Famous Inventors Born in April

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

Date of Birth:  April 1, 1933

Profession: French physicist; Nobel laureate.

Notable Works: He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips for research in methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms. Currently, he is still an active researcher, working at the École normale supérieure (Paris).

Prestigious Honours and Awards: Prix Paul Langevin (1963); Young Medal and Prize (1979)
Ampère Prize (1979); Lilienfeld Prize (1992); Matteucci Medal (1994); Harvey Prize (1996); Nobel Prize in Physics (1997)

Alain Connes

Date of Birth:  April 1, 1947 

Profession: French mathematician, theoretical physicist

Notable Works: Connes studies operator algebras. In his early work on von Neumann algebras in the 1970s. He also formulated the Connes embedding problem. Following this, he made contributions to operator K-theory and index theory, which culminated in the Baum–Connes conjecture. He also introduced cyclic cohomology in the early 1980s 

Prestigious Honours and Awards: CNRS Silver Medal (1977); Prize Ampère (1980); Fields Medal (1982); Clay Research Award (2000); Crafoord Prize (2001); CNRS Gold Medal (2004)

Francesco Maria Grimaldi

Date of Birth: April 2, 1618

Profession: Italian mathematician and physicist 

Notable Works: In astronomy, he built and used instruments to measure lunar mountains as well as the height of clouds. Grimaldi was the first to make accurate observations on the diffraction of light. He also discovered diffraction bands.

Clément Ader

Date of Birth: April 2, 1841 

Profession: French inventor and engineer

Notable Works: he invented the théâtrophone, a system of telephonic transmission where listeners received a separate channel for each ear; it was this invention which gave the first stereo transmission of opera performances, over a distance of 2 miles (3 km) in 1881.

Mr.Ader constructed his first flying machine in 1886, the Ader Éole. It was a bat-like design run by a lightweight steam engine of his own invention

Joseph-Nicolas Delisle

Date of Birth: April 4, 1688

Profession: French astronomer and cartographer

Notable Works: He is mostly known for the Delisle scale, a temperature scale he invented in 1732. 

Prestigious Honours and Awards: The crater Delisle on the Moon, and the asteroid 12742 Delisle are named after him.

Samuel Cate Prescott

Date of Birth: April 5, 1872

Profession:  American food scientist and microbiologist

Notable Works: Time–temperature studies in canning, and food microbiology. President of the American Society for Microbiology, first president of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT)

Prestigious Honours and Awards: IFT Nicholas Appert Award – 1943; IFT Stephen M. Babcock Award – 1950; Honorary member of Phi Tau Sigma – 1953

Ivar Giaever

Date of Birth:  April 5, 1929

Profession:  Norwegian-American engineer and physicist; Nobel laureate.

Notable Works: He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Leo Esaki and Brian Josephson “for their discoveries regarding tunnelling phenomena in solids“. Giaever’s share of the prize was specifically for his “experimental discoveries regarding tunnelling phenomena in superconductors“.

Prestigious Honours and Awards: Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (1965); Nobel Prize in Physics (1973)

Feodor Lynen

Date of Birth: April 6, 1911

Profession: German biochemist. Nobel laureate.

Notable Works: he discovered with Konrad Bloch concerning the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism while he was director of the Max-Planck Institute for Cellular Chemistry in Munich

Prestigious Honours and Awards: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1964); Fellow of the Royal Society; National Academy of Sciences

Edmond Henri Fischer

Date of Birth: April 6, 1920

Profession: Swiss-American biochemist. Nobel laureate.

Notable Works: He described how reversible phosphorylation works as a switch to activate proteins and regulate various cellular processes.

Prestigious Honours and Awards: National Academy of Sciences member (1973); Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1992); ForMemRS (2010)

James Dewey Watson

Date of Birth: April 6, 1928

Profession: American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist; Nobel laureate.

Notable Works: he played a crucial role in the discovery of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)

Prestigious Honours and Awards: Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1960); Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1962); Nobel Prize (1962); John J. Carty Award (1971); Foreign Member of the Royal Society (1981); Lomonosov Gold Medal (1994)

Horst Ludwig Störmer 

Date of Birth: April 6, 1949

Profession: German physicist; Nobel laureate 

Notable Works: He discovered with Daniel Tsui and Robert Laughlin a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations” (the fractional quantum Hall effect)

Prestigious Honours and Awards: Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (1984); Nobel Prize in Physics (1998); The Benjamin Franklin Medal (1998)

David Rittenhouse

Date of Birth: April 8, 1732

Profession: American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker

Notable Works: Rittenhouse built mathematical instruments and, it is believed, the first telescope in the United States. He also introduced the use of natural spider webbing to form the reticle (system of crosshairs) in telescope transits and other position-measuring instruments.