List of people considered father or mother of a field

Often, discoveries and innovations are the work of multiple people, resulting from continual improvements over time. However, certain individuals are remembered for making significant contributions to the birth or development of a field or technology. These individuals may often be described as the "father" or "mother" of a particular field or invention, mostly in Western societies.

Fine art

Subject Father/mother Reason
Cowboy sculpture Frederic Remington Created first bronze cowboy sculpture in 1895
Japanese Manga (comics) and Anime (animation) Osamu Tezuka Creator of Manga (Japanese comics) and Anime (Japanese Animation)

Games

Subject Father/mother Reason
Collectible card game Richard Garfield Creator of Magic: The Gathering
Miniature wargaming H. G. Wells Publication of Little Wars
Modern video game Ralph H. Baer
Nolan Bushnell
Magnavox Odyssey, Pong
Role-playing game Gary Gygax Creator of Dungeons & Dragons
Stealth game Hideo Kojima Creator of the Metal Gear stealth-action games
Video game Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. Inventor of the first video game[dubious ]
Video game industry Ralph H. Baer Creator of the Magnavox Odyssey; inventor of the first home video game console
Wargaming Charles S. Roberts Designer of Tactics

Humanities

Military

Subject Father/mother Reason
Atomic bomb Enrico Fermi
Robert Oppenheimer
Leó Szilárd
Blitzkrieg Heinz Guderian
Hydrogen bomb Edward Teller Member of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s
Atomic submarine and "nuclear navy" Hyman G. Rickover
Fourth Generation Warfare William S. Lind[citation needed]
The Soviet Union's Hydrogen Bomb Andrei Sakharov
Tank Ernest Swinton (British), Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne (French) The need for armored and armed tracked vehicals to break the stalemate of trench warfare in WWI was noticed early on in the war by Winston Churchill and the British Landship Committee with Ernest Swinton working on British development and Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne credited for coming up with the French version

