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5 Famous Inventors (Who Stole Their Big Idea)

cracked.com — Genius is all about knowing where to steal your ideas.

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  • HeDiggMe, on 03/29/2008, -17/+31I thought Gregor Mendel would make this list. Every hs bio student had to learn about those stupid peas even though his data were as real as an Enron tax report.
    • MasterPlayer, on 03/29/2008, -2/+15He was a pioneer for his time and his work is a good introduction to alleles and heredity for biology students, so please stop bagging on dead people.
      • trogdor282, on 03/29/2008, -1/+2Getting away with data fabrication is a VERY bad thing to teach science students.
      • cygnus2112, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Well, what if he likes banging on dead people? Necrophiliacs are people, too!
    • Rohhob, on 03/29/2008, -4/+21What the hell are you talking about?
      You know nothing about genetics do you?
      • HeDiggMe, on 03/29/2008, -2/+7One of the tenets of science is that experiments must be possible to replicate. Mendel's ratios came out so perfectly that nobody's ever been able to reproduce them, hence its commonly accepted that he ***** his data to make history.
        • Lazydriver, on 03/29/2008, -1/+7Uhm, they HAVE been replicated. Otherwise it would've never been taken as fact.

          Haven't you ever studied Genetics? Even in entry level Biology classes, you recreate the experiment.

          They weren't exact either, but they were very close. The ratios were rounded, but this were *mutations*. It even happens in normal physics with elements, where there's an odd isotope in an atom or two that makes a rather non-radioactive material such as carbon radioactive.
        • elipabst, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4You could certainly reproduce them. The reason people believe his data was manipulated was because it was just unlikely. In reality, it's extremely probable that Mendel was just excluding results that he considered to be outliers due to some kind of experimental error which people often do in science (especially in botany where you can have issues with cross-pollination). The problem is that the observations that he was excluding because they seemed like anomalies which he simply wrote off as experimental error were really due to a phenomenon know today as recombination. So you can have issue with his failure to report all the facts, but frankly that kind of thing happens all the time, he just got burned by it. His general finding were still one of the most important in the history of biology.
        • sule, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1he didn't *****, but he did fudge some of the results to make the numbers "prettier"

          nevertheless, that doesn't negate the overall results or the advances it spawned in genetics and hereditary science
    • TH3W1R3D, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1I dugg that comment just cause of the Enron joke. Not so sure about the Mendel thing...
    • apochcrypha, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2Someone stole my idea for 6 Minute Abs. We were even going to throw in an extra minute for free.
    • billlyboobs34, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Mendel's data was fabricated? Please cite your sources I'm interested...
  • ElBeh, on 03/29/2008, -0/+91Dugg for Einstein's photograph with God.
    • lexf, on 03/29/2008, -2/+4It's all relative.
      • ebmnoize, on 03/29/2008, -0/+6the god beside Einstein is Rabindra Nath Tagore from India
        • Jaliyl, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4Ahh, so he's god, and here I thought he didn't exist.
    • shoutsmurmurs, on 03/29/2008, -9/+1Whenever Einstein wanted to bring home girls for Thanksgiving dinner, his mother would never allow it and say "you know it's all relatives."
    • coolian, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4For the curious: that's Rabindranath Tagore.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore
    • jas8522, on 03/29/2008, -0/+6That is definitely the part that made me laugh the most!
    • thedeadwalrus, on 03/29/2008, -3/+7The author knows nothing about physics. Do a little research before you trash Einstein, please. He most certainly is the absolutely the genius of the 20th century. Most of the garbage this idiot spouts comes from anti-semitic attempts to discredit him. Do you really think every professional physicist alive - guys who get paid to sit around and think about ***** you will never comprehend - idolizes a hack without knowing it? BURIED. If you are interested in the truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2b1D5w82yU
  • alanocu, on 03/29/2008, -7/+13http://www.cracked.com/article_16072_5-famous-inve ...
    • UnWeave, on 03/29/2008, -0/+7Thanks. wtf is up with the link given on digg? the text is right, numbers are wrong, but instead of a 404 we just get the article that the code links to. . .
  • l33tn00b, on 03/29/2008, -2/+157That Thomas Edison was an asshole
    • MasterPlayer, on 03/29/2008, -0/+57Surprisingly, I only discovered this after watching The Prestige.
    • NightVortez, on 03/29/2008, -0/+30Yeah and he's credited as the greatest inventor of all time, it's sick.
      • brad3378, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Who else should be considered for the title?
    • banmaster, on 03/29/2008, -0/+13Yup. Literally EVERY SINGLE one of his 'inventions' was stolen from someone else who hadn't the time or funds to apply for a pattent for it yet.
      He did improve some things (like extending the lfe of the filament in a light globe) but he certainly didn't invent any of them in the first place.
      • unreg, on 03/29/2008, -12/+3Everyone can invent something, the ones that get noticed are the ones who make it practical. Edision was good at that.

