Famous scientista and inventors with disabilities
Many people see disabled people as being on the receiving end of technological developments, eg medical cures and treatments, or inventions such as electronic wheelchairs or MiniComs for deaf people.
Far fewer people are aware that a number of scientists with disabilities have themselves contributed greatly to our understanding of science, and been responsible for inventions which have enriched the lives of millions of people, both disabled and non-disabled.
A few of them are mentioned here ...
Alexander Graham Bell
Disability: learning disability (source: Kids Health - learning disabilities)
Invented the telephone
Ironically, he is not popular with some deaf people following his alleged remarks that deaf people should be sterilized, as a form of eugenics. We say alleged, there is some controversy as to whether he made these comments - see Article 19
Red Disability denounces all forms of eugenics, and all discrimination against disabled people - even from a person who is disabled.
But, whatever Bell may or may not have said, the fact that Bell invented the telephone proves that people with learning disabilities can still contribute enormously to society.
Probably most famous for inventing the electric light, Edison also invented the record player and the cinematic camera.
Significantly, due to his learning disability, his writing skills remained "poor" throughout his life.
This web page describes how he discovered the record player almost by accident, while working on telephone technology.
The first record player, or "phonograph", recorded on cylinders. (Just as well someone developed disc records, or we may be using cylindrical CDs and CD-ROMs now !). His work paved the way for the records and CDs we listen to today. So the small minority of fascist rock bands who slag off disabled people, should bear in mind that they wouldn't be recording their "music" if it wasn't for a disabled inventor !
Websites:
Albert Einstein
Disabilities:
A brilliant atomic physicist, probably most famous for his Theory of Relativity.
Henry Ford
disability: dyslexic (source: Dyslexia Health Education - Famous Dyslexics (sic))
Inventor of the motor car.
Website:Dr Temple Grandin
disability: autism (source: Temple Grandin's Autism Resources Page)
Agricultural scientist, professor of animal behaviour
Disability: Motor neurone
disease. (source: My
Experience With ALS)
Uses a motorized wheelchair, and a computerized speech-synthesizer.
Probably one of the greatest astronomical physicists of modern
times, Stephen Hawking has developed several theories about the nature
and origins of our universe.
One of them, as outlined in his book "Black Holes and Baby Universes",
suggests that each black hole contains another universe of similar size
to our own. And that our universe is formed from a black hole in
another universe. Very important, and interesting, in that it is the
first theory which does not require a belief that the universe must
have been created by some sort of god.
Isaac Newton
Disability: stutter (source: Famous stutterers), epilepsy (source: Epilepsy Parents Information)Leonardo Da Vinci
Disability: dyslexic (source: Leonardo, Portrait of a Dyslexic Genius)Famous creative artist, most famous for his detailed sketch of a bicycle.
In addition, most modern technological developments take place in large laboratories with a number of scientists working there - a number of whom will, almost certainly, be disabled.
Unfortunately, there are still a number of people who work in the electronic and computing industries who believe that disabled people are out of place in science and technology. We hope this web-page proves them wrong !
Disabled Mathematicians (without whom, scientific discoveries would be a lot harder !)
Pythagoras
Disability: epilepsy (source: Paul Oldham's list of People with Epilepsy)
Most famous is his theory for working out the length of sides
on a right-angled triangle; namely:
"the square on the hypoteneuse (the longest side) is equal to the sum
of the squares on the other two sides".
Less well-known is Pythagoras' second theory, which can be used for a non-right angled triangle.
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