This year, there have been four Jewish Nobel Prize winners in 6 categories: Physics, Economics, Literature, and Medicine. Now Jews make up nearly a quarter – 22,5% – of the world’s most prestigious award laureates. Even though they only represent around 0.2% of the global population. There are millions of highly educated people all over the world, and yet this contest is often dominated by Jewish scientists.
Somehow, of all the nations, those have been the Jews who gave the world the most Nobel laureates as well as inventions (in percentage terms), and Israel built in the sands and surrounded by hostile neighbors, became a country of startups.
We made a list of the greatest Jewish inventors whose discoveries and inventions once changed the world.
1. Albert Einstein – Theory of relativity
The physicist Albert Einstein is the author of the theory of relativity, which changed the way we understand our Universe. At the dawn of the first technological century, Einstein discovered that matter is inexhaustible in its properties. His famous equation: E = mc 2 has become synonymous with the concept that energy and mass are interchangeable.
2. Sigmund Freud – Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud is generally known as the father of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. He wasn’t the first psychologist, but he is the first person that comes to our mind when we discuss mental disorders.
3
Karl Marx – Communism
Karl Heinrich Marx remains the most influential political philosopher in Jewish and even world history to this day.
4
Theodor Herzl – The Jewish State
The Jewish public figure, journalist, and writer Theodor Herzl wrote a pamphlet in 1896 where he proclaimed the need to create the Jewish state. Although Herzl wasn’t the first writer calling for the return to Zion, it was his utopian article and his political zeal for a Zionist movement that led to the establishment of the State of Israel fifty years later. Herzl is the founder of the World Zionist Organization and the founding father of the ideology of political Zionism.
5
Niels Henrik David Bohr – Theory of nuclear reactions and nuclear energy
Niels Bohr is considered to be one of the founders of modern physics. The scientist has made numerous discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics, the atomic nucleus, and nuclear reactions.
6
Paul Ehrlich – Chemotherapy
Scientist, who worked intensively in the fields of immunology, bacteriology, chemistry, and went down in history as the founder of chemotherapy.
7
Karl Landsteiner – Blood groups and Rh blood factor
He discovered our blood groups and the Rh factor, thereby making blood transfusion a common medical practice.
8
Selman Abraham Waksman – Streptomycin
Selman Waksman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of antibiotics as the most effective medicine, including streptomycin, the first effective treatment for tuberculosis.
9
Gertrude Elion – Acyclovir
She invented the history-making antiviral drug acyclovir, the most effective treatment for infections caused by the herpes virus.
10
Boris Rosing – Television
Even though nearly all the people on the planet have been using the invention of Boris Rosing, his name is known to few. And yet the professor at St. Petersburg Institute of Technology was the first to create and introduce the first electronic television to the world back in 1911.
11
Levi Strauss – Jeans
Jeans, the world's favorite of all time, were invented by Levi Strauss, who ran a dry goods store in California at the height of the Gold Rush. The first jeans were made from tent canvas. This is how a Jewish immigrant from Germany, who’d never even held a pickaxe, hit a gold mine.
12
William Fox – 20th Century Fox
The emergence of one of the six largest American film studios, "20th Century Fox" was a major event in the American film industry. Its creator, a creative businessman William Fox, was actively involved in the development of the film industry in the early 1910s. By the way, it is Fox who is considered a pioneer in creating a chain of movie theatres.
13
Norbert Wiener – Cybernetics
The mathematician Norbert Wiener invented cybernetics, which, in turn, played a role in the development of such revolutionary concepts as artificial intelligence, computer vision, robotics, neuroscience (in the context of neural networks), and many others. He was also the one who introduced the modern meaning of the word "feedback".
14
Emile Berliner – Microphone, gramophone, helicopter
Emile Berliner is the man who gave the world several inventions at once: a microphone, a gramophone, and a helicopter.
15
John George Kemeny – BASIC
John Kemeny is the developer of the programming language BASIC, a computer scientist, educator, and reformer whose legacy is still used today. He was a pioneer in the systematic use of computers in education.
16
Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin – Google
In the late 1990s, Sergey Brin created Google with Larry Page, which changed the world as much as Microsoft and Apple once did, and laid the foundations of the digital economy.
17
Jerome Lemelson – VCR, fax machine, and more
Overall, an independent inventor Jerome Lemelson received 605 patents. He patented an automated warehouse, industrial robots, a talking thermometer, a cordless telephone, an advanced fax machine, and a video cassette recorder. Lemelson's inventions were acquired by at least 700 companies around the world.
