Tim Berners-Lee
This British computer scientist designed three software programs, URL, HTTP, and HTML, and made them available to the world for free, thereby creating the World Wide Web.
George Boole
This British mathematician's system of logic formed the basis for the binary system, which was used to create on-off situations for the flow of electrons through computer circuits.
James Chadwick
In 1932, this British physicist discovered an electrically neutral particle called the neutron.
Karl Marx
The father of Communism. Author of Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto.
Pierre and Marie Curie
Discoveries in the 1890s concerning the radioactivity of uranium and of radium, a new element, led to the realization that the atom must be divisible.
Albert Einstein
This physicist predicted the possibility of mass being converted into energy.
Alexander Fleming
In 1928, this British scientist discovered penicillin by accident when he noticed a bluish mold growing on one of his dishes of bacteria.
Henry Ford
He made his car company more successful by using precision manufacturing and standard interchangeable parts, and by creating an auto assembly line production system.
Bill Gates
He made his company Microsoft a success by creating standardized software for use by personal computers.
Edwin Hubble
In 1924, this American astronomer determined that the distance from earth to the Andromeda nebula was 2.5 million light years. He thought the universe was like a balloon that kept expanding as galaxies moved further away from one another.
Gregor Mendel
This Austrian monk mated plants with different traits, and discovered that several traits were passed from parents to offspring in predictable ways. He published a paper describing his discoveries in genetics in 1866.
Max Planck
This scientist explained how electrons orbit the nucleus of the atom, and proposed the quantum theory of physics.
Jonas Salk
This scientist's vaccine for polio was chosen for development and testing by the US government. The vaccine was pronounced safe and effective on April 12, 1955.
John Maynard Keynes
English economist whose philosophy was based on the belief that society's economical problems can be better solved by "expert planners" and direct governmental intervention than by the natural, automatic corrections made by a free market.
Alan Turing
The ideas of this British mathematician formed the basis for the Colossus, a computational device built in 1943. The Colossus successfully decoded most of the German radio transmissions made during WWII.
Adam Smith
Scottish born philosopher and economist, known as the "Father of Economics". Author of The Wealth of Nations. His economic philosophy emphasized the concepts of division of labor and free market.
James Watson and Francis Crick
They unraveled the structure of the nucleic acid DNA. In 1953, they stated that the structure they had uncovered suggested a copying mechanism for genetic material.
Economics
The study of the choices that individuals and societies make in the production, distrubution, and consumption of goods.
Capital
Anything used in the production and distrubution of goods and services.
GATT
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. These trade agreements bind members of the World Trade Organization and are based on the idea that free trade is beneficial, protectionism harmful.
Hackers
People who exploit the vulnerability of information online by breaking into computers, either to break secret codes, disrupt communications, or steal by manipulating financial accounts.
Business Cycle
The fluctuations in economic activity characterized by: expansion, peak, recession, and trough.
WTO
An international organization with about 140 member countries, the World Trade Organization often settles trade disputes.
AI
Today artificial intelligence research focuses on the building of the computer hardware needed to make it work, and the creation of software modeled after the human brain.
Socialism
Any economic system based upon collective ownership and control of many or most national resources.
Government
An established system of political administration by which a nation, state, society, or organization is ruled.
Factors of Production
Natural resources, labor, capital, entrepreneurship
Altair 8800
The world's first personal computer had to be built from a do-it-yourself computer kit.
BASIC
In 1977 Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote Beginner All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a language program for the first personal computer.
Comparative Advantage
This law of economics states that people in different regions and countries will be most successful at creating wealth if they focus on doing what they do best.
ENIAC
The US Army teamed up with John Mauchly of the University of Pennsylvania to create the first digital, all-electronic computer weighing thirty tons and equipped with thirty thousand vacuum tubes.
Federal Reserve
This government institution keeps prices from going up or down too fast by regulating the money supply.
Free Market Economy
In this type of economy individuals are able to form their own businesses and create products to sell. Individuals and companies make their own economic decisions with little government interference.
Free Trade
According to this philosophy, countries should not regulate the buying and selling of one another's products.
Global Warming
Scientists believe that human activities, in particular carbon emissions from the industrialized West, have altered the composition of the atmosphere, causing the earth to warm.
Globalization
Countries all over the world have become more and more interconnected economically through trade and communication. Globalization of production means it is often difficult to say that a product is "from" a particular country.
Green Revolution
The development of genetically engineered strains of wheat and rice by Dr. Norman Borlaug led to increased food crops worldwide, and effectively ended the era of chronic hunger and famine in most of the world.
Greenhouse Theory
This theory states that an increase in the atmospheric concentration of gases such as carbon dioxide will lead to increase in global warming.
Jarvik 7
The first artificial heart pumped blood by air pressure, using an outside source of compressed air.
NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement is a trading partnership between the US, Canada, and Mexico formed in the final years of the twentieth century.
Packet Switching
Paul Baran's idea that computer messages could be broken up into small pieces of data allowed computers to share information, leading to the creation of the Internet.
Sustainable Agriculture
Some critics of modern high-yield agriculture advocate the growing of food crops without pesticides and fertilizer. This approach has only been effective on small plots of land.
Tulip Mania
By 1635, much of the Dutch economy was based on the belief that the demand for bulbs would continue to outstrip the supply. After the market crashed in 1636, those who had gambled that demand for bulbs would keep rising lost everything.