THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL INVENTORS OF ALL TIME

7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

work (and play) at night. Braille made it possible for blind
people to read.
However, some inventions, while having their obvious
benefits, have also had their pitfalls. Before Eli Whitney
invented the cotton gin in 1793, separating cotton lint
from its seeds was a 10-hour, labour-intensive ordeal.
Whitney’s invention transformed cotton production into
a rapid process that for the first time made cotton farming
a highly profitable business. Yet the cotton gin also pro-
longed slavery, as cotton plantations needed a larger labour
force to keep up with increased production demands.
Other inventions were controversial because of their
potential for destruction. Edward Teller, father of the
hydrogen bomb, was described by one scientist as being
one of the “most thoughtful statesmen of science.”
However, another contemporary referred to Teller as “a
danger to all that’s important,” and claimed that the world
would have been better off without him. In 1948, Paul
Hermann Müller received a Nobel Prize for discovering
the toxic effects on insects of the chemical compound
known as DDT, a pesticide that efficiently wiped out the
insects that carry deadly diseases such as malaria, yellow
fever, and typhus. DDT was initially hailed as a “miracle”
pesticide. Yet by the early 1970s it had been banned from
public use in the United States. Health officials had dis-
covered that while DDT was killing insects, it was also
accumulating in other wildlife, notably falcons and eagles,
and dangerously lowering their reproduction rate.
Even the most groundbreaking and world-changing
inventions were not always recognized as such when
they were introduced to the public. When Rutherford B.
Hayes saw a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s
telephone in 1876, the president’s response was less than
enthusiastic. “That’s an amazing invention, but who would