List of persons considered father or mother of a field


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Revisions and sourced additions are welcome; please only include historical figures.

The following is a list of significant men and women known, following the now largely-discredited great man theory, for being the father, mother, or considered the founders in a field, listed by category. In some fields the title of being the "father" is debatable.

Contents

Church

Main article: Church Fathers

Economics

Subject Father / Mother of ... Reason
Communism Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
David Ricardo[1]
Economics (early) Ibn Khaldun[2]
Chanakya / Kautilya[3]		 Publication: Muqaddimah (1370)
Publication: Arthashastra (400 BCE - 200 CE)
Economics (modern) Richard Cantillon[4]
Adam Smith[5]		 First specific treatise on economics
Publication: The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Microcredit Muhammad Yunus[6] Founded Grameen Bank
Modern portfolio theory Harry Markowitz[7]

Games

Subject Father / Mother of ... Reason
Miniature wargaming H.G. Wells[8]
Role-playing games Gary Gygax[9] Creator of Dungeons & Dragons
Wargaming Charles S. Roberts[10]

Humanities

Main article: List of persons considered a founder in a Humanities field

Nations

Main articles: Father of the Nation, Mother of the Nation, and List of national founding fathers

Military

Subject Father / Mother of ... Reason
Atomic bomb Robert Oppenheimer.[11]
Leó Szilárd[12]
Blitzkrieg Heinz Guderian[citation needed]
Hydrogen bomb Edward Teller[13]
Atomic submarine and "nuclear navy" Hyman G. Rickover[14] [15] [16]
Fourth Generation Warfare William S. Lind[citation needed]
French sailing navy Jean-Baptiste Colbert[17] Built on the fleet France inherited from Cardinal Richelieu.
Military strategy Sun Tzu,
Hannibal Barca[18]		 Wrote the semincal work The Art of War (6th century BC).
Successfully employed military tactics such as the double-envelopment in the Second Punic War (3rd century BC).
Naval tactical studies Paul Hoste[19] Jesuit Professor of Mathematics at the Royal College of the Marine in Toulon; wrote L'Art des Armées Navales (1697)
The Soviet Union's hydrogen bomb Andrei Sakharov[20]
United States Airborne William C. Lee[21] First commander of the parachute school at Fort Benning, Georgia.
United States Navy Commodore John Barry[22]
Captain John Paul Jones[23]

Sciences

Main article: Fathers of scientific fields

Sports

Subject Father / Mother of ... Reason
Angling Izaak Walton[24] author of The Compleat Angler
Baseball Henry Chadwick[25][26][27][28]
Canadian rodeo O. Raymond Knight[29]
Karting Art Ingels[30] Developed the world's first kart (1956)
lacrosse William George Beers[31][32][33][34]
Modern Boxing James J. Corbett[citation needed]
modern sabre fencing Italo Santelli[35]
Mixed Martial Arts Bruce Lee Called so, by Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. For his experimentation into other styles and invention of Jeet Kune Do.

Technology

Fields

Subject Father / Mother of ... Reason
Aerodynamics (modern) Nikolai Zhukovsky Founding father of modern Aerodynamics. The first to undertake the study of airflow. He established the world's first Aerodynamic Institute. The first to explaine the origin of aerodynamic lift
Architecture Imhotep[36] Built the first pyramid
Astronautics Robert H. Goddard[37]
Hermann Oberth[38]
Aviation Father Francesco Lana-Terzi[39] Book: Prodromo alla Arte Maestra (1670). First to describe the geometry and physics of a flying vessel.
Compact Disc Kees Immink[40]
Computing Charles Babbage[41] Inventor of the Analytical Engine which was never constructed in his lifetime.
Computer Andre Truong Trong Thi


Konrad Zuse[42]
Alan Turing[43]

John von Neumann[44]
John V. Atanasoff[45]

 Father of the personal computer.
Invented world's first functional program-controlled computer.
Was a secret code breaker during WWII and invented the Turing machine (1936)
Became "intrigued" with Turing's universal machine and later emphasised the importance of the stored-program concept for electronic computing (1945), including the possibility of allowing the machine to modify its own program in useful ways while running
Invented the digital computer in the 1930s
Computer Program Ada Lovelace[46] Recognized by historians as the writer of the world's first computer program which was for the Charles Babbage Analytical Engine, but was never complete within either her or his lifetime.
Cosmonautics Konstantin Tsiolkovsky[47]
Cybernetics Norbert Wiener[48][49]
Perfumery[50] Al-Kindi (Alkindus) Founded the perfume industry.
Photography Louis Daguerre[51]
Nicéphore Niépce[52]
William Henry Fox Talbot[53]
Thomas Wedgwood[54]
Robotics Al-Jazari[55] Invented the first programmable humanoid robot.