Nations

Natural and social sciences

Sports

Subject Father/mother Reason
1:8 radio-controlled off-road buggy Yuichi Kanai (godfather) Kyosho's lead designer and lifelong employee; best known for the Inferno series of cars, credited for redefining the class from being unreliable and fragile to being tough and user friendlier that helped his employer to lead the 1/8 buggy renaissance from the 1990s, becoming one of the most dominant cars of all time.
American football Walter Camp Established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, and the concept of downs
American motocross Edison Dye Introduced motorcross to American riders
American road racing Cameron Argetsinger Introduced the first US auto race that was dedicated to road courses at Watkins Glen
American sports car Fred Tone Fred Tone was the engineer who designed the first sports car known as the American Underslung
American soccer Steve Ross (godfather) Created the New York Cosmos soccer team and imported a number of well known international footballers to the team in an attempt to bring interest to soccer in the US
Angling Izaak Walton Author of The Compleat Angler
Argentine football Alexander Watson Hutton
Argentine professional golf José Jurado
Argentine winter sports Otto Meiling
Association football Ebenezer Cobb Morley
Australian rules football Tom Wills
H. C. A. Harrison
Baseball Henry Chadwick
Taekwondo in India Puran Andrew Gurung
Basketball James Naismith Created basketball
Black basketball Edwin Henderson Introduced the sport to the black community of Washington, D.C. in the first decade of the 20th century, and organized many early competitions for African Americans
BMX Scot Breithaupt
Brahma bull riding Earl W. Bascom
Brazilian football Charles William Miller
Camel Lights Jim Downing Built a racecar a season before it became the basis of a new lightweight prototype class in 1985
Canadian rodeo O. Raymond Knight Coined the rodeo term "stampede" and was world's first rodeo producer, rodeo stock contractor, and rodeo champion in 1902
Modern chess Wilhelm Steinitz First official world chess champion
Drag racing Wally Parks Founder of the NHRA and organized the first legitimate drag race
Don Garlits Innovator of drag racing safety
Eddie Hill Regarded as the "Four Father" of drag racing for being the first to break the 5-second barrier. AKA "First in the Fours."
Drifting Kunimitsu Takahashi Introduced an aggressive high speed cornering technique that became widely used for illicit purposes, which eventually became a sport
East Coast skateboarding Vinny Raffa (godfather)
Florida skateboarding Bruce Walker (godfather)
Modern football Ebenezer Cobb Morley
Freestyle BMX Bob Haro
Freestyle Motocross Mike Metzger (godfather) [why?]
Funny Car Dick Landy
Modern gymnastic Friedrich Ludwig Jahn
Modern Handball Karl Schelenz
Ice hockey James Creighton Captained one of the two teams that participated in the first indoor hockey game on 3 March 1875 in Montreal
Import drag racing Frank Choi Hosted one of the first events specifically for import cars in the mid-1990s to keep drivers out of street racing that progressed into a professional category
Italian football James Richardson Spensley Associated with Genoa CFC; contributed to the modern day-variation of the game in Italy
William Garbutt Laid the foundations of skilled coaching in Italian football
Japanese baseball Horace Wilson Credited with introducing baseball in Japan
Hiroshi Hiraoka Credited with establishing the first baseball team
Jogging Jim Fixx Founding father[why?]
Kart racing Art Ingels Developed the world's first kart (1956)
Kenyan running Colm O'Connell Founded the first running camp in Kenya
Lacrosse William George Beers Codified the sport from its original Indigenous American formation
Mexican taekwondo Dai-won Moon Credited with introducing the sport to Mexico; founded school that has trained tens of thousands in the sport
Mississippi rodeo Earl W. Bascom
Weldon Bascom
Produced the first rodeo in Columbia, Mississippi in 1935
Mixed martial arts Edward William Barton-Wright Experimented 1898–1902 with Shinden Fudo Ryu jujutsu, Kodokan judo, British boxing, Swiss schwingen, French savate and a defensive la canne (stick fighting) style that had been developed by Pierre Vigny of Switzerland, which led to the invention of Bartitsu
Model aviation Joseph S. Ott Chicago Tribune, in an obituary, referred him as the father mainly for his designs of thousands of model aircraft spanning from the 1920s up to his death in 1986.
Modern bodybuilding Eugen Sandow
Harold Zinkin Called so by Arnold Schwarzenegger during a press statement on his passing in 2004; inventor of modern exercise machines
Modern boxing James Figg James J.Corbett The Father of Modern American Scientific Boxing
Modern figure skating Jackson Haines "Jackson Haines — The Father of Figure Skating", according to Roy Blakey
Modern football in Japan Dettmar Cramer
Modern rodeo Earl W. Bascom Inventor of rodeo gear and equipment that made rodeo into a modern international sport
Modern tennis Jack Kramer Creator of the "Open"-era tournaments and the Association of Tennis Professionals
Puroresu Rikidōzan
Para-equestrian dressage Lee Pearson (godfather) Most decorated para-equestrian rider of all time
Organized radio controlled racing Ted Longshaw Regarded as a grandfather of the sport; founded an organization for racing in the United Kingdom (1971); founded governing bodies for organized racing in Europe (1973), the far east (1980) and worldwide (1979)
Roger Curtis Co-founder of Associated Electrics, one of the most significant R/C car brands; contributed to racing
Modern sabre fencing Italo Santelli
Modern surfing Duke Kahanamoku
Rodeo bareback bronc riding Earl W. Bascom Designed and made the first one-hand rigging in 1924
Rugby union A. G. Guillemard
William Webb Ellis "Who with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time first took the ball in his arms and ran with it thus originating the distinctive feature of the rugby game".
Scuba diving Jacques Cousteau Developed the aqua-lung jointly with Émile Gagnan; popularized scuba diving as a research diver, writer, and film and television producer and personality
Skateboarding Skip Engblom (godfather)
Tony Hawk (godfather)
Rodney Mullen (godfather)
Snooker Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain Adopted the name and framed the rules in Ooty, India
Snowboarding Jake Burton Carpenter
Stock car racing Bill France Sr. Founded the sanctioning body for stock car racing
Supercross Mike Goodwin Organized the first supercross race
Telemark skiing Sondre Norheim
Televised golf Frank Chirkinian Personally responsible for much of the production conventions of modern golf broadcasting

