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Graduate Level intermediate Inventions Discoveries Scientists Master List General Knowledge
100+ Inventions and Discoveries — Master Reference Table
Expanded master table of 100+ major inventions and scientific discoveries with inventor/discoverer, year, and country for Kerala PSC exams. Supersedes the 50-item note.
Relevant for: Graduate Level Prelims, Secretariat Assistant, LDC, University Assistant
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— Expanded master table of 100+ major inventions and scientific discoveries with inventor/discoverer, year, and country for Kerala PSC exams. Supersedes the 50-item note.
#Inventions
#Discoveries
#Scientists
#Master List
#General Knowledge
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This expanded master table covers 100+ inventions and discoveries — double the coverage of the introductory note. PSC exams consistently ask 2-3 questions from this topic.
Major Inventions — Master Table
| Invention/Discovery | Inventor/Discoverer | Year | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Printing Press (movable type) | Johannes Gutenberg | c. 1440 | Germany |
| Telescope | Hans Lippershey; Galileo improved | 1608 | Netherlands |
| Microscope (compound) | Zacharias Janssen | c. 1590 | Netherlands |
| Thermometer (mercury) | Daniel Fahrenheit | 1714 | Germany |
| Steam Engine (practical) | James Watt | 1769 | Britain |
| Spinning Jenny | James Hargreaves | 1764 | England |
| Cotton Gin | Eli Whitney | 1793 | USA |
| Vaccination (smallpox) | Edward Jenner | 1796 | England |
| Battery (Voltaic Pile) | Alessandro Volta | 1800 | Italy |
| Locomotive (steam) | George Stephenson | 1814 | England |
| Stethoscope | Rene Laennec | 1816 | France |
| Photography | Louis Daguerre / Joseph Niepce | 1837/1826 | France |
| Telegraph | Samuel Morse | 1837 | USA |
| Vulcanised Rubber | Charles Goodyear | 1839 | USA |
| Sewing Machine | Elias Howe | 1846 | USA |
| Safety Pin | Walter Hunt | 1849 | USA |
| Elevator (safety) | Elisha Otis | 1852 | USA |
| Bessemer Process (steel) | Henry Bessemer | 1856 | England |
| Theory of Evolution | Charles Darwin | 1859 | England |
| Dynamite | Alfred Nobel | 1867 | Sweden |
| Periodic Table | Dmitri Mendeleev | 1869 | Russia |
| Telephone | Alexander Graham Bell | 1876 | USA |
| Phonograph | Thomas Edison | 1877 | USA |
| Electric Bulb (practical) | Thomas Edison | 1879 | USA |
| Pasteurisation | Louis Pasteur | 1864 | France |
| Germ Theory of Disease | Louis Pasteur / Robert Koch | 1860s-1880s | France/Germany |
| Rabies Vaccine | Louis Pasteur | 1885 | France |
| Automobile (petrol) | Karl Benz | 1885 | Germany |
| AC Motor/Transformer | Nikola Tesla | 1887 | USA (Serbian-born) |
| Pneumatic Tyre | John Boyd Dunlop | 1888 | Scotland |
| Radio | Guglielmo Marconi | 1895 | Italy |
| X-Ray | Wilhelm Rontgen | 1895 | Germany |
| Cinema (Cinematograph) | Lumiere Brothers | 1895 | France |
| Radioactivity | Henri Becquerel | 1896 | France |
| Radium | Marie and Pierre Curie | 1898 | France (Polish-born) |
| Electron | J.J. Thomson | 1897 | England |
| Aspirin | Felix Hoffmann (Bayer) | 1897 | Germany |
| Quantum Theory | Max Planck | 1900 | Germany |
| Aeroplane | Wright Brothers (Orville and Wilbur) | 1903 | USA |
| Theory of Relativity (Special) | Albert Einstein | 1905 | Germany/Switzerland |
| Photoelectric Effect explained | Albert Einstein | 1905 | Germany |
| Bakelite (first plastic) | Leo Baekeland | 1907 | USA (Belgian-born) |
| Model T Car (assembly line) | Henry Ford | 1908 | USA |
| Atomic Nucleus | Ernest Rutherford | 1911 | New Zealand/Britain |
| Superconductivity | Heike Kamerlingh Onnes | 1911 | Netherlands |
| Vitamin concept | Casimir Funk | 1912 | Poland |
| General Theory of Relativity | Albert Einstein | 1915 | Germany |
| Insulin | Frederick Banting and Charles Best | 1921 | Canada |
| Raman Effect | C.V. Raman | 1928 | India |
| Penicillin | Alexander Fleming | 1928 | Scotland |
| Neutron | James Chadwick | 1932 | England |
| Nuclear Fission | Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann | 1938 | Germany |
| Jet Engine | Frank Whittle / Hans von Ohain | 1937/1939 | England/Germany |
| Helicopter (practical) | Igor Sikorsky | 1939 | USA (Russian-born) |
| Ballpoint Pen | Laszlo Biro | 1938 | Hungary |
| DDT insecticide use | Paul Hermann Muller | 1939 | Switzerland |