Inventions

Subject Father / Mother of ... Reason
Air conditioning Willis Carrier [56]
Ekranoplan Rostislav Alexeev
Helicopter Igor Sikorsky [57] Invented the first successful helicopter, upon which further designs were based.
Internet Louis Pouzin
Vinton Cerf[58][59][60]
Robert E. Kahn[61]
Japanese television Kenjiro Takayanagi[62][63]
Jet engine Frank Whittle[64][65]
Lightning prediction system Alexander Stepanovich Popov The first lightning prediction system, the Lightning detector, was invented in 1894 by Alexander Stepanovich Popov.
Marine chronometer John Harrison[66]
Pentium microprocessor Vinod Dham[67][68]
Personal computer Steve Wozniak[69]
Programmable logic controller Dick Morley[citation needed]
Radio Alexander Stepanovich Popov [70]
Lee De Forest[71][72][73]
Guglielmo Marconi[74]
Jagdish Chandra Bose[75]
Nikola Tesla[76]		 The research of these pioneers led to the development of the radio
Radio (Radio broadcasting) Reginald Fessenden[citation needed]
David Sarnoff[citation needed]
Radio (FM radio) Edwin H. Armstrong[citation needed] Obtained the first FCC license to operate an FM station in Alpine, New Jersey at approximately 50 megahertz (1939)
radiotelephony Reginald Fessenden[77][78]
SGML Charles Goldfarb[79]
Telephone Antonio Meucci [80],

Alexander Graham Bell[81]

 See Invention of the telephone
Television Philo T. Farnsworth[82],

Vladimir Zworykin[83], [84]

 Co-Inventors of the Electronic Television. Farnsworth invented the Image dissector while Zworykin created the Iconoscope, both fully electronic forms of Television.
Tokamak Lev Artsimovich
World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee[85]
Visual Basic Alan Cooper[86]
XML Jon Bosak[87]

Transport

Subject Father / Mother of ... Reason
American Interstate Highway System Dwight D. Eisenhower[88]
Route 66 Cyrus Avery[89]
Traffic safety William Phelps Eno[90]
Yellow school bus Frank W. Cyr[91]

See also

References

  1. ^ Karl Marx (1863): Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 10:

    Carey (the passage to be looked up later) therefore denounces him as the father of communism.

    “Mr. Ricardo’s system is one of discords …its whole tends to the production of hostility among classes and nations… His hook is the true manual of the demagogue, who seeks power by means of agrarianism, war, and plunder.” (H. C. Carey, The Past, the Present, and the Future, Philadelphia, 1848, pp. 74–75.)