18
Isaac Merritt Singer – Sewing machine
As early as at the beginning of the past twentieth century, the name "Singer" (the surname of the inventor and the name of the manufacturing company he established) became synonymous with sewing machines. The famous Indian philosopher and public figure Mahatma Gandhi even said about "Singer" that it’s "one of the few useful things ever invented."
19
Samuel Finley Breese Morse – Telegraph and Morse code
Samuel Morse is an American artist and inventor. In 1837, he created the world's first electromagnetic telegraph device. And in 1838, he invented a telegraph code bearing his name: Morse code.
20
Edouard Benedictus – Bulletproof glass
Edouard Benedictus can best be described by a famous quote "a talented person is talented everywhere." He was passionate about music, painting, design, and among other things, he invented a safety glass, which still saves human lives during car accidents.
21
Mikhail Leontyevich Mil – MI helicopters
The legend of the Soviet and world helicopter industry. A number of helicopters were created under the leadership of Mikhail Mil, including Mi-1, Mi-4, Mi-6, Mi-10, V-12, which have set over 80 official world records.
22
James Maxwell – Theory of the electromagnetic field
James Maxwell is a physicist and author of the theory of the electromagnetic field.
23
Casimir Funk – Vitamins
Everyone who uses vitamins owes it to Casimir Funk, a Polish Jew who systematized the assumptions about the existence of a certain food constituent and gave it the now known name “vitamin”.
24
Max Born – Quantum mechanics
Max Born is one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. The scientist was granted the Nobel Prize in Physics and left his mark in history not only as an outstanding researcher but also as a public figure who advocated peace and nuclear disarmament.
25
Gustav Ludwig Hertz – Quantum mechanics
Gustav Hertz received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1925 " for the discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom" (together with James Franck). The physicist became the first scientist who managed to measure the energy of a quantum.
26
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow – Technique for measuring blood insulin levels
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow developed a radioimmunoassay technique to detect and measure insulin levels in the blood and thus saved millions of lives.
27
Edwin Land – Polaroid camera, spy eavesdropping systems, and more
Edwin Land patented 535 inventions. Among them were polarizer, X-ray film, night-vision military devices, and more. Land's greatest achievement was the Polaroid company he founded, which sold about one billion cameras a year in the mid-1970s. It was he who set the prototype for the successful Silicon Valley startup, and Apple founder Steve Jobs called Land his boyhood idol.
28
Gregory Goodwin Pincus – Birth control pills
Gregory Pincus is known as one of the inventors of the oral contraceptive pill.
29
Vladimir Aronovich Khavkin – Anti-plague and anti-cholera vaccines
Vladimir Khavkin is a bacteriologist, immunologist, and epidemiologist. The savior of humanity and the great philanthropist who created the first vaccines against plague and cholera and tested them on himself.
30
André Citroën – Citroën car
Citroën, a French automobile company founded in 1919 by André Citroën to mass-produce inexpensive vehicles. In fact, Citroën became the first mass-produced car in Europe.
31
August Paul von Wassermann – Test for the diagnosis of syphilis
Bacteriologist and immunologist August Wasserman developed the first test for the diagnosis of syphilis, which is called "the Wasserman reaction".
32
Matvei Bronstein – Quantum theory of gravity
One of the most spellbinding subjects in theoretical physics – the quantum theory of gravity – was first identified by a little-known Soviet physicist named Matvey Bronstein. Not only was he an outstanding theoretician, but he was also a talented teacher and popularizer of science.
33
Ferdinand Julius Cohn – Microbiology
Ferdinand Cohn is one of the founding fathers of modern bacteriology and microbiology.
34
Baruch Samuel Blumberg – Antigen for hepatitis
Baruch Blumberg received a Nobel Prize for "discovering new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases." Blumberg identified the hepatitis B virus and also developed the diagnostic test and vaccine to tackle the virus.
35
Tadeusz Reichstein – Ascorbic acid
In 1933, chemist Tadeusz Reichstein synthesized a powerful antioxidant in his laboratory – L-ascorbic acid, or vitamin C.
36
Isaac Asimov – The Three Laws of Robotics
The three laws of robotics are a set of mandatory rules that must be observed by artificial intelligence to prevent danger to humans. It was first formulated by a science fiction writer Isaac Asimov back in 1942.
- A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
37
Alexander Romanovich Luria – Neuropsychology
The man who created a whole new science at the intersection of psychology and neuroscience – neuropsychology.