| Nuclear Reactor (first sustained) | Enrico Fermi | 1942 | USA (Italian-born) |
| Atomic Bomb | J. Robert Oppenheimer (Manhattan Project) | 1945 | USA |
| Transistor | John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley | 1947 | USA |
| Holography | Dennis Gabor | 1947 | Hungary/Britain |
| Polio Vaccine (injectable) | Jonas Salk | 1955 | USA |
| Polio Vaccine (oral) | Albert Sabin | 1961 | USA (Polish-born) |
| Structure of DNA | James Watson and Francis Crick | 1953 | USA/Britain |
| Laser | Theodore Maiman | 1960 | USA |
| Communication Satellite (Telstar) | Bell Labs | 1962 | USA |
| Heart Transplant (first) | Christiaan Barnard | 1967 | South Africa |
| Microprocessor | Intel (Ted Hoff) | 1971 | USA |
| CT Scanner | Godfrey Hounsfield | 1971 | England |
| MRI | Raymond Damadian / Paul Lauterbur | 1971/1973 | USA |
| Test Tube Baby (first IVF) | Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe | 1978 | England |
| Personal Computer (IBM PC) | IBM | 1981 | USA |
| World Wide Web | Tim Berners-Lee | 1989 | England/Switzerland |
| Dolly the Sheep (cloning) | Ian Wilmut | 1996 | Scotland |
| Human Genome Project completed | International consortium | 2003 | Multiple |
| CRISPR gene editing | Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier | 2012 | USA/France |
| Gravitational Waves detected | LIGO collaboration | 2015 | USA |
| COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines | BioNTech-Pfizer / Moderna | 2020 | Germany-USA / USA |
Scientific Discoveries — Categorised
Physics Discoveries
| Discovery | Scientist | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Laws of Motion | Isaac Newton | 1687 |
| Law of Gravitation | Isaac Newton | 1687 |
| Electromagnetic Induction | Michael Faraday | 1831 |
| Electromagnetic Waves | Heinrich Hertz (proved Maxwell’s theory) | 1887 |
| Photoelectric Effect | Albert Einstein (explanation) | 1905 |
| Atomic Model (planetary) | Niels Bohr | 1913 |
| Uncertainty Principle | Werner Heisenberg | 1927 |
| Raman Effect | C.V. Raman | 1928 |
| Positron | Carl Anderson | 1932 |
| Higgs Boson confirmed | CERN (Peter Higgs predicted 1964) | 2012 |
Chemistry Discoveries
| Discovery | Scientist | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Oxygen | Joseph Priestley / Carl Scheele | 1774/1772 |
| Hydrogen | Henry Cavendish | 1766 |
| Law of Conservation of Mass | Antoine Lavoisier | 1789 |
| Atomic Theory | John Dalton | 1803 |
| Periodic Table | Dmitri Mendeleev | 1869 |
| Noble Gases | William Ramsay | 1894-1898 |
| Radioactivity | Henri Becquerel | 1896 |
| Radium and Polonium | Marie Curie | 1898 |
Biology/Medicine Discoveries
| Discovery | Scientist | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Blood Circulation | William Harvey | 1628 |
| Cell (named) | Robert Hooke | 1665 |
| Bacteria observed | Antonie van Leeuwenhoek | 1676 |
| Vaccination | Edward Jenner | 1796 |
| Cell Theory | Schleiden and Schwann | 1838-39 |
| Germ Theory | Louis Pasteur | 1861 |
| Genetics (Laws of Heredity) | Gregor Mendel | 1866 |
| Chromosomes | Walther Flemming | 1882 |
| Blood Groups | Karl Landsteiner | 1901 |
| Penicillin | Alexander Fleming | 1928 |
| DNA structure | Watson and Crick | 1953 |
Indian Scientists and Their Contributions
| Scientist | Contribution | Year |
|---|---|---|
| C.V. Raman | Raman Effect (Nobel Prize 1930) | 1928 |
| Jagadish Chandra Bose | Radio waves; plant response experiments | 1895 |
| Srinivasa Ramanujan | Mathematical theorems (infinite series, partitions) | 1910s |
| Homi Bhabha | Indian nuclear programme; founded TIFR and BARC | 1940s |
| Vikram Sarabhai | Indian space programme; founded ISRO | 1960s |
| A.P.J. Abdul Kalam | Missile technology (Agni, Prithvi); “Missile Man” | 1980s-90s |
| S. Chandrasekhar | Chandrasekhar limit (white dwarf mass limit; Nobel 1983) | 1930s |
| Har Gobind Khorana | Gene synthesis; genetic code interpretation (Nobel 1968) | 1960s |
| Venkatraman Ramakrishnan | Ribosome structure (Nobel 2009) | 2000s |
| Satyendra Nath Bose | Bose-Einstein statistics; Boson named after him | 1924 |
| Meghnad Saha | Saha ionization equation (thermal ionization) | 1920 |
| Birbal Sahni | Palaeobotany; founded Birbal Sahni Institute | 1920s-40s |
| Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis | Mahalanobis distance; Indian Statistical Institute | 1930s |
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