Who invented the safety elevator?

Which of these is used to capture solar energy and convert it into thermal energy?

Who founded Tesla Motors?

What was Hugo Junkers’s J-1 Blechesel (“Sheet Metal Donkey”) of 1915?

In the 1970s, which pair of American inventors on the West Coast produced the first personal computer to appeal to a broad market?

What did William Symington invent in 1802 when he put a steam engine, a connecting rod and crank, and a wheel on the Charlotte Dundas?

What was the name given by the Wright brothers to the unique method of controlling their aircraft in flight?

On February 14, 1876, American inventor Elisha Gray arrived at the U.S. Patent Office only hours after his competitor, losing his claim to an epoch-making invention. What was it?

Which European-born inventor secured a fortune by bringing his concept of the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery, to the United States?

Who created the first thermometer?

The 18th-century scientist who first measured both blood pressure in humans and transpiration in plants was also an inventor. He developed technology that could convey fresh air into prisons, ships’ holds, and granaries. Who was he?

Who invented wireless telegraphy?

Because polyacrylonitrile fibres accept a dye and can be spun into light, lofty yarns, they are often used as a substitute for what natural fibre?

The clepsydra was an ancient device that allowed water to flow or drip from a vessel, with the escaping or remaining water being marked against a scale. What did this device measure?

What is a thermocouple used for?

What was launched into Earth orbit in 1990, was repaired by space-walking astronauts, and went on to generate spectacular images that contributed significantly to space science?

Who invented the pendulum clock?

What were early seamen preparing to measure when they tied knots every 47 feet on a rope?

What early vehicles were known as “boneshakers”?

What did Dutch physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek invent in 1745 when he partly filled a glass vial with water, pushed a wire through the cork and into the water, and connected the wire to a friction device that produced static electricity?

What was Peter Peregrinus of Maricourt, a 13th-century French Crusader, referring to when he described the properties of the lodestone in a letter to a soldier named Sygerus of Foucaucourt?

Soldering wire, widely employed in connecting electrical leads, is almost always made of which pair of metals?

What was the Peacemaker of 1873?

Which device did James Watt improve in 1765 by adding a separate condensor?

What technology can be traced to the early 19th century, when Nicéphore Niépce practiced “heliography” with paper, silver salts, and pewter?

What did the 18th-century Scottish millwright Andrew Meikle invent when he constructed a strong drum with fixed beaters that may have been copied from machines used to beat the fibres from flax plants?

What new structural material was introduced by French gardener Joseph Monier in the design of his flowerpots?

In 1801 Johann Wilhelm Ritter discovered that silver chloride was darkened quickly by what invisible radiation present in sunlight?

What is the formal name for a lie detector?

What device, perfected by László Bíró in the 1930s, features a steel ball rotating freely in a socket?

What machine patented by Barthélemy Thimonnier in 1830 was destroyed by rioting tailors?

Who invented the first commercially successful atmospheric steam engine?

Which pioneer of modern rocketry was inspired to his life’s work by a science fiction novel?

When the ancient Romans built an arch for a bridge, aqueduct, or monument, what last piece did they insert to lock the structure in place?

Which dye and flavouring agent, obtained from Crocus sativus, has been used for the colouring the robes of Buddhist priests and as perfume by the ancient Greeks and Romans?

What did French engineer Alphonse Beau de Rochas anticipate in 1862 when he described the intake-compression-power-exhaust sequence?

What device converts sunlight to electricity?

What X-ray technique produces images of internal body structures as visual “slices” of the body?

For his visual signal line, employing a series of towers rigged with two arms that adopted various positions, French engineer Claude Chappe coined which term?

What invention, which soon had a profound effect on science, did Dutch spectacle maker Hans Lippershey present to the government of Holland in 1608?

What new type of transmitting system, patented by American electrical engineer Edwin H. Armstrong in 1933, eliminated static from radio reception?

Binoculars are commonly designated as 6 x 30, 7 x 50, or 8 x 30. What do these numbers indicate?

What did Alfred Nobel invent?

Of what practical use in the 19th century was a Helmholtz resonator (which is, essentially, a hollow sphere communicating with the outside through a short neck and small opening)?

What versatile, easily worked synthetic resin is made into permanent-press fabrics, soft-drink bottles, and party balloons and is among the most widely recycled plastics?

In 1906 Lee de Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube in which small voltage changes at one electrode produced large changes at another. What significant advance did the Audion immediately make possible?

In 1877 Thomas Alva Edison made indentations in a strip of coated paper with a stylus connected to a transmitter. When he pulled the strip back through the apparatus, he was astonished to hear that it produced a sound. What had he just invented?

After gaining fame between 1800 and 1815 for his laboratory work in gases and electrochemical reactions, Humphry Davy went on to produce what practical, everyday invention?

The first one caught fire, the second one now resides at Lake Havasu, Arizona, and the third one still connects a city centre with the borough of Southwark. What are they?

What is the common name for polyhexamethylene adipamide, the first wholly synthetic fibre ever produced?

For what invention did Emperor Napoleon I make Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta a count and senator?

Early windmills transformed the kinetic energy of wind into what form of energy?

While working on models for various wing surfaces, Lawrence Hargrave invented what device?

Cornelis Drebbel’s invention, built of wood and greased leather and propelled by oars, was the first of which type of boat?

When did the first smartphone make its public debut?

Which great engineering project was begun in New York City in 1869 by John Roebling but had to be completed after his death by Emily Warren Roebling, his daughter-in-law?

Which metal is used to make the filament of an incandescent light bulb?

Which strong yet workable form of iron was the dominant engineering metal until it was replaced by steel?

What was George and Robert Stephenson’s Rocket, which reached a speed of 58 km (36 miles) per hour in 1829?

What important new technology was introduced by Vladimir Zworykin’s iconoscope of 1923 and kinescope of 1924?

How was the message “What hath God wrought!” sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland, on May 24, 1844?

What American invention, patented in 1794, changed the economy of an entire region, yet it was “so valuable as to be worthless to the inventor”?

In petroleum refining, what name is given to the process by which heavy hydrocarbon molecules are broken up into lighter molecules by means of heat and pressure?

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, completed in 1932, is an example of what type of bridge?

Igor Sikorsky is best known for his successful development of which of these vehicles?

Beginning in 1994, which American software company offered a simple point-and-click interface for browsing the Internet?

What is the popular name for a compression-ignition engine, in which fuel is ignited without introduction of a spark?

In the early 20th century, kitchen appliances and radios frequently came with knobs and other parts made from what new material?