844 – 1929

Built and patented the first practical automobile.

Germany·Engineering

Thomas Edison

1847 – 1931

1,093 patents and the industrial research laboratory itself.

United States·Engineering

Nikola Tesla

1856 – 1943

Alternating current, induction motors and radio principles.

Serbia·Engineering · Physics

Frederick Winslow Taylor

1856 – 1915

Scientific management — the origin of every productivity metric and its discontents.

United States·Business · Engineering

Henry Ford

1863 – 1947

The moving assembly line and the five-dollar day created mass consumer industry.

United States·Business · Engineering

Alberto Santos-Dumont

1873 – 1932

Flew the first publicly witnessed powered aircraft in Europe.

Brazil·Engineering

Guglielmo Marconi

1874 – 1937

Made radio a transatlantic reality.

Italy·Engineering · PhysicsNobel

Konrad Zuse

1910 – 1995

Built the first programmable digital computer, the Z3, in 1941.

Germany·Computing · Engineering

Taiichi Ohno

1912 – 1990

Designed the Toyota Production System — lean manufacturing worldwide.

Japan·Business · Engineering

Ernő Rubik

b. 1944

His cube became a global object lesson in group theory.

Hungary·Engineering · Mathematics

Tim Berners-Lee

b. 1955

Wrote the web and gave it away for nothing.

United Kingdom·Computing · EngineeringFull profile