        • ComradeGoby, on 03/29/2008, -0/+15You what is practical? Alternating Current, and guess who didn't come up with it?
          • SpyDerMann, on 03/29/2008, -2/+3Suddenly, Edison begins to remind me of Bill Gates.
      • headzoo, on 03/29/2008, -4/+7Is that really so different than someone like Steve Jobs getting credit for all the wonderful things that are created at Apple? He didn't actually invent, engineer, or create any of that stuff. But that doesn't stop people from treating him like a god. Reuters has even called him the "father of the iPod".. Much in the way Edison is called the father of the light bulb. But neither of those guys invented the products they get credit for.
        • bowe, on 03/29/2008, -1/+7Yeah, Woz is the guy who did all of the technical work, Jobs was just his A-hole "friend". Although the work he did was really with the very early computers, not so much the Apple II. As everyone knows, the true innovation, Apple's operating system was snaggled away from Xerox.

          Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.
        • TheFinaleofSeem, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3Since when does Jobs take credit for so many of these things? He's the CEO. He doesn't claim to design or create these things. He has people who do that and he critiques their work. He's not a techie. He couldn't engineer his way out of a paper bag. Jobs is an ass, to be sure, but the comparison really isn't valid.

          And if it weren't for Jobs, Woz probably wouldn't have made it far. Woz was utterly brilliant, but he really didn't know what to do with his stuff. He was happy just to play around with electronics to see what he could do. Jobs was a man who knew how to market something. Yes, he did take advantage of Woz, but if you think Woz got nothing out of it, you're fooling yourself.
      • kzgagne, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Thomas Edison absolutely invented the phonograph! Look it up.
    • Jpotts12, on 03/29/2008, -3/+2hah....faggit thomas nerdison. I used to beat up people like him in high school. I'd probably kick his nerdy ass in a fight.
      • pantsydecision, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2yeah..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... not really sure if that's politically correct there jpotts
    • lamiaconfitor, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1the worlds first marketing genius?
  • jakash, on 03/29/2008, -0/+7Wow, theres a mistake in the interweb.
  • fluidfoundation, on 03/29/2008, -0/+58Someone stole my idea for 6 Minute Abs. We were even going to throw in an extra minute for free.
    • bowe, on 03/29/2008, -0/+16Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
      Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the excercise video.
      Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7... Minute... Abs.
      Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you're going.
      Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin' there, there's 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
      Ted: I would go for the 7.
      Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
      Ted: You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?
      Hitchhiker: If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from "A" to "B".
      Ted: That's right. That's - that's good. That's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you're in trouble, huh?
      [Hitchhiker convulses]
      Hitchhiker: No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
      Ted: That - good point.
      Hitchhiker: 7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.
  • dinobot, on 03/29/2008, -21/+7C'mon, I was hoping for Bill Gates to be included, after all, he pretty much got the basis for his MS-Dos from someone else for pennies, and just licensed it to IBM.
    • Myztry, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3To be fair, he did acquire QDOS/86-DOS legally from Seattle Computing Products. Though QDOS was itself a knockoff of Digital Research's CP/M operating system.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86-DOS
    • unreg, on 03/29/2008, -1/+9Just because others were stupid doesn't make what Gates did criminal.
      • Myztry, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4But then it doesn't make him or Microsoft an inventor/innovator either. By the times Microsoft got into OS's, modern computing was already well defined.
        Commercial success is a whole different topic.
    • ClockworksNine, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1I remember reading somewhere that MS ended up giving the guy a lot more money afterwards, somewhere in the few millions of dollars range.
  • GlennLThompson, on 03/29/2008, -4/+12I always read that Einstein hardly cited people in his work because his ideas were so original. Thanks for motivating me to look into this matter further.
    • nojonojonojo, on 03/29/2008, -0/+28Well, special relativity was an extension of other peoples' work. It wasn't, as the article suggests, outright stolen.

