Quiz
Fact or legend?
Ten famous claims about the inventors. Some are true. Some are stories that grew in the telling. A legend here means a myth, or a story no record can confirm.
Marie Curie's notebooks are still radioactive.
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Fact They are kept in lead-lined boxes. She carried radioactive test tubes in her pockets and died of aplastic anaemia, most likely caused by radiation. Marie Curie →
Hedy Lamarr invented Wi-Fi.
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Legend She patented a frequency-hopping system in 1942, but frequency hopping existed before her patent. Bluetooth uses frequency hopping; Wi-Fi and GPS use related spread-spectrum ideas. Hedy Lamarr →
Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet.
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Legend He invented the World Wide Web. The internet already existed, and the web runs on top of it. Tim Berners-Lee →
Edison promised Tesla $50,000, then told him it was a joke.
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Legend It is Tesla's own account. No other record of the offer survives. Nikola Tesla →
A newspaper called Alfred Nobel 'the merchant of death' by mistake, while he was still alive.
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Legend The famous obituary headline has never been found, which is why the episode tells it as a story. Alfred Nobel →
Garrett Morgan invented the first traffic light.
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Legend Traffic lights already existed. His 1923 patent added an all-stop position, and he sold it to General Electric for $40,000. Garrett Morgan →
John Paul Stapp invented the seat belt.
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Legend He did not invent it, but he campaigned for seat belts in cars after surviving 46.2 g on a rocket sled. John Paul Stapp →
A piece of the Wright brothers' 1903 Flyer went to the Moon.
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Fact A piece of the Flyer's fabric flew to the Moon with Apollo 11. The Wright Brothers →
Franz Reichelt jumped from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
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Legend He jumped from the first platform, a little more than 57 metres up, on 4 February 1912. Franz Reichelt →
Clarence Dally tested X-ray tubes on his left hand because he was right-handed.
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Fact He held up his left hand to test the tubes. In 1902 that hand was amputated. Clarence Dally →
Thomas Edison held more than 1,000 US patents.
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Fact He held 1,093. When he died in 1931, Americans dimmed their lights in his honour. Thomas Edison →
Tesla was born during a lightning storm.
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Legend It is a traditional story. We did not find it in contemporary records. Nikola Tesla →
The gas attack at Ypres in 1915 was the first use of gas in war.
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Legend Smaller uses of irritant gas came earlier. Ypres was the first great gas attack, and Fritz Haber supervised it in person. Fritz Haber →
Rosalind Franklin shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for DNA.
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Legend She died in 1958, and the Nobel Prize is never awarded after death. It went to Watson, Crick and Wilkins. Rosalind Franklin →
Marie Curie is the only person with Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
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Fact Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911. Linus Pauling also won two, but one was for Peace. Marie Curie →
Bayer once sold heroin as a cough medicine.
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Fact From 1898, under the name Heroin, marketed as a non-addictive substitute for morphine. Felix Hoffmann →
Felix Hoffmann made aspirin to ease his father's rheumatism.
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Legend The story first appears in 1934, decades later, and the episode does not use it. Felix Hoffmann →
Neither of the Wright brothers had a high-school diploma.
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Fact Neither Wilbur nor Orville received one. Their Flyer cost them less than a thousand dollars. The Wright Brothers →
Elisha Otis called out 'All safe, gentlemen, all safe' at his famous demonstration.
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Legend The words come from the traditional account of the 1854 demonstration, not from a record made at the time. Elisha Otis →
Alfred Nobel spoke six languages.
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Fact He did, and he left about 94% of his fortune to the prizes. Alfred Nobel →
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