38
Robert Hofstadter – Counters for X-rays and gamma rays
Physicist and skilled experimenter Robert Hofstadter developed counters for X-rays and gamma rays, neutrons; investigated the scattering of high-energy electrons and charge distributions of selected nuclei, which led to the discovery of the structure of nucleons.
39
Betty Friedan – Feminism
Betty Friedan is considered the founder of feminism. In 1963, Friedan published the book "The Feminine Mystique", which became a kind of "bible" of independent women. She was the one who introduced the term "sexism" – gender dominance.
40
Paul Berg – Genetic engineering
The phrase "genetic engineering" has become firmly ingrained in the modern lexicon. The fundamental step on this way was taken by the creator of the world's first recombinant DNA, Paul Berg.
41
Alexander Alexandrovich Friedmann – Modern cosmology and the Big Bang theory
Such fundamental concepts as "redshift", "recession of galaxies", "world equations", "models of the Universe", "The Big Bang theory" are inextricably linked with the name of Alexander Friedmann. It’s because Friedmann was the founder of modern cosmology – the study of the physical universe as a whole.
42
Boris Semyonovich Jacobi – Electric motor, electroplating
The first practically useful electric motor, which immediately found its application, was created by the outstanding electrical engineer Boris Jacobi. He also became famous for the discovery of electroplating and designing a letter-printing telegraph device.
43
Hedy Lamarr – Secret Communication System
A Hollywood star passionate about science invented a radio system for preventing jamming and allowed the world to use spread spectrum communication technology. It is due to this that today we can use mobile phones and Wi-Fi.
44
Hyman George Rickover – Nuclear-powered submarine
The creator of the world's first nuclear submarine, Admiral Hyman Rickover will forever remain a cult figure with many legends surrounding his personality that will live on as long as the nuclear fleet lives.
45
Fernand Widal – Test for typhoid fever
Fernand Widal developed a procedure for diagnosing typhoid fever and its prevention (Widal test), as well as a test used to detect some Salmonella infections.
46
Paul Baran – Internet
Computer technologist and inventor Paul Baran developed the computer-to-computer transmission mechanism that formed the basis of the ARPANET, a computer network created in 1969 by the DARPA (United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and the first workable prototype of the Internet. He is often referred to as the "father of the Internet".
47
Clara Zetkin – 8th of March
An advocate for women's rights Clara Zetkin is considered the author of the idea of the International Women's Day – 8th of March.
48
Albert Abraham Michelson – Interferometer
A physicist and brilliant experimenter Albert Michelson designed an interferometer that made it possible to study optical phenomena based on the interferometry of light waves.
49
Hans Albrecht Bethe – Discovery of the source of energy production in stars
Hans Bethe discovered the cycles of thermonuclear reactions, which supply the energy in the stars: proton-proton and carbon-nitrogen.
50
Milton Friedman – Monetary economics
Economist Milton Friedman became the founder of monetarism – a macroeconomic theory that asserts that the amount of money in circulation is the primary factor determining the development of an economy.
51
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg – Facebook
A young programming prodigy Mark Zuckerberg brought the social network Facebook into the world.
52-59
Carl Laemmle – Universal Pictures
Adolph Zukor – Paramount Pictures
William Fox – Fox Film Corporation
Louis B. Mayer – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Harry, Sam, Albert, and Jack Warners – Warner Bros.
Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Each created their own film studio, and together they laid the foundation for the American film industry and gave the world Hollywood.
60-63
Arik Vardi, Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser, and Amnon Amir – First ICQ instant messenger
The world's first messenger ICQ appeared in 1996 and owes its existence to four high school students from Israel.
64
Herman Goldstine – The world's first computer
Herman Goldstine was the curator of the group that developed ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first electronic general-purpose digital computer, which became the prototype of a modern computer.
65
John von Neumann – Modern computer architecture
John von Neumann made a significant contribution to quantum physics, quantum logic, functional analysis, set theory, theoretical computer science, economics, and other branches of science. He is best known as the person whose name is immediately associated with the architecture of most modern computers. To this day, scientists indeed sometimes refer to computers as "von Neumann machine".
66
Larry Page – Google
Larry Page and Sergey Brin co-founded the largest, most popular and progressive search engine on the Internet, Google.
67
Bram Cohen – BitTorrent
BitTorrent, a popular and incredibly useful network protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing over the Internet, is the product of the talented American computer programmer Bram Cohen, who also has Jewish roots.
68
Alon Cohen – VoIP Internet telephony
Israeli businessman and entrepreneur Alon Cohen taught the world to make phone calls over the Internet.
69
Edward Teller – A hydrogen bomb
Physicist Edward Teller is known as "the father of the American hydrogen bomb".
