List of inventors killed by their own inventions
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This is a list of inventors whose deaths were in some manner caused by or related to a product, process, procedure, or other innovation that they invented or designed.
Contents |
[edit] Direct casualties
[edit] Automotive
- William Nelson (ca. 1879−1903), a General Electric employee, invented a new way to motorize bicycles. He then fell off his prototype bike during a test run and died. [1]
[edit] Aviation
- Ismail ibn Hammad al-Jawhari (died ca. 1003–1010), a Muslim Kazakh Turkic scholar from Farab, attempted to fly using two wooden wings and a rope. He leapt from the roof of a mosque in Nijabur and flew for some time before eventually falling to his death.[2]
- Otto Lilienthal (1848–1896) died the day after crashing one of his hang gliders. [3]
- Franz Reichelt (1879–1912), a tailor, fell to his death off the first deck of the Eiffel Tower while testing his invention, the coat parachute. It was his first ever attempt with the parachute and he had told the authorities in advance he would test it first with a dummy. [4]
- Michael Dacre (died 2009, age 53) died after testing his flying taxi device designed to accommodate fast and affordable travel among nearby cities. [5]
[edit] Medical
- Marie Curie (1867–1934) invented the process to isolate radium after co-discovering the radioactive elements radium and polonium.[6] She died of aplastic anemia as a result of prolonged exposure to ionizing radiation emanating from her research materials. Radiation's dangers were not yet well understood at the time.[7]
- Thomas Midgley, Jr. was an American chemist, best known for developing the gasoline additive tetraethyl lead and for discovering Freon, a chlorofluorocarbons which contributed to atmospheric ozone depletion. In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted polio which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. This system was the eventual cause of his death when he was accidentally entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55.[8][9][10].
[edit] Popular myths
- Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814) While he did not invent the guillotine, his name became an eponym for it. Rumors circulated that he died by the machine, but historical references show that he died of natural causes in 1814.[11]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ KILLED BY OWN INVENTION; While Trying Motor Bicycle He Had Made, Schenectady Man Meets Death — Article Preview — The New York Times
- ^ google.com Piero Boitani, Winged words: flight in poetry and history. University of Chicago Press, 2007. p. 38
- ^ Biography of Otto Lilienthal Lilienthal Museum
- ^ 2003 Personal Accounts Darwin Awards
- ^ British inventor dies in crash on test flight of his flying taxi
- ^ American Institute of Physics Biography of Marie Curie
- ^ American Institute of Physics Biography of Marie Curie
- ^ Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything. (2003) Broadway Books, USA. ISBN 0-385-66004-9
- ^ Alan Bellows (2007-12-08). "The Ethyl-Poisoned Earth". Damn Interesting. http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=932.
- ^ "Milestones, Nov. 13, 1944" Time, November 13, 1944
- ^ http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2275.html
[edit] Further reading
- E. Cobham Brewer (1898). "Inventors Punished by their own inventions". Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Bartleby. pp. 657–658. http://www.bartleby.com/81/8916.html.