Technology

Fields

Subject Father/mother Reason
Aerodynamics (modern) Sir George Cayley Founding father of modern aerodynamics; first to identify the four aerodynamic forces of flight—weight, lift, drag, and thrust; modern airplane design is based on those discoveries
American landscape architecture Frederick Law Olmsted Olmsted designed Central Park in New York City
Architecture Imhotep Built the first pyramid
Astronautics Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Sergei Korolev
Robert H. Goddard
Hermann Oberth
Aviation Father Francesco Lana-Terzi and Abbas ibn Firnas Ibn Firnas built the first human carrying glider and is reputed to have attempted two successful flights. Wrote Prodromo alla Arte Maestra (1670); first to describe the geometry and physics of a flying vessel
Bionanotechnology Carlo Montemagno The development of biomolecular motors for powering inorganic nanodevices while at Cornell and muscle-driven self-assembled nanodevices while at UCLA.
British watchmaking Thomas Tompion
Clinical trials James Lind Conducted the first controlled clinical trial in the modern era of medicine, an investigation on using citrus food as a treatment for scurvy aboard HMS Salisbury in 1747
Computing Charles Babbage Inventor of the analytical engine, which was never constructed in his lifetime
Cybernetics Norbert Wiener
Gastrointestinal physiology William Beaumont
Genetics Gregor Johann Mendel Founder of genetics.
Green Revolution Norman Borlaug
Microscopy Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Information theory Claude Shannon
Modern bladesmithing William F. Moran Founder of the American Bladesmith Society
Modern kinematics Ferdinand Freudenstein Applied digital computation to the kinematic synthesis of mechanisms
Modern Knifemaking Bob Loveless Founder of the Knifemakers' Guild
Nanotechnology Richard Smalley Nobel Prize Biography
Photography Louis Daguerre
Nicéphore Niépce
William Henry Fox Talbot
Thomas Wedgwood
Robotics Ismail al-Jazari
Banū Mūsā brothers
Ismail al-Jazari Invented the first programmable humanoid robot in 1206
The Bānu Musā brothers invented an automatic flute which may have been the first programmable machine
Western fiction novels Owen Wister Wister wrote the first fictional western novel The Virginian in 1902

Computing

Subject Father/mother Reason
C (programming language) Dennis Ritchie
Assembler Nathaniel Rochester
Concurrent computing/Concurrent programming Edsger W. Dijkstra In his 2004 memoir, "A Programmer's Story: The Life of a Computer Pioneer", Per Brinch Hansen wrote that he used "Cooperating Sequential Processes" to guide his work implementing multiprogramming on the RC 4000, and described it saying, "One of the great works in computer programming, this masterpiece laid the conceptual foundation for concurrent programming."
Compiler John Backus Credited as having introduced the first complete compiler in 1957, although rudimental compilers (linker) were created by Grace Hopper in 1952 and by J. Halcombe Laning and Neal Zerlier (Laning and Zierler system) in 1954.
Computer Charles Babbage The concepts he pioneered in his analytical engine later formed the basis of modern computers.
Alan Turing Secret code breaker during WWII; invented the Turing machine (1936)
John V. Atanasoff Invented the digital computer in the 1930s
Konrad Zuse Invented world's first functional program-controlled computer
John von Neumann Became "intrigued" with Turing's universal machine and later emphasised the importance of the stored-program concept for electronic computing (1945), including the possibility of allowing the machine to modify its own program in useful ways while running. John von Neumann is also considered to be the inventor of flowchart.
John W. Mauchly
J.Presper Eckert
Invented the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) in 1946. ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems.
Computer program Ada Lovelace Recognized by historians as the writer of the world's first computer program which was for the Charles Babbage Analytical Engine, but was never completed.
Internet Vint Cerf Bob Kahn Developed the Internet Protocol (IP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) during 1973-81, the two original protocols of the Internet protocol suite. There were many other Internet pioneers involved in the creation of the Internet.
Logo (programming language) Seymour Papert
Microprocessor Federico Faggin

Marcian Hoff

Stanley Mazor
Masatoshi Shima

Designers of the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004.
Packet switching Paul Baran

Donald Davies

Recognized by historians and the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame for independently inventing the concept of digital packet switching used in modern computer networking including the Internet. Baran published a series of briefings and papers about dividing information into “message blocks” and sending it over distributed networks between 1960–1964. Davies conceived of and named the concept of packet switching in data communication networks in 1965. Many of the wide-area packet-switched networks built in the 1970s were similar "in nearly all respects" to Davies' original 1965 design.