  2. ^ I. M. Oweiss (1988), "Ibn Khaldun, the Father of Economics", Arab Civilization: Challenges and Responses, New York University Press, ISBN 0887066984.
  3. ^ L. K. Jha, K. N. Jha (1998). "Chanakya: the pioneer economist of the world", International Journal ertrtrtrtof Social Economics 25 (2-4), p. 267-282
  4. ^ Rothbard, Murray N. (2006). "Chapter 12 — The founding father of modern economics: Richard Cantillon", Economic thought before Adam Smith: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltnam, UK: Edward Elgar, 345. ISBN 094546648X. "The honour of being called the 'father of modern economics' belongs, then, not to its usual recipient, Adam Smith, but to a gallicized Irish merchant, banker, and adventurer who wrote the first treatise on economics more than four decades before the publication of the Wealth of Nations. Richard Cantillon (c. early 1680s-1734)…" 
  5. ^ Steven Pressman. Fifty Major Economists. (1999). Routledge. ISBN 0415134811 p.20
  6. ^ Expanding Microcredit in India: A Great Opportunity for Poverty Alleviation, Grameen Dialogue.
  7. ^ Harry Markowitz, "the father of Modern Portfolio Theory," To Highlight Investment Consultants Conference
  8. ^ The Miniatures Page. The World of Miniatures - An Overview.
  9. ^ Rausch, Allen (August 15, 2004). "Gary Gygax Interview - Part I". GameSpy. Retrieved on 2005-01-03.
  10. ^ "Charles S. Roberts: The Founding Father"
  11. ^ J Robert Oppenheimer
  12. ^ Bernstein, Barton J: "Introduction" to The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories (expanded edition), by Leo Szilard. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992, p.5: "Its author, Leo Szilard, now dead nearly three decades, was a Hunganian émigré scientist and one of many putative fathers of the A-bomb."
  13. ^ "'Father of H-Bomb' Agrees to Rally Scientific Talent." The New York Times, December 31, 1965, p.19. Story opens: "Albany, Dec. 30—Governor Rockefeller will make an intensified attack on air pollution with the help of Dr. Edward Teller, the 'father of the hydrogen bomb.'"
  14. ^ Jeffries, John (2001). Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Fordham Univ Press. ISBN 0-8232-2110-5. , p.162: "'Admiral Rickover', said Powell, '"father of the atomic submarine", is a a great naval officer... It is not equally clear that he is a careful and thorough student of American education.'"
  15. ^ "Submarine Range Called Unlimited; Rickover Says Atomic Craft Can Cruise Under Ice To North Pole and Beyond," The New York Times, December 6, 1957, p.33: "The admiral, who is often called the 'Father of the Atomic Submarine'..."
  16. ^ Galantin, I. J. (1997). Submarine Admiral: From Battlewagons to Ballistic Missiles. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06675-8. , p. 217: "Chet Holifield... member of the JCAE... said 'Of all the men I dealt with in public service, at least one will go down in history: Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy.'"
  17. ^ Warner, Oliver (1973). Great Battle Fleets. Hamlyn, 98. ISBN 0600339130 ISBN 978-0600339137. 
  18. ^ Ayrault Dodge, Theodore (1995). Hannibal: A History of the Art of War Among the Carthagonians and Romans Down to the Battle of Pydna, 168 BC. Da Capo Press. 
  19. ^ Warner, Oliver (1973). Great Battle Fleets. Hamlyn, 96. ISBN 0600339130 ISBN 978-0600339137. 
  20. ^ "Andrei Sakharov: Soviet Physics, Nuclear Weapons, and Human Rights". Center for the History of Physics. American Institute of Physics. Retrieved on 2007-03-03.
  21. ^ "General William C. Lee: Father of the Airborne". Retrieved on 2008-07-12.
  22. ^ John Barry Kelly. "Commodore Barry". Retrieved on 2007-06-16.
  23. ^ Hoover Library, "Revolutionary America! Where Did We Go From There? The Continental Navy -- John Paul Jones"
  24. ^ (1914) New International Encyclopedia. New York City: Dodd, Mead and Company, Fathers. 
  25. ^ "Henry Chadwick, Chad, The Father of Base Ball [sic]"; National Baseball Hall of Fame bio,[1]. Not a player, but a journalist and organizer, the Hall of Fame credits him as "inventor of the box score" and "author of the first rule-book."
  26. ^ 'Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889, ed. Henry Chadwick at Project Gutenberg : "Henry Chadwick, the veteran journalist, upon whom the honored sobriquet of 'Father of Base Ball[sic]' rests so happily and well, appears in portraiture, and so well preserved in his physical manhood that his sixty-three years rest lightly upon his well timed life."
  27. ^ "Matty" at Harvard; The New York Times, February 16, 1909, p. 7: "Charles H. Ebbets, Chairman of the Chadwick Monument Committee, has announced that the contract has been awarded for a suitable monument to be placed on the plot in Greenwood[sic] Cemetery where the remains of the late Henry Chadwick, 'the Father of Baseball,' repose."
