Famous Inventors Born in July

Fritz Perls

Date of Birth: July 8, 1893 

Profession: German psychotherapist.

Notable Works: Perls invented Gestalt therapy to identify the form of psychotherapy that he developed with his wife, Laura Perls, in the 1940s and 1950s. The core of the Gestalt therapy process is enhanced awareness of sensation, perception, bodily feelings, emotion, and behaviour, in the present moment. The relationship is emphasized, along with contact between the self, its environment, and the other.

Ashoke Sen

Date of Birth: July 15, 1956

Profession: Physicist

Notable Works: His main area of work is string theory. He was among the first recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics “for opening the path to the realization that all string theories are different limits of the same underlying theory”.

Prestigious Honours and Awards: G.D. Birla Award for Scientific Research (1996); TWAS Prize (1997); Padma Shri (2001); Infosys Prize – Mathematical Sciences (2009); Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2012); Padma Bhushan (2013); Dirac Medal (2014).

Thomas Davenport

Date of Birth: July 9, 1802 

Profession: Vermont blacksmith; inventor 

Notable Works: As early as 1834, he developed a battery-powered electric motor. He used it to operate a small model car on a short section of track, paving the way for the later electrification of streetcars.

With his wife Emily and colleague Orange Smalley, Davenport received the first American patent on an electric machine in 1837, U. S. Patent No. 132. In 1840, he printed The Electro-Magnetic and Mechanics Intelligencer, making it the first magazine to be printed with electricity.

Felix Andries Vening Meinesz

Date of Birth: July 30, 1887 

Profession: Dutch geophysicist and geodesist

Notable Works: He is known for his invention of a precise method for measuring gravity  (gravimetry). Thanks to his invention, it became possible to measure gravity at sea, which led him to the discovery of gravity anomalies above the ocean floor. He later attributed these anomalies to continental drift. Meinesz was a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Prestigious Honours and Awards: Howard N. Potts Medal (1936); Penrose Medal (1945); William Bowie Medal (1947); Alexander Agassiz Medal (1947); Vetlesen Prize (1962); Wollaston Medal (1963).

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Date of Birth: July 1, 1742

Profession: German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile.

Notable Works: He was known for discovering treelike patterns called Lichtenberg figures. Lichtenberg was known for what he called “waste books,” which were the detailed notebooks that he kept full of quotes, sketches, and stories.