70
Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof – Esperanto
Ludwik Zamenhof known under the pseudonym Doctor Esperanto created Esperanto, the most successful constructed international language in the world.
71
Joseph Pulitzer – Principles of Journalism, Pulitzer Prize and the Statue of Liberty
The most prestigious journalism award in the United States is named after Joseph Pulitzer. And yet, few people know that the symbol of the United States – the famous Statue of Liberty – was brought to Liberty Island thanks to the fund-raising efforts of one of the most famous journalists of all time, Joseph Pulitzer. Through his efforts, the statue, which had already begun to rust in Paris waiting to be loaded onto a ship, was finally delivered to America.
72
Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov – A bone fusion technique
Gavriil Ilizarov created a pioneering apparatus in the field of orthopedic surgery, which brought worldwide fame to its inventor.
73
Jacques Offenbach – Operetta
Jacques Offenbach is one of the inventors of the most democratic genre of musical and theatrical art – operetta.
74-77
Phil Katz, Eugene Roshal, Abraham Lempel, and Jacob Ziv – Data archiving
One of the most popular file archivers, WinZIP, was created by the Jew Phil Katz. The maker and developer of another popular archiver, WinRAR, is a Russian Jew Eugene Roshal. The most famous free (GPL) archiver 7-Zip developed by Russian programmer Igor Pavlov uses the LZMA data compression algorithm, which is based on the development of Israeli Jews Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv.
79
Julius Robert Oppenheimer – Atomic bomb
Theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was in charge of the experiments and procedures that led to the creation of the American atomic bomb, which is why he is often credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb."
80
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann – Homeopathy
Christian Hahnemann, who lived in the 18th century, created homeopathy, a branch of alternative medicine.
81
René Samuel Cassin – The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Jurist René Cassin was one of the principal draftsmen of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Using the list of rights prepared by Canadian law professor John Humphrey as the basis, Cassin came up with the first complete draft of the text, structuring the document and including a preamble and principles.
82
Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman – Proved Poincaré conjecture
The great mathematician of our time, Grigori Perelman, refused to accept a $1 million prize for solving one of the mathematical problems of the millennium – the Poincaré conjecture. He explained his decision simply: "I have everything I want."
83
Otto Fritz Meyerhof – Biochemistry
Otto Meyerhof confirmed the concept of the biochemical unity of life and laid the foundations for modern biochemistry.
84
Sylvan Nathan Goldman – Shopping cart
Nathan Goldman, the owner of a supermarket in Oklahoma, patented the first shopping cart in 1936. Later he also invented a grocery sacker, a milk bottle rack, and considerably improved the modern shopping experience.
85
Robert Adler – Remote control
Robert Adler was an author of the idea and implementer of the modern ultrasonic remote control. He was granted over 50 different patents. By the way, Adler received Emmy Award for his achievements.
86
Akiba Horowitz – Energizer
Having moved to the United States from Minsk, Akiba Horowitz changed his name to Conrad Hubert and opened a novelty shop, which later grew into a well-known company Energizer.
87
Joseph Friedman – Drinking straw
In the mid-30s of the past century, drinking straws were already in use, but they were very uncomfortable. Joseph Friedman figured out how to fix that problem. He dropped in a screw, then wound dental floss around the outside creating ridges, and the straw bent. Only 20 years later, Friedman managed to establish mass production and earn millions of dollars on his invention.
88
Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich – MiG aircraft
Aircraft designer Mikhail Gurevich created MiG aircraft, which subsequently received worldwide recognition.
89
Abraham Nemeth – Nemeth code
Blind mathematician Abraham Nemeth invented the Nemeth code, a raised dots system for writing mathematical symbols and complex scientific formulas. The Nemeth code is still used by the blind around the world.
90
Abram Srulevich Neiman – Anti-theft devices
Abram Neiman invented the first anti-theft devices for cars, motorcycles, and bicycles, as well as the ignition/steering lock.
91
Roland Moreno – Smart cards
Roland Moreno is a businessman and engineer best known as the inventor of the smart card, an electronic memory chip used in credit cards and mobile phone SIM cards.
92
Dov Moran – USB flash drive
Israeli entrepreneur Dov Moran invented the USB flash drive, known to all of us as the "memory stick".
93
Dennis Gabor – Holography
In 1947, physicist Dennis Gabor invented holography. This discovery was not commercially available until another Jewish scientist invented a laser in 1960.
94
Theodore Maiman – Laser
On May 16, 1960, Theodore Maiman demonstrated the world’s first optical quantum generator – laser. Later that year he published his discovery in "Nature" journal.