Larry Roberts learned about Davies' and Baran's work at the inaugural Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in October 1967. He and Leonard Kleinrock subsequently worked on the ARPANET, but their claims to have originated the concept of packet switching are disputed by other Internet pioneers, including by Robert Taylor, Paul Baran, and Donald Davies.

Pentium microprocessor Vinod Dham The original Pentium (P5) was developed by a team of engineers, including John H. Crawford, chief architect of the original 386, and Donald Alpert, who managed the architectural team. Dror Avnon managed the design of the FPU. Dham was general manager of the P5 group. Some media sources have called him the "father of the Pentium".
Personal computer Chuck Peddle Developed the 6502 microprocessor, the KIM-1 and the Commodore PET
Henry Edward "Ed" Roberts
André Truong Trong Thi
Programmable logic controller Dick Morley[citation needed]
Python (programming language) Guido van Rossum
Search engine Alan Emtage Created Archie, a pre-Web search engine which pioneered many of the techniques used by subsequent search engines
SGML Charles Goldfarb
Spreadsheet Dan Bricklin Invented the VisiCalc spreadsheet program, which was the killer application of the Apple II. VisiCalc is considered the first killer app in computer history.
Self-stabilization (Self-stabilizing distributed systems) Edsger W. Dijkstra
Structured programming Edsger W. Dijkstra
World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
Visual Basic Alan Cooper
XML Jon Bosak
Wi-Fi Vic Hayes

Inventions

Subject Father/mother Reason
AC induction motor Nikola Tesla Inventor of the AC induction motor, the foundation of the electric power grids worldwide for the transmission and distribution of electric power.
Airplane Wright brothers Invented the first successful powered fixed-wing aircraft, upon which further aircraft designs, methods of flight, and aircraft control systems were based.
Air conditioning Willis Carrier
Battery Alessandro Volta Invented the first electrical battery, the Voltaic pile.
Canning Nicolas Appert
Chronograph George Graham Referred so by Bernard Humbert of the Horology School of Bienne on his 1990 book The Chronograph as Graham was the first to construct a horological mechanism
Color photography Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky A Russian chemist and photographer. He is best known for his pioneering work in color photography of early 20th-century Russia.
Compact Disc Kees Immink
Ekranoplan Rostislav Alexeev Alexeyev revolutionised the shipbuilding industry (though in secrecy) by inventing craft that use ground effect, whereby a wing traveling close to the ground is provided with a better lift-drag ratio - thereby enabling a combination of greater aircraft weight for less power and/or enhanced fuel economy.
Electric generator Michael Faraday Discoverer of electromagnetism. Inventor of the Faraday disk, the first electric generator and the Faraday cage.
Modern firearms John Moses Browning Browning revolutionized the firearm industry with his automatic rifles that were manufactured by Winchester, Colt, Remington and Savage
Glow plug engine Ray Arden Invented the first glow plug for model engines
Helicopter Igor Sikorsky Invented the first successful helicopter, upon which further designs were based.
Instant noodle Momofuku Ando Inventor of the instant noodle, also founder of Nissin Foods to produce and market them.
Japanese television Kenjiro Takayanagi
Jet engine Frank Whittle
Hans von Ohain
Von Ohain´s design, an axial-flow engine, as opposed to Whittle's centrifugal flow engine, was eventually adopted by most manufacturers by the 1950's.
Karaoke Daisuke Inoue Inventor of the machine as a means of allowing people to sing without the need of a live back-up.
Laser Charles Hard Townes
Lightning prediction system Alexander Stepanovich Popov The first lightning prediction system, the Lightning detector, was invented in 1894 by Alexander Stepanovich Popov.
Marine chronometer John Harrison
Mobile phone Martin Cooper
Periodic table Dmitri Mendeleev Russian chemist, Dmitri Mendeleev, arranged the elements in an order that we would now recognise. He realised that the physical and chemical properties of elements were related to their atomic mass in a 'periodic' way, and arranged them so that groups of elements with similar properties fell into vertical columns in his table.
Plastics Leo Baekeland Baekeland was responsible for the creation of Bakelite, an early marketable plastic, in 1907.
Printing press Johannes Gutenberg Inventor of the movable type printing press, which led to a sharp worldwide increase in literacy, education and mass communication. It also led to the spread and sharing of knowledge.
Radio (radio communication) Guglielmo Marconi Developed the first form of radio wireless telegraphy
Radio (Radio broadcasting) Reginald Fessenden[citation needed]
David Sarnoff[citation needed]
Fessenden is credited as the first to broadcast radio signals on Christmas Eve, 1906. Sarnoff proposed a chain of radio stations to Marconi's associates in 1915.
Radio (FM radio) Edwin H. Armstrong[citation needed] Obtained the first Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license to operate an FM station in Alpine, New Jersey at approximately 50 megahertz (1939)
Radiotelephony Reginald Fessenden
Spread spectrum Paul Beard Inventor of the spread spectrum, created Spektrum to promote its use.
Telephone Johann Philipp Reis
Antonio Meucci
Alexander Graham Bell
See Invention of the telephone
Television Paul Gottlieb Nipkow

