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The Most Famous

INVENTORS from Austria

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This page contains a list of the greatest Austrian Inventors. The pantheon dataset contains 354 Inventors, 5 of which were born in Austria. This makes Austria the birth place of the 13th most number of Inventors behind Japan and Canada.

Top 5

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Austrian Inventors of all time. This list of famous Austrian Inventors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Robert Adler

1. Robert Adler (1913 - 2007)

With an HPI of 58.75, Robert Adler is the most famous Austrian Inventor.  His biography has been translated into 34 different languages on wikipedia.

Robert Adler (December 4, 1913 – February 15, 2007) was an Austrian-American inventor who held numerous patents. He worked for Zenith Electronics, retiring as the company's Vice President and Director of Research. His work included developing early sound-based remote controls for televisions, which were the standard for 25 years until replaced by infrared (IR) remotes that could transmit more complex commands.

Photo of Georg Luger

2. Georg Luger (1849 - 1923)

With an HPI of 57.55, Georg Luger is the 2nd most famous Austrian Inventor.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Georg Johann Luger (6 March 1849 – 22 December 1923) was an Austrian designer of the famous Luger pistol and the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge.

Photo of Viktor Schauberger

3. Viktor Schauberger (1885 - 1958)

With an HPI of 57.41, Viktor Schauberger is the 3rd most famous Austrian Inventor.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Viktor Schauberger (30 June 1885 – 25 September 1958) was an Austrian forest caretaker, naturalist, philosopher, inventor and pseudoscientist.

Photo of Gaston Glock

4. Gaston Glock (1929 - 2023)

With an HPI of 53.55, Gaston Glock is the 4th most famous Austrian Inventor.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Gaston Glock (German: [ˈɡastɔn ˈɡlɔk]; 19 July 1929 – 27 December 2023) was an Austrian engineer and businessman. He founded the company Glock and developed the Glock pistol in 1982, which became one of the most influential and popular light firearms of the 20th century.

Photo of Štefan Banič

5. Štefan Banič (1870 - 1941)

With an HPI of 49.54, Štefan Banič is the 5th most famous Austrian Inventor.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Štefan Banič (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈʂcefam ˈbaɲitʂ]; 23 November 1870 – 2 January 1941) was a Slovak inventor who patented an early parachute design.Born in Jánostelek (Slovak: Neštich, Smolenická Nová Ves), Austria-Hungary (now Smolenická Nová Ves, a part of Smolenice, Slovakia), Banič immigrated to the United States and worked as a coal miner in Greenville, Pennsylvania. After witnessing a plane crash in 1912, Banič constructed a prototype of a parachute, and on August 25, 1914 was granted US patent, No. 1,108,484.The design which was radically different from others – it was a type of umbrella attached to the body, but it is claimed that he successfully tested it in Washington, D.C. jumping first from a 15-story building and subsequently from an airplane in 1914. He sold his patent to the U.S. Army, although there is no evidence that it was ever used.After World War I Banič returned to Czechoslovakia where he helped to explore the Driny karst cave in the foothills of the Little Carpathian Mountains, close to his hometown of Smolenice.

Pantheon has 5 people classified as inventors born between 1849 and 1929. Of these 5, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased inventors include Robert Adler, Georg Luger, and Viktor Schauberger.

Deceased Inventors

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Which Inventors were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 5 most globally memorable Inventors since 1700.