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.
Academic disciplines
Humanities
Natural and social sciences
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. WellsThe Miniatures Page. The World of Miniatures - An Overview. Publication of Little Wars Modern video game Ralph H. Baer Nolan Bushnell Magnavox Odyssey, Pong Role-playing game Gary Gygax Dave Arneson Creators 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 Video game industry Ralph H. Baer Nolan Bushnell Creator of the Magnavox Odyssey; inventor of the first home video game console Founder of Atari, co developer of Computer Space, the first widely available arcade video game. Wargaming Charles S. Roberts Designer of Tactics
Military Subject Father/mother Reason Atomic bomb Enrico FermiRobert OppenheimerLeó SzilárdBernstein, Barton J: "Introduction" to The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories (expanded edition), by Leo Szilard. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992, p. 5: "Its author, Leo Szilard, now dead nearly three decades, was a Hungarian émigré scientist and one of many putative fathers of the A-bomb." Blitzkrieg Heinz Guderian Hydrogen bomb Edward Teller"'Father of H-Bomb' Agrees to Rally Scientific Talent." The New York Times, 1965-12-31, p. 19. Story opens: "Albany, December 30—Governor Rockefeller will make an intensified attack on air pollution with the help of Dr. Edward Teller, the 'father of the hydrogen bomb.'" Member of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s Atomic submarine and "nuclear navy" Hyman G. Rickover"Submarine Range Called Unlimited; Rickover Says Atomic Craft Can Cruise Under Ice To North Pole and Beyond," The New York Times, 1957-12-06, p. 33: "The admiral, who is often called the 'Father of the Atomic Submarine'...", p. 217: "Chet Holifield... member of the JCAE... said 'Of all the men I dealt with in public service, at least one will go down in history: Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy.'" Fourth Generation Warfare William S. Lind The Soviet Union's Hydrogen Bomb Andrei Sakharov TankErnest Swinton (British), Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne (French)The need for armored and armed tracked vehicles 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 versionHarold S. Sharp, Handbook of Pseudonyms and Personal Nicknames Supplement · Volumes 1-2, Scarecrow Press - 1975, Page 440 Mark Adkin, The Western Front Companion · Pen & Sword Books - 2017John Masefield, The Old Front Line, Pen & Sword Books Limited - 2006, pages 59-60
Nations
Sports
Technology
Fields Subject Father/mother ReasonAerodynamics (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 discoveriesAmerican manufactureSamuel Slaterdescribed by Andrew Jackson American landscape architecture Frederick Law Olmsted Olmsted designed Central Park in New York City Architecture ImhotepAlbert Gallatin Mackey, The Builder Magazine, December 1922, Volume VIII, Number 12, Part XVI. Built the first pyramid Astronautics Konstantin TsiolkovskySergei KorolevRobert H. GoddardHermann Oberth Aviation Father Francesco Lana-TerziWoods, Thomas. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, p. 36. (Washington, DC: Regenery, 2005); . and Abbas ibn FirnasMarshall Cavendish Reference. Illustrated Dictionary of the Muslim World. Marshall Cavendish, 2010 p. 106.Sustainable Aviation by T. Hikmet Karakoc, C. Ozgur Colpan, Onder Altuntas, Yasin Sohret Ibn Firnas built the first human carrying glider and is reputed to have attempted two successful flights.Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring, 1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2 (2), p. 97–111 [100–101] 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, p. 55: "It is probably not an accident that the 'father of cybernetics,' Norbert Wiener, …" (Wiener is credited with coining the term in its common modern usage)Gastrointestinal physiologyWilliam Beaumont Genetics Gregor Johann Mendel Founder of genetics.Green Revolution Norman BorlaugMicroscopyAntonie van LeeuwenhoekLane, Nick (6 March 2015). "The Unseen World: Reflections on Leeuwenhoek (1677) 'Concerning Little Animal'." Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2015 Apr; 370 (1666): Information theoryClaude 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' GuildNanotechnology Richard Smalley Nobel Prize Biography Photography Louis DaguerreNicéphore NiépceWilliam Henry Fox TalbotThomas Wedgwood Robotics Ismail al-JazariBanū Mūsā brothersKoetsier, Teun (2001), "On the prehistory of programmable machines: musical automata, looms, calculators", Mechanism and Machine Theory, Elsevier, 36 (5): 589–603, doi:10.1016/S0094-114X(01)00005-2 Ismail al-Jazari Invented the first programmable humanoid robot in 1206The Bānu Musā brothers invented an automatic flute which may have been the first programmable machine
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'Father of the computer' honoured - BBC News, Monday, 7 June 2004Secret code breaker during WWII; invented the Turing machine (1936) John V. Atanasoff Invented the digital computer in the 1930sKonrad ZuseKonrad Zuse's versus John von Neumann's Computer Concepts .Invented world's first functional program-controlled computer John von NeumannThe Modern History of Computing - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 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. MauchlyJ.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. InternetVint CerfMaking Televised Emergency Information Accessible from the Gallaudet University websiteAlthough it is a title he objects to (see Interview with Vinton Cerf , from a January 2006 article in Government Computer News), Cerf is willing to call himself one of the Internet's fathers, citing Bob Kahn in particularly as being someone with whom he should share that title. Bob KahnKahn do, No (2007-01-18). "Father of internet warns against Net Neutrality", The RegisterDeveloped 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 MazorMasatoshi ShimaDesigners of the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004.Packet switchingPaul Baran Donald DaviesRecognized 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 and 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.