Invention and Inventor Quiz

The transistor radio was invented by the Japanese company Sony (old name Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation). For several months, the founder of Sony, Masaru Ibuka traveled around the United States borrowing ideas from the American transistor manufacturers. Improving upon the ideas, Sony made its first functional transistor radio in 1954.

Edward Jenner was an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines including creating the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The basis for vaccination began in 1796 when He noticed that milkmaids who had gotten cowpox were protected from smallpox.

In 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk developed the first injectable vaccine against polio. Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) was developed by Dr Albert Sabin in 1961.

Sir James Young Simpson discovered the anesthetic properties of chloroform and pioneered its application in surgery and midwifery. The first narcosis with chloroform was performed by Simpson on himself on November 4, 1847.

Greek mathematician Euclid (lived 300 BCE) is often referred to as the 'founder of geometry' or 'father of geometry'. He is best known for his geometry book, the Elements.

The human blood groups were discovered by Austrian-born American biologist Karl Landsteiner in 1901. In 1900 Karl Landsteiner found out that the blood of two people under contact agglutinates, and in 1901 he found that this effect was due to contact of blood with blood serum. As a result, he succeeded in identifying the three blood groups A, B and O, which he labelled C, of human blood.

Herodotus (484-425/413 BCE) was a Greek writer who invented the field of study known today as history. He was called 'The Father of History' by the Roman writer and orator Cicero for his famous work The Histories.

Revealed Preference Theory was propounded by American economist Paul Anthony Samuelson in 1938. This theory states that consumer behaviour, if their income and the item's price are held constant, is the best indicator of their preferences.

Pierre de Coubertin is known as the father of the modern Olympic Games. He was a French educator and historian, founder of the International Olympic Committee, and its second president. He was particularly active in promoting the introduction of sport in French schools.

German chemist Otto Hahn (1879-1968) invented the atom bomb in 1938. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and the godfather of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner discovered radioactive isotopes of radium, thorium, protactinium and uranium. J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) is known as the 'father of the atomic bomb' for their role in the Manhattan Project – the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons.