Buzz
1. George Nissen
George Nissen invented the first ever trampoline in his family garage alongside his gymnastics coach, Larry Griswold. He began by building a rectangular frame, stretching fabric across it, and thus created the world’s first trampoline at just 16 years old.
He then went on to college, where he continued his gymnastics career and even won three NCAA championships at the University of Iowa. After earning his economics degree, Nissen traveled the world and while in Mexico, he learned the Spanish word “trampoline,” which means “springboard.” He later patented his invention under the name trampoline and started selling them globally.
An interesting fact is that in the 1950s, gas stations would purchase trampolines to help keep children entertained while their parents fueled up their cars.
2. Horatio Adams
Horatio Adams invented chewing gum at the age of 15. While entrepreneur Thomas Adams is often credited with the invention of gum, it was actually his son, Horatio Adams, who came up with the idea for the treat.
Adams purchased chicle from Mexico and attempted to turn it into rubber, but soon realized it was chewable. He created 200 pieces of gum and, at just 15 years old, enlisted a local pharmacist to sell them. By the end of the day, all the gum had sold out for one penny a piece.
3. Louis Braille
Inventing the braille system at just 15 years old, Braille was honored as 'The one who brought light to the world of darkness.' His invention is considered a revolutionary change that profoundly impacted the lives of blind individuals worldwide.
As a child, Braille suffered an accident that led to blindness. While studying at a school for the blind in Paris, he discovered that the institution had a system of raised books that allowed students to 'read' by touch.
Braille decided to create a raised dot system for the blind, which continues to be used globally today. He made this breakthrough when he was only 15.
In 1828, Braille became an assistant teacher and was later appointed as a full-time teacher at the school he had attended. He taught various subjects, including grammar, history, geography, algebra, geometry, and music...
In 1829, he published his first book, which is still used as an official textbook in schools. The title was “A Method for Writing in Music and Simple Songs by Dot Marks for the Blind, Designed for Use by Louis Braille, Teacher at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth.”
In 1830, Braille began showing symptoms of tuberculosis. By 1840, he focused solely on teaching music. He passed away on January 6, 1852, at the age of 43.
In 1895, his invention was globally recognized as an indispensable tool in blind education. The Braille system was introduced to Vietnam in 1898.
4. Philo Farnsworth
Philo Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) is considered the father of modern television. He conceived the idea at the age of 14 when he sketched the first blueprint for today’s electronic television.
However, Philo Farnsworth was unlike other great inventors in that he had a strong aversion to discussing his 'child' — his invention. The story began when he was just over 22 years old.
Throughout his life, he worked tirelessly to develop the world's first electronic image display device. He is regarded as the father of modern television. Some of his other inventions include the image dissector tube and the image analysis system.
Philo Farnsworth laid the foundation for the television industry and helped it grow and evolve into the technology we have today. Despite this, his invention was not initially recognized by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and it took years of legal battles before he was awarded the patent for the television.
5. Peter Chilvers
In 1958, 12-year-old Peter Chilvers invented the world's first sailboard. Living on Hayling Island, on the southern coast of England, Chilvers was skilled in a wide range of water sports. One day, he decided to attach a sail to his surfboard, thus creating the sport of windsurfing.
Chilvers later worked as an engineer for Lotus and founded a sailing and windsurfing center in London. He developed the Windsurfer while living on Hayling Island in 1958.
In the 1970s, Chilvers established the East End London Windsurfing Centre as a charitable initiative to promote sailing and windsurfing among underprivileged children. He ran and maintained the center for more than 25 years.
Later, he bid for a £40 million windsurfing and sailing center on Hayling Island to rejuvenate the area and honor it as the birthplace of windsurfing, the place where he grew up.
Chilvers continues to have a significant impact on windsurfing today. He founded the East End London Windsurfing Centre for disadvantaged children and is now working on a €40 million project to build a windsurfing and sailing center in his hometown of Hayling Island. He passed away from lung cancer on February 26, 2015.
6. Becky Schroeder
Becky Schroeder invented glow-in-the-dark paper at the age of 12: In 1974, Becky Schroeder created glowing paper and became the youngest woman in the United States to receive a patent.
One evening, 10-year-old Becky was struggling to do her homework in the car, but the light was fading. She had the idea to create glowing paper to make it easier to see. She began researching phosphorescent materials, which could glow without generating heat. At just 12 years old, she successfully developed the first sheets of glowing paper.
7. Frank Epperson
In 1905, 11-year-old Frank Epperson accidentally left a cup of water mixed with soda powder and a stirring stick on his porch.
That cold evening, the mixture froze overnight. The next morning, Epperson tasted it and found it delicious, naming his creation the "Epsicle."
Despite not pursuing his accidental invention, Epperson continued making the treat for his children. It wasn't until 1923 that he commercialized it and patented the idea. He later introduced new flavors and began distributing his popsicles to the public.
8. Jack Andraka
At just 15 years old, Jack Andraka invented a carbon nanotube sensor that could save thousands of lives by detecting pancreatic cancer. For decades, the ELISA test for cancer detection had been expensive, unreliable, and outdated. However, Andraka, alongside his mentor at Johns Hopkins University, developed a much cheaper and more reliable alternative using carbon nanotubes.
Initially, 199 labs rejected Andraka's idea, but eventually, one professor gave him a chance to present his work and helped him bring it to life.
For his groundbreaking innovation, Andraka received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award and was awarded $75,000 (approximately 1.7 billion VND) at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
9. George Westinghouse
George Westinghouse (1846-1914) was an American entrepreneur and engineer. He was a key figure in the electrical industry of the 19th century and played a major role in the Second Industrial Revolution.
Westinghouse founded the Westinghouse Electric Company and was a strong advocate for the use of alternating current (AC) due to its superior capabilities. This put him in direct competition with the great inventor Thomas Edison, who championed direct current (DC).
The rivalry between Edison and Westinghouse became known as the 'War of Currents.' Westinghouse also invented the air brake in 1868, revolutionizing transportation, particularly in railroads. His inventions allowed trains to travel faster while improving safety.
George Westinghouse invented the rotary steam engine at just 19 years old. In 1865, he received his first patent for the rotary steam engine, one of many patents he would go on to receive.
By 1905, around 2 million vehicles and 90,000 locomotives were equipped with Westinghouse's automatic quick-action air brake system.
10. Blaise Pascal
Everyone knows Blaise Pascal as a brilliant mathematician and a great scientist, but few are aware that he was the first to highlight the inherent limits of mathematics and rational thought. Three hundred years later, Pascal's philosophy was mathematically proven by Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems.
As a young prodigy, Pascal received his education from his father, a tax official in Rouen, after the early death of his mother. His early research focused on natural sciences and applied science, contributing significantly to the study of fluids and advancing the understanding of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.
In 1642, as a teenager, Pascal began pioneering work on computing machines. After three years of effort and fifty prototypes, he invented the mechanical calculator, building 20 of these machines (later known as the Pascaline) over the next ten years.
Pascal was a renowned mathematician who contributed to two key fields: writing an outstanding treatise on projective geometry at just 16, and engaging in correspondence with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, which had a profound impact on the development of economics and modern social sciences.
Following in the footsteps of Galileo and Torricelli, in 1646 he refuted Aristotelian views on the nature of the vacuum. His research sparked considerable debate before eventually being accepted.
Pascal's groundbreaking work was so impressive that Descartes believed it was written by Pascal's father. When Mersenne insisted that the work was indeed that of the young Pascal, Descartes was skeptical, stating, "I find it surprising that a sixteen-year-old boy would propose problems relating to this subject."
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Scotland on March 3, 1847, the second of three sons. His brothers, Melville James Bell (1845-1870) and Edward Charles Bell (1848-1867), both tragically died from pneumonia. His father, Professor Alexander Melville Bell, and his mother, Eliza Grace Symonds Bell, both played pivotal roles in his life.
The Bell family was deeply involved in the art of speech. From his grandfather in London to his uncle in Dublin and his father in Edinburgh, they were all professional orators. His father authored several influential books on the subject, some of which remain valuable today.
Alexander received his education at the Royal High School of Edinburgh, followed by studies at the University of Edinburgh, but he graduated from the University of Toronto. His interest in acoustics was sparked by his desire to improve the hearing of his deaf mother.
In 1870, at the age of 23, he immigrated to Canada with his parents and settled in Brantford, Ontario. In Canada, Bell continued his studies on human speech and the mechanics of the ear, eventually discovering a method of transmitting sound electrically. Bell's own voice became the first to be transmitted over what would become the telephone.
The invention of the telephone came about when Bell accidentally spilled acid on a telephone wire. He quickly called his assistant, shouting, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." Watson heard Bell's voice over the telephone and rushed to answer. Bell realized that his experiment had succeeded, marking the birth of a new era in communication, replacing Morse code with the telephone. Bell was also honored for his contributions to the deaf community.
