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Old 03-09-2012, 01:39 PM   #11
johndallman
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Default Re: Gadgeteer: List of Real-life Historical Gadgeteers

Charles Babbage may well have believed himself to have such abilities.
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Old 03-09-2012, 02:42 PM   #12
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria
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Old 03-09-2012, 08:22 PM   #13
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Charles Fraser-Smith Q Mk I .
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Old 03-09-2012, 10:10 PM   #14
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Archimedes - he at least had plans for a steam cannon and he developed the archimedian screw for water transport (Coincidentally the unnamed engineer who also separately developed the archimedian screw to water the hanging gardens likely deserves this as well).

I would actually remove Edison from the list- He was largely responsible for refining already existing products, and turning invention into a business; he has thousands of patents to his name, but he employed dozens of inventors who turned over all rights to him; Basically he was the Steve Jobs of his day- he made existing things work right enough for others to use, but he did not make new things (on the other hand if you allow him you should say that Steve Jobs was a cinematic gadgeteer, he could pick up a useless piece of technology, work his magic on a redesign/new UI and all but turn it into gold).

If your allowing those that develop world changing scientific theroy on the list (still inventions):
Issac Newton
Albert Einstein
Robert Oppenheimer
Stephen Hawking

Oppenheimer deserves special mention because the Manhattan project did something that by GURPS invention terms should have taken 10+ years, and got it done in 4; even when you take superior labs and virtually unlimited budget into account. I think that of all examples he may be the best one to fit the cinematic gadgeteer, he WAS able to lead a project to a fantastically complex prototype and did so in a period of time that was bordering on the supernatural.
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Old 03-09-2012, 11:17 PM   #15
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Default Re: Gadgeteer: List of Real-life Historical Gadgeteers

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I would actually remove Edison from the list- He was largely responsible for refining already existing products, and turning invention into a business;
I'm sure he did a lot of that, but didn't he personally test over a thousand materials for the light-bulb filament, including bamboo? Just because he was a Gadgeteer, doesn't mean he was a saint.
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If your allowing those that develop world changing scientific theroy on the list (still inventions):
Issac Newton
Albert Einstein
Robert Oppenheimer
Stephen Hawking
That's a hard argument to make- they would have had skills at the 20+ level, but in GURPS terms Gadgeteer is just about things.

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Oppenheimer deserves special mention because the Manhattan project did something that by GURPS invention terms should have taken 10+ years, and got it done in 4; even when you take superior labs and virtually unlimited budget into account. I think that of all examples he may be the best one to fit the cinematic gadgeteer, he WAS able to lead a project to a fantastically complex prototype and did so in a period of time that was bordering on the supernatural.
He occurred to me, but I was hesitant to add mere inventors, scientists and project leaders. You do make a convincing argument, however.

What about then, from the same era, Edward Teller and Werner von Braun?
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Old 03-09-2012, 11:56 PM   #16
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Oppenheimer deserves special mention because the Manhattan project did something that by GURPS invention terms should have taken 10+ years, and got it done in 4; even when you take superior labs and virtually unlimited budget into account. I think that of all examples he may be the best one to fit the cinematic gadgeteer, he WAS able to lead a project to a fantastically complex prototype and did so in a period of time that was bordering on the supernatural.
This is overselling things a bit; the most figety business was in the refining and mathematical modeling. The mechanisms themselves were not terribly complicated as published and confirmed, and several sources have remarked on the duplication of effort due to secrecy delayed completion of the project by as much as a year.
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Old 03-10-2012, 05:20 AM   #17
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George Washington Carver? With a "only using peanuts" limitation? ;-)
Actually, Carver made stuff out of yams, pumpkins and soybeans as well - he's just most famous for peanuts. Henry Ford Museum had a very cool George Washington Carver exhibit a few years ago, just about any household product available at the time was made by Carver out of some non-cotton crop. Give him a "only using natural organics" limitation and Obsession: Break King Cotton paired with Enemy: Cotton Farmers (Rival)

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Originally Posted by starslayer View Post
I would actually remove Edison from the list- He was largely responsible for refining already existing products, and turning invention into a business; he has thousands of patents to his name, but he employed dozens of inventors who turned over all rights to him; Basically he was the Steve Jobs of his day- he made existing things work right enough for others to use, but he did not make new things (on the other hand if you allow him you should say that Steve Jobs was a cinematic gadgeteer, he could pick up a useless piece of technology, work his magic on a redesign/new UI and all but turn it into gold).
While the Steve Jobs comparison a very good one, particularly later in life, Edison started his empire on the money made from the 23 patents he had by age 19....
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Old 03-10-2012, 07:03 AM   #18
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What about then, from the same era, Edward Teller and Werner von Braun?
Von Braun, like Openheimer, was largely an organiser and manager. They were both very good at this, but they didn't have the hands-on quality of an Edison.

Teller was more of a dis-organiser: he was not a good team worker at all, but he was very determined to build the H-bomb, and pretty good at selling the idea. However, as an inventor, he was poor. He spent years pursuing the "classical super-bomb", an idea which didn't and can't work. Ulam had a completely different idea about how to do the job, and Teller took that up.
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Old 03-10-2012, 09:34 AM   #19
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Georg Friedrich Lichtenberg was mostly a physics lecturer at a German university in the 18th Century, but he liked building gadgets to use to demonstrate principles of physics, including an enoromous electrophorus, a hand-cranked machine for generating static electricity. He discovered principles used in modern Xerographic copiers and used it to record tree-like, branching discharge patterns that became known as "Lichtenberg figures" in his honor.

He was also a hunchbacked woman-chaser and noted bon vivant.
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Old 03-12-2012, 08:26 AM   #20
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Charles Babbage may well have believed himself to have such abilities.
Wasn't his problem that he was ahead of his time, and no one could build the machine to his specs? Being ahead of your time sounds like a gadgeteer.

And Babbage Engines are one thing that almost universally show up in steampunk settings, so he fits the possible-founder-of-an-alternate-tech-path criterion.
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