  28. ^ Collins, Glen (2004): "Ground as Hallowed as Cooperstown," The New York Times, April 1, 2004. (Article on baseball notables interred in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn) "Among the nearly 600,000 people buried there are no less than four pioneers who were accorded the title 'Father of Baseball' in the popular press: Henry Chadwick, Duncan Curry, William Tucker and William Wheaton....The memorial for Henry Chadwick bears a 'Father of Base Ball' inscription.... [Duncan] Curry, first president of the Knickerbocker Baseball Club, is immortalized with a monument that proudly dubs him 'Father of Baseball' because he headed the club that scholars say first codified many of the game's rules...."
  29. ^ Hicken, J.O. Ed. "Raymond Roundup 1902–1967". Lethbridge, Alberta Canada: The Lethbridge Herald Company, Ltd., 1967. pages 243 and 519.
  30. ^ http://www.vintagekarts.com/ingels.htm - vintagekarts.com
  31. ^ STX Lacrosse
  32. ^ HickokSports.com - History - Lacrosse
  33. ^ Lacrosse History. Historical Facts About Lacrosse
  34. ^ http://www.schoolnet.ca/aboriginal/handbook/arts_lacrosse.html
  35. ^ Santelli bio including several references backing up the statement, including a quote from Dr. William Gaugler Dec. 1997: "I am, in fact, only two generations removed from the 'father of modern sabre' [referring to Santelli]".
  36. ^ Albert Gallatin Mackey, The Builder Magazine, December 1922, Volume VIII, Number 12, Part XVI.
  37. ^ Goddard
  38. ^ Oberth
  39. ^ Woods, Thomas. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, p 36. (Washington, DC: Regenery, 2005); ISBN 0-89526-038-7.
  40. ^ Untitled Document
  41. ^ Lee, J.A.N. (1995). International Biographical Dictionary of Computer Pioneers. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. ISBN 1-884964-47-8. 
  42. ^ Konrad Zuse's versus John von Neumann's Computer Concepts
  43. ^ 'Father of the computer' honoured - BBC News, Monday, 7 June, 2004
  44. ^ The Modern History of Computing - Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  45. ^ Bruner, Jeffrey. "Atanasoff, father of the computer, dies at 91". Rebuilding the ABC. Ames Laboratory. Retrieved on 2006-07-28.
  46. ^ Ada Lovelace
  47. ^ Tsiolkovskiy
  48. ^ Belzer, Belzer (1977). Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology: Volume 7 - Curve Fitting to Early Development.... Marcel Dekker. ISBN 0-262-73009-X. , p. 55: "It is probably not an accident that the 'father of cybernetics,' Norbert Wiener, ..."
  49. ^ Wiener, Norbert [1948] (1965). Cybernetics, Second Edition: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. MIT Press. ISBN 0-8247-2257-4.  (Wiener is credited with coining the term in its common modern usage)
  50. ^ Martin Levey (1973), Early Arabic Pharmacology, EJ Brill, Leiden.
    Dunlop, D.M. (1975), Arab Civilization, Librairie du Liban.
    (cf. Womens Arabian Perfume)
  51. ^ Barger, M. Susan; William B. White (2000). The Daguerreotype: Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6458-5.  p. 20, "Louis Jacques Monde Daguerre: The second father of photography is Daguerre..."
  52. ^ Barger, M. Susan; William B. White (2000). The Daguerreotype: Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6458-5.  p. 17, "The first father of photography was Nicéphore Niépce...."
  53. ^ Ellis, Roger (2001). Who's Who in Victorian Britain. Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-1640-6. , p. 116: cites book title: "A. H. Booth: William Henry Fox Talbot: father of photography, 1965".
  54. ^ Booth, Martin (1999). Opium: A History. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-20667-4.  p. 30 "Robert Hall, the divine, was addicted [to opium], as was Thomas Wedgwood, the father of photography."
  55. ^ Paul Vallely, How Islamic Inventors Changed the World, The Independent, Mar 11, 2006.
  56. ^ The Father of Cool - Willis Haviland Carrier and Air Conditioning
  57. ^ Igor Sikorsky is considered to be the "father" of helicopters not because he invented the first. He is called that because he invented the first successful helicopter, upon which further designs were based, an artilce from inventors.About.com by Mary Bellis
  58. ^ Gore Deserves Internet Credit, Some Say, a March 1999 Washington Post article
  59. ^ Making Televised Emergency Information Accessible from the Gallaudet University website
  60. ^ Although its a title he objects to (see Interview with Vinton Cerf, from a January 2006 article in Government Computer News), Cerf is willing to call himself one of the Internet's fathers, citing Bob Kahn in particularly as being someone with whom he should share that title.
  61. ^ Kahn do, No (2007). " Father of internet warns against Net Neutrality", The Register, Thursday 18th January
  62. ^ "Kenjiro Takayanagi: The Father of Japanese Television". NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories. Retrieved on 2006-12-09.
  63. ^ "Kenjiro Takayanagi, Electrical Engineer, 91 (obituary)". New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-09.
  64. ^ BBC NEWS | UK | England | Coventry/Warwickshire | Sculpture to jet engine inventor
  65. ^ Aircraft Engine
  66. ^ John Harrison
  67. ^ The Technology Trailblazer: Vinod Dham. University of Cincinnati.
  68. ^ Priya Ganapati at Techfest 99, IIT Bombay. Rediff.com.
  69. ^ [2]