95
Philippe Kahn – Instant photo sharing online
Philippe Kahn is a technology innovator who developed the first solution for instant photo sharing on public networks. He was also granted several dozen patents in the field of smartphones, wireless communications, synchronization, and medical technologies.
96
Siegfried Samuel Marcus – First automobile
In 1864, engineer and mechanic Siegfried Marcus created one of the first self-propelled gasoline-powered vehicles, and thus became the inventor of the first automobile.
97
Arthur Ernst Eichengrün – Aspirin
Chemist Arthur Eichengrün invented aspirin, a non-flammable movie film, acetate rayon fiber, and more than 40 other inventions.
98
Boris Petrovich Weinberg – Electrical maglev road
Geophysicist, physicist and glaciologist Boris Weinberg created a magnetic levitation road.
99
Simcha Blass – Drip irrigation
The initiator and main figure of nearly all the water development projects in Israel, Simcha Blass, invented drip irrigation.
100
Laszlo Biro – Ballpoint pen and automatic gearbox
During his life, Laszlo Biro made more than 20 inventions, the most well-known of which were the ballpoint pen and automatic gearbox.
101
Anatol Marco Josepho – Photo booth
The Jew Anatol Josepho, born in Omsk in 1894, designed the world's first photo booth in New York in the early 1920s.
102
Amos Edward Joel Jr. – Cell phone
Inventor Amos Joel is one of the cellular industry pioneers. He is an engineer who paved the way for virtually all of today's mobile communications giants, who discovered and developed what he called a mechanism for handoff in cellular communication. The latter technology made it possible to maintain a conversation while traveling from one area to another.
103
Leonard "Lenny" Lipton – 3D
Lenny Lipton was a pioneer in the field of projected three-dimensional imagery. His technology is used to show 3D movies on over 25,000 cinema screens around the world. Lipton held 68 patents related to stereography.
104
Bernard Lown – Defibrillator
Cardiologist Bernard Lown saved millions of lives with the invention of the defibrillator.
105
Alfred Gross – Pager, walkie-talkie
Radio engineer Alfred Gross was a pioneer in mobile wireless communication. He was one of the inventors behind the walkie-talkie, pager, and the cordless telephone.
106
Evelyn Berezin – Text editor
Evelyn Berezin designed the first text editor and the world’s first computer-driven word processor.
107
Ralph Henry Baer – Video game
Ralph Baer is called the "father of video games". Back in 1966, he created the “Brown Box”, the first-ever console video game system.
108
Martin Cooper – Cell phone
On April 3, 1973, Cooper made the first call using the first DynaTAC handheld cellular phone. Cooper called his competitor Joel Engel, head of research at Bell Laboratories (AT&T), to inform him of his priority. The first cell phone weighed a kilogram, and its battery had only 20 minutes of talk time.
107
Arthur Korn – Fax machine
The photoelectric image scanning technology invented by physicist and mathematician Arthur Korn laid the foundation for fax machines.
108
Dean Kamen – Segway
Engineer and entrepreneur Dean Kamen invented the gyroscopic Segway scooter.
109
Bernhard Zondek – Pregnancy test
Endocrinologist and gynecologist Bernhard Zondek developed a pregnancy test in 1927.
110
Bruno Touschek – Electron-positron collider
Physicist Bruno Touschek created the world's first electron-positron collider and authored many pioneering ideas in the field of accelerator physics.
111
Philipp Reis – Telephone
Philipp Reis was the first (Bell’s predecessor) to create a telephone, a device that was capable of transmitting sound and human speech via electrical wires. The apparatus had a microphone of the original design, a power source (galvanic battery), and a speaker. Reis named it “telephone”.
112
Ida Rosenthal – Bra
Dressmaker Ida Rosenthal gave women of her time a bra the way we know it today: a bodice with two cup-shaped pieces linked with a continuous elastic band and with elastic straps.
113
Julius Fromm – Rubber condoms
The chemist Julius Fromm revolutionized the world back in his day: he invented a cement-dipping method of making thinner and seamless rubber condoms as opposed to “skin” condoms that existed at the time.
114-115
Leopold Godowsky and Leopold Mannes – Color photography
The Kodachrome color film was co-developed by professional musicians having the same name: Leopold Mannes (piano) and Leopold Godowsky (violin). Photochemistry was a hobby for them, but it brought them more fame than music.
116-117
Norman Joseph Woodland, Bernard Silver – Barcode
The barcode invented by Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver was inspired by Morse code.