50 Things (That MIT Made) by Chris Peterson SM '13

Happy Friday!

Yes, that is an Oberlin College-produced parody of Rebecca Black. And yes, that is our former Communications Director Ben Jones costarring in it!

I’ve been working all week rewriting some web content for the site and my brain is a bit melty. So, as a bit of a break, in the spirit (but without the inspiration) of Ben’s big lists, and following up on Hamsika’s blog about the Boston Globe special feature on MIT and this Guardian article about inventor culture at MIT, here is the Boston Globe’s list of the top 50 “ideas, inventions and innovators that helped shape our world” and were associated with MIT.

50. 50. 
        Gillette Co. & the Disposable Razor
    49. 
        Wind tunnels (invented at MIT in 1896)
    48. 
        Radar detection/navigation (perfected at MIT durign WWII)
    47. 
        Texas Instruments (cofounded by Cecil Green ’24)
    46. 
        Kendall Square (w/ 130 high-tech tenants)
    45. 
        E*Trade, cofounded by MIT Sloan alum William Porter
    44. 
        Electrical, aeronautical, and nuclear engineering, all of which were pioneered at MIT
    43. 
        Modern urban design
    42. 
        The theory of cosmic inflation, developed by Professor Alan Guth ’69
    41. 
        Nuclear fission, pioneered by alumnus and Professor Manson Benedict
    40. 
        One Laptop Per Child
    39. 
        The Sloan Automotive Lab
    38. 
        OpenCourseWare
    37. 
        Zipcar
    36. 
        PET Scans
    35. 
        Katharine McCormick – biologist, birth control pioneer, and the second woman to graduate from MIT
    34. 
        Robert Noyce ’53, cofounder of Intel & inventor of the microchip
    33. 
        Modern lithium-ion batteries
    32. 
        Modern oil prospecting
    31. 
        The first solar-powered house
    30. 
        Genentech
    29. 
        Refined oil
    28. 
        iWalk bioprosthetics
    27. 
        Big Dog
    26. 
        HP, cofounded by William Hewlett ’36
    25. 
        The Executive MBA program at Sloan
    24. 
        The first public health school in the nation
    23. 
        The link between cancer and genetics
    22. 
        Reverse transcription, discovered by David Baltimore, founder of the MIT Whitehead Institute
    21. 
        Condensed soup
    20. 
        Technicolor (itself named after MIT!)
    19. 
        Inertial guidance systems for aircraft
    18. 
        RSA encryption
    17. 
        The first air-conditioned building
    16. 
        The “memex” – which helped inspire the Internet – conceived of by former MIT President Vannevar Bush ’16
    15. 
        Akamai, the content delivery network that handles 30% of the world’s Internet traffic
    14. 
        The Internet Archive, maintained by Brewster Kahle ’82
    13. 
        The spreadsheet, designed by Dan Bricklin ’73
    12. 
        E-ink, invented at the MIT Media Lab
    11. 
        Former MIT Professor and Nobel Laureate Salvador Luria
    10. 
        Ivan Getting ’33 was a primer developer of GPS
    9. 
       Bose Corporation, founded by MIT Professor Amar Bose
    8. 
       Ellen Swallow Richards, a public-sanitation and environmental chemistry expert and the first woman to graduate from MIT
    7. 
       iRobot, founded by MIT alumni Helen Greneir and Colin Angle
    6. 
       The first interactive minicomputer
    5. 
       Biogen, founded by Philip Sharp, MIT Professor (and a lot more!) since 1974
    4. 
       Email, invented by Ray Tomlinson ’65
    3. 
       Transistor radio, co-invented by William Shockley ’36
    2. 
       The Human Genome Project, for which MIT’s Whitehead Institute, led by Professor Eric Lander, sequenced the most genes
    1. 
       The World Wide Web, invented by MIT Professor Tim Berners-Lee

 

That’s a pretty epic list! What will you do to make it on the MIT 200 retrospective?