Philo T. Farnsworth

Vladimir Zworykin

John Logie Baird

Co-inventors of the electronic television, Farnsworth invented the Image dissector while Zworykin created the Iconoscope, both fully electronic forms of television. Logie Baird invented the world's first working television system, also the first electronic color television system. Fundamental to Baird's system was the Nipkow disk, invented by Paul Gotlieb Nipkow.
Tokamak Lev Artsimovich
Tube structure Fazlur Rahman Khan One of the greatest engineers of the 20th century. Invented the tube structural system and first employed it in his designs for the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments, John Hancock Center and Sears Tower.
Video game console Ralph H. Baer Creator of the Magnavox Odyssey; inventor of the first video game console

Transport

Subject Father/mother Reason
Automotive industry Carl Benz His Benz Patent Motorcar from 1885 is considered the first practical modern automobile and first car put into series production.
20th century American car industry Henry Ford Noted for introducing a simple and affordable car for the ordinary American masses.
American Interstate Highway System Dwight D. Eisenhower Proposed and signed the act which created the System.
Automatic transmission Oscar Banker
Bicycle industry James Starley Developed the differential gear and the bicycle chain.
Erie Canal De Witt Clinton
Electric traction Frank J. Sprague Developed electric elevator, electric railway and electric motor.
Flight simulator Edwin Albert Link Developed the Link Trainer.
Full-suspension mountain bike Jon Whyte Used his suspension design expertise at Benetton Formula to design the first full-suspension mountain bike for Marin Bikes.
Gasoline Automobile (Benz Patent-Motorwagen) Carl Benz
Gasoline Omnibus Carl Benz
Gasoline Motorcycle (Daimler Reitwagen) Gottlieb Daimler/Wilhelm Maybach
Gasoline Truck Gottlieb Daimler (DMG Lastkraftwagen)/Carl Benz
High-performance VW industry Gene Berg
Hot rod Ed Winfield
Import car culture RJ DeVera Influential for popularizing the import car scene in the mid-1990s.
Kustom Kulture Von Dutch
Maglev Hermann Kemper, Eric Laithwaite German engineer Hermann Kemper built a working model linear induction motor in 1935. In the late 1940s, professor Eric Laithwaite of Imperial College in London developed the first full-size working model, an important and necessary precursor to maglev trains. 
Monster truck Bob Chandler Famed for building Bigfoot, which was the first to be capable of driving over cars and subsequently became one of the most famous monster truck in history.
Mountain bike Gary Fisher
Railways George Stephenson Pioneered rail transport, steam locomotives and invented standard-gauge railway track gauge.
Rock Crawling Marlin Czajkowski In 1994, Marlin made final drive ratios of 200:1 and lower possible in typical off road vehicles (primarily Toyota Hilux trucks) and changed the way people access remote off-roading destinations.
Rotary engine Felix Wankel
Route 66 Cyrus Avery
Tailfin Harley Earl
Tunneling (Modern) Alan Muir Wood Involved in the Channel Tunnel and Jubilee line extension.
Traffic safety William Phelps Eno
Trolleybus Ernst Werner von Siemens Built the Electromote in 1882.
Turbocharged engine Paul Rosche A lifetime employee of BMW, he evolutionized the turbocharged engine into automobile use. He also developed the first European turbocharged car, the racing 1969 BMW 2002 TiK that evolved into the production 1972 2002 Turbo.
Vehicular cycling John Forester Effective cycling founder
Yellow school bus Frank W. Cyr

See also


This page was last updated at 2024-01-28 18:28 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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