This is a list of Polish inventors and discoverers. The following incomplete list comprises people from Poland and of Polish origin, and also people of predominantly Polish heritage, in alphabetical order of surname.
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- Joseph Babinski: neurologist, discoverer of the Babinski reflex.
- Stefan Banach: considered one of the world's most important and influential 20th-century mathematicians, creator of Banach space. He was one of the founders of modern functional analysis, and an original member of the Lwów School of Mathematics. His major work was the 1932 book, Théorie des opérations linéaires (Theory of Linear Operations), the first monograph on the general theory of functional analysis.
- Feliks BaraÃ
Âski: pioneer and the specialist in the field of Differential equations.
- Jan Józef Baranowski: took part in the Great Emigration. Invented Railway signal device, ticket machine and gas meter.
- MieczysÃ
Âaw G. Bekker: co-authored the general idea and vitally contributed to the design and construction of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) used by NASA in missions Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17 on the Moon. He was the author of several patented inventions in the area of off-the-road vehicles, including those for extraterrestrial use.
- Benedict of Poland: Polish Franciscan friar, explorer, and interpreter, participant of the pioneering European trip to the capital of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century.
- Edmund Biernacki: physician, the first one to note a relationship between the sedimentation rate of red blood cells in a human blood sample and the general condition of the organism. This method is now known as the Biernacki Reaction.
- MichaÃ
 Borysiekiewicz: invented the first "electronic eye" for blind people.
- MichaÃ
 Boym: 17th-century Jesuit missionary, scientist and explorer, who was the first in Europe to describe Korea as a peninsula, as until then it was believed to be an island, and the first in Europe to establish the factual location of a number of Chinese cities and the Great Wall of China.
- Josef BoÃ
¾ek: managed to put into operation one of the first steam engines in the Czech lands.
- Stefan BryÃ
Âa: designed and built the first welded road bridge in the world.
- Janusz Brzozowski: computer scientist known for developing the Brzozowski derivative and Brzozowski's algorithm.
- Tytus Liwiusz Burattini: inventor of the micrometer.
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- Maria SkÃ
Âodowska-Curie: conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences â physics and chemistry. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.
- Nicolaus Copernicus (MikoÃ
Âaj Kopernik): mathematician, physician, translator, diplomat. Most commonly known as an astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe included in his work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).
- Napoleon Cybulski:, physiologist, discoverer of adrenaline, one of pioneers of endocrinology and electroencephalography.
- Jan Czochralski: chemist, invented the Czochralski process, commonly used for growing crystals and in the production of semiconductor wafers.
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E
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- Maksymilian Faktorowicz: founder of the Max Factor cosmetics company, popularized the term "make-up", had perfected the first cosmetic specifically created for motion picture useâÂÂa thinner greasepaint in cream form and largely developed the modern cosmetics industry in the United States.
- Kazimierz Fajans: physical chemist, pioneer in the science of radioactivity and the discoverer of chemical element protactinium.
- Edward Flatau: neurologist.
- Julius Fromm: chemist, entrepreneur, one of the inventors of the rubber condom.
- Casimir Funk:, biochemist, the first to formulate (1912) the concept and the term of vitamins originally calling them "vital amins"/"vit- amins" discovered first vitamins, i.e B1
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H
J
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- Jacek KarpiÃ
Âski: pioneer in computer engineering and computer science. He became a developer of one of the first machine learning algorithms, techniques for character and image recognition. In 1971, he designed one of the first minicomputers, the K-202.
- Adam Adamandy KochaÃ
Âski: mathematician, physicist, clockmaker, who found an approximation of ÃÂ today called the KochaÃ
Âski's Approximation. He also suggested replacing the clock's pendulum with a spring, constructed a clock with a magnetic pendulum, and was the author of the world's first systematic paper on the construction of clocks.
- Jerzy Konorski: neurophysiologist, discoverer of secondary conditioned reflexes and operant conditioning. He also proposed the idea of gnostic neurons, a concept similar to the grandmother cell. He coined the term neural plasticity.
- Hilary Koprowski: virologist and immunologist, who developed the world's first effective live polio vaccine.
- Kazimierz Kordylewski: astronomer, discoverer of the Kordylewski clouds.
- Józef Kosacki: invented the Polish mine detector, a first man-portable device used by the allied forces during the World War II.
- Tadeusz KoÃ
Âciuszko: Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian and American war hero and military leader, military engineer, colonel in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, creator of the West Point state-of-the-art Fortifications, prepared a national Kosciuszko Uprising in Poland against the Russian Empire and acted as the Supreme Commander.
- Tadeusz Krwawicz: ophthalmologist who pioneered the use of cryosurgery in ophthalmology.
- Stefan Kudelski: audio engineer known for creating the Nagra series of professional audio recorders later sold to British BBC, American stations NBC, ABC, CBS, but also plenty of radio stations including famous Radio Luxembourg. Kudelski received prestigious Oscar Awards in 1965, 1977, 1978, and 1990. He also won two Emmy Awards in 1984 and 1986.
