The people have voted – who is the greatest engineer?
The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering is not simply a £1m pay cheque, but a gateway to the pantheon of history’s great thinkers and makers, so it’s fitting that they have surveyed who our favourite engineers are.
Last week it asked its twitter followers to tweet their #engineeringhero suggestions, with an amazing response, resulting in an overall top 20, with the details of the top 10 only just being announced.
Take a look and let us know what you think about the results – who would you have voted for?
10 – Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) was a Bengali polymath and writer of science fiction.
9 – James Watt (1735-1819) was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer, known for his improvements to steam engine technology.
8 – Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932) was a Brazilian aviation pioneer, who made the first significant flight of a powered aeroplane in Europe.
7 – Grace Hopper (1906-1992) was a pioneering American computer scientist who led the advance of software development concepts.
6 – Alan Turing (1912-1954) was an English computer scientist, war-time code breaker, mathematician and philosopher.
5 – Archimedes (287 BC – 212 BC) was an Ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer and inventor.
4 – Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was an English mathematician, considered to be the founder of scientific computing.
3 – Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was a Serbian American electrical engineer and inventor, whose many innovative ideas led to ground-breaking technological developments.
2 – Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) was an Italian Renaissance artist and inventor. He was a true polymath, being an immensely talented artist, engineer and all round scientist.
1 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) was one of the greatest English civil and mechanical engineers of the 19th century. He built the Great Western Railway, over a hundred bridges, dock systems and ships, revolutionising public transport.
You can find the full list of 20 here.