  70. ^ The "The First Electronic Church of America" Web site poses the question: "Russia's Popov: Did he 'invent' radio?" According to this account, Alexander Popov is the "radio man." Among other things, it notes that Popov reported sending and receiving a wireless signal across a 600 yards distance in 1895. Two years later, it says, he set up a shore station at Kronstadt and equipped the Russian navy cruiser Africa with his wireless communications apparatus to provide ship-to-shore communication., an article by Stan Horzepa wondering who is the father of the radio
  71. ^ De Forest, Lee (1950). Father of Radio: The Autobiography of Lee de Forest. Chicago: Wilcox & Follett.  (This book sold fewer than a thousand copies and is accordingly rare and expensive today).
  72. ^ Dennis, Everette E..; Edward Pease (1994). Radio—The Forgotten Medium. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1-56593-873-9. , p. 198: "the egotistical Lee De Forest who discovered, however unwittingly, the audion tube that allowed him to proclaim himself 'the father of radio'"
  73. ^ Shurkin, Joseph (1996). Engines of the Mind: The Evolution of the Computer from the Mainframes to Microprocessors. W. W. Norton and Company. ISBN 0-393-31471-5. , p. 132: "De Forest, who was not a modest man, called himself the 'Father of Radio,' an epithet whose accuracy is debatable."
  74. ^ Guglielmo Marconi - the "father of radio"
  75. ^ A. K. Sen (1997). "Sir J.C. Bose and radio science", Microwave Symposium Digest 2 (8-13), p. 557-560.
  76. ^ Ask the average person "Who invented radio?" and the average answer will be "Marconi." Ask the same question on the Internet, and the average answer will not likely be "Marconi." Instead, try one of the following on for size: Nikola Tesla, Alexander Popov, Oliver Lodge, Reginald Fessenden, Heinrich Hertz, Mahlon Loomis, Nathan Stubblefield, James Clerk Maxwell and even Thomas Edison, among others, an article by Stan Horzepa wondering who is the father of the radio
  77. ^ McLuhan, Marshall; Barrington Nevitt (1972). Take Today; the Executive as Dropout. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-187830-7.  "Fessenden, the Forgotten Father of 'Wireless' Telephony" (section heading)[3]
  78. ^ Zuill, William S. (2001): The Forgotten Father of Radio", American Heritage of Science and Technology, 17(1)40–47, as cited in Silverman, Steve (2003). Lindbergh's Artificial Heart: More Fascinating True Stories From Einstein's Refrigerator. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 0-7407-3340-0.  p. 160
  79. ^ XML for Newcomers and Managers - Part I
  80. ^ Meucci was recognised as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States House of Representatives, in its resolution 269 dated 11 June 2002 ("if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell").
  81. ^ Van Meggelen, Jim; Jared Smith, Leif Madsen (2005). Asterisk: The Future of Telephony. O'Reilly. ISBN 0-596-00962-3. , p.190: "Although Alexander Graham Bell is most famously remembered as the father of the telephone, the reality is that during the latter half of the 1800s dozens of minds were at work on the project of carrying voice over telegraph lines."
  82. ^ http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/farnsworthp/farnsworthp.htm
    . Society of Television Engineers. URL accessed January 20, 2008. "Isn't it about time that Philo Farnsworth gets some credit???
  83. ^ "Zworykin at IEEE Virtual Museum". Retrieved on 2008-03-03. ""the oft-called Father of Television Vladimir Zworykin""
  84. ^ "Zworykin at Museum.TV". Retrieved on 2008-03-03. ""inventor Vladimir Zworykin is often described as "the father of television". ""
  85. ^ Three loud cheers for the father of the web, 28/01/2005, Telegraph.co.uk
  86. ^ Cooper, Alan, Why I am called "the Father of Visual Basic" "Mitchell Waite called me the "father of Visual Basic" in the foreword to what I believe was the first book ever published for VB, called the Visual Basic How-To (now in its second edition, published by The Waite Group Press). I thought the appellation was an appropriate one, and frequently use the quoted phrase as my one-line biography."
  87. ^ XML.com: "XML Father" leaves W3C for OASIS
  88. ^ Federal Highway Administration [4]. URL accessed July 21, 2006.
  89. ^ Steil, Tim (2000). Route 66. MBI Publishing Company. ISBN 0-7603-0747-4. , p. 18, "Avery, though dubbed the 'Father of Route 66' by some, was a political appointee who also left office the next year."
  90. ^ Eno Transportation Foundation [5]. URL accessed August 23, 2006.
  91. ^ Watson, Rollin J. (2002). The School As a Safe Haven. Bergen Garvey/Greenwood. ISBN 0-89789-900-8.  p. 30}}: "The modern school bus began in a conference in 1939 called by Frank W. Cyr, the 'Father of the Yellow School' bus, who was a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. At that meeting, Cyr urged the standardization of the school bus. Participants came up with the standard yellow color and some basic construction standards. Cyr had... found that children were riding in all sorts of vehicles—one district, he found, was painting their busses red, white, and blue to instill patriotism."






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