- Jerzy Kukuczka: alpinist, the second man in history to climb all fourteen Eight-thousanders including three as first ascents, established a new route on K2 in alpine style called the "Polish line".
- Wojciech Kurtyka: mountaineer, alpinist, one of the alpine style climbing pioneers, after climbing through the "Shining Wall" on Gasherbrum IV the Climbing magazine declared beat the wall to get the greatest achievement of mountaineering in the twentieth century.
- Stephanie Kwolek (1923âÂÂ2014): American chemist of Polish origin, inventor of Kevlar.
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M
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- Jan Nagórski: engineer and pioneer of aviation, the first person to fly an airplane in the Arctic and the first aviator to perform a loop with a flying boat.
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- Karol Olszewski: chemist, the first (alongside Zygmunt Wróblewski) to liquefy oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a stable state (not, as had been the case up to then, in a dynamic state in the transitional form as vapour) (1833).
- StanisÃ
Âaw Olszewski: engineer and inventor, co-creator of modern electric arc welding.
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- Bohdan PaczyÃ
Âski: astronomer, credited with the development of a new method of detecting space objects and establishing their mass using the gravitational lenses effect.
- Antoni Patek: pioneer in watchmaking and the creator of the Patek Philippe & Co.
- Janusz Pawliszyn: chemist, inventor of solid-phase microextraction (SPME).
- Jerzy Pniewski: physicist, co-discovered the hypernucleus.
- Kazimierz PuÃ
Âaski: Polish nobleman, soldier and military strategist, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, the creator and the head of the Pulaski Cavalry Legion and reformer of the American cavalry. He distinguished himself throughout the revolution, most notably when he saved the life of George Washington. One of only eight people in the history to be awarded honorary United States citizenship.
- Kazimierz PrószyÃ
Âski: patented the first film camera, the Pleograph, before the Lumière brothers, and later went on to improve the cinema projector for the Gaumont company, as well as invent the widely used hand-held Aeroscope camera.
- Antoni Przybylski: Polish-Australian astronomer best known for discovering Przybylski's Star.
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S
- Andrew Schally: endocrinologist and Nobel Prize laureate (1977) whose research contributed to the discovery that the hypothalamus controls hormone production and release by the pituitary gland, which controls the regulation of other hormones in the body.
- Michael Sendivogius: pioneer of chemistry, who developed ways of purification and creation of various acids, metals and other chemical compounds, and discovered that air is not a single substance and contains a life-giving substanceâÂÂlater called oxygen.
- Tadeusz Sendzimir: metallurgist, revolutionised galvanisation and rolling process.
- Kazimierz Siemienowicz: military engineer, one of pioneers of rocketry, author of Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima, a work that served as the principal artillery manual in Europe from the mid-16th to the mid-18th centuries, also containing the first printed design of a multistage rocket.
- Maria Siemionow: transplant surgeon and scientist who led a team of eight surgeons through the world's first near-total face transplant.
- Hugo Steinhaus: mathematician, specialist in the field of functional analysis.
- Abraham Stern: inventor of the mechanical calculator, topography machine, agriculture machines.
- Josephus Struthius: professor of medicine and personal doctor of Polish kings, who was among the first to provide a visual representation of the human pulse and used it for diagnostic purposes.
- PaweÃ
 Edmund Strzelecki: explorer most commonly known for his early explorations of Australia, particularly the Snowy Mountains and Tasmania. Climbed and named the highest Australian peak â Mount Kosciuszko.
- Jan Szczepanik: inventor, with several hundred patents and over 50 discoveries to his name; his inventions founded ground for radio and TV broadcasting.
- WacÃ
Âaw Szybalski: medical researcher, geneticist and oncologist. He conducted research on drug resistance and molecular genetics and is known for the Szybalski's rule.
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Â
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- Warner Brothers (Bracia Wonsal): American-naturalized brothers of Polish-Jewish origin, created the Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., one of the biggest and most successful media corporations in the world being one of the "Big Six" American film studios.
- Rudolf Weigl: biologist, physician and inventor, known for creating the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus.
- Krzysztof Wielicki: regarded as one of the greatest mountaineers in history. He performed the first winter ascents on Mount Everest, Kangchenjunga, and Lhotse.
- Anna Wierzbicka: linguist; known for her work in semantics, pragmatics and cross-cultural linguistics; she's credited with formulating the theory of natural semantic metalanguage and the concept of semantic primes.
- MieczysÃ
Âaw Wolfke: the forerunner of holography and television.
- Zygmunt Wróblewski: chemist: the first (alongside Karol Olszewski) to liquefy oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a stable state (not, as had been the case up to then, in a dynamic state in the transitional form as vapour) (1833).
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See also
References