      General Relativity, however, he pretty much pulled out of the blue, and that's where his reputation for genius comes from. And that really wasn't based on much else that others did. So the article is pretty much wrong about Einstein.
      • OfficeSpacing, on 03/29/2008, -0/+17Correct. Cracked is out of its element and passed its intellectual threshold in this article.
        • jub0r, on 03/29/2008, -1/+2But the site's name is "Cracked.com!" Whatever it says must certainly be academically rigorous! Right? Certainly they wouldn't exaggerate the facts for comedic effect!
    • EntropyFan, on 03/29/2008, -1/+8Einstein himself said "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
      All 'creative' geniuses stand on the work of those before them and around them, then add that certain unique something.
      • Vodd9, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3And you sure are making a good job hiding the source of your claims.
  • leetdood, on 03/29/2008, -0/+150Why is the thumbnail Mark Wahlberg?
    • mortinmaxwell, on 03/29/2008, -5/+5He stole the idea for the 50 cal.
    • IareKEVLAR, on 03/29/2008, -1/+47I'm not sure, but i dugg this story with that as 90% of my reasoning.
    • D3koy, on 03/29/2008, -1/+19He is planning on stealing all of those ideas, and with that gun are you going to question Marky-Mark?
    • joegibes, on 03/29/2008, -0/+26Why wouldn't the thumbnail be Mark Wahlberg?
    • MadHarvey, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3He stole the song title "Good Vibrations" from The Beach Boys. That Jerk.
    • lamiaconfitor, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2why the hell not?
    • proliance, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1Because he originally wrote this article. Cracked just lifted it from his blog.
  • hansk, on 03/29/2008, -0/+23Cracked doesn't realize that academic integrity wasn't as strict today as it was 50-100 years ago. also, even today a patent alone is not enough to protect oneself from cheap knockoffs, you need the financial capital to defend that patent. That being said, calling these guys the 'inventors' of those products is wrong, they're just the guys who made those products big.
    • Pake, on 03/29/2008, -0/+21And most don't claim to invent anything, only that they made better use of it. Galileo never claimed to have invented the telescope, but he was the first to seriously use the telescope for scientific purposes and that is why his name is synonymous with it.
      • slightlygifted, on 03/29/2008, -1/+3also only one to stand up to catholic church to say we werent at center of the universe and died cause of it.
        • jmccrox, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4Galileo didn't die. He was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life.
        • Pake, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Nor did he really stand up against the church. He didn't agree with the church, but he never stood up against it. He did the smart move and just agreed with them verbally, but not mentally so that he could continue his studies.
  • alex7575, on 03/29/2008, -3/+13"The moon's asscrack"

    ROFL
  • snareguy17, on 03/29/2008, -2/+10Einstein, photographed with God. Win.
  • Amadeus2490, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4Mmm, I want a Lippershey bar.
  • jm4847, on 03/29/2008, -3/+117Edison was a ***** douchebag. Thanks to him we have this draconian copyright laws and he also screwed over Nikola Tesla (the one that would have invented/made viable wireless electricity).
    The worst part is they still talk about him as if he was a noble scientist, when he was nothing more than a greedy asshole.
    I wish hell was real so he would burn in it, and I wish that everyone knew the truth about him so his legacy wasn't anything other than that of a criminal.
    I know I'm ranting, but people like him ***** me off so much.
    • unreg, on 03/29/2008, -26/+2Whaa, whaa. Jesus H ***** Christ, if Tesla was such a genius then why isn't his ***** implemented. Are you telling me he was too much a pussy to take on Edison?
      • nbcaffeine, on 03/29/2008, -0/+15Yeah, Edison's DC is used for all the power all over the world
        • elipabst, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2It's kind of ironic that you put it that way, because DC is often used for transmitting large amounts of power over long distances. In fact, it's actually better to transmit power long distances that way, it's just that you need expensive conversion stations at the end to get it back to AC, so it makes it cost-prohibitive to do that on a local level.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
      • CatalystGhost, on 03/29/2008, -0/+13Just about everything Tesla did has been implemented. The electricity in your house? Alternating current was his idea, and his invention (look up the War of the Currents). Radio? Tesla was the first to demonstrate it. A ton of other things came from him, too, just do some research.
      • Lazydriver, on 03/29/2008, -0/+5He did take on Edison after Edison screwed him out of a $50,000 contract for research and decided to only pay $12-$14 an hour ONLY.

        That's when Tesla was like "FACK YOU!" and decided to find a new sponsor and get his own labs. George Westinghouse, was that sponsor!
      • unreg, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1And he was a certified whack job and died penniless
    • joegibes, on 03/29/2008, -4/+2Don't forget that Einstein worked at a patent office... He sure didn't help get rid of any "draconian copyright laws."
      • banmaster, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1He didn't work in the US patent office. That is the worst by far of the international patent organizations in excistance.
      • TheFinaleofSeem, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Einstein was a grunt in the patent office and had no real love for the work. It was something to pay the bills. He sure as hell wasn't shaping policy.
    • scojerroc, on 03/29/2008, -0/+5jm4847, every time your comment is dugg, edison gets stabbed (in hell.)
      • lamiaconfitor, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1aww. I wished I knew that before I dugg it. :( I would have enjoyed it more :D
    • jmpeagle, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1if it makes you feel better, Edison's company is still the worlds 2nd largest by market capitalization (he started General Electric)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric#Hist ...
  • Tahiri, on 03/29/2008, -4/+15I get annoyed everytime I see someone claim Nintendo invented something like rumble, motion sensing or analog sticks when PCs got a joystick with rumble before the rumble pack, the Vectrex had analog a decade prior, and same with the Intellivision and motion sensing. There are numerous other things the ignorant claim Nintendo invented, and the only one that's correct is Cube's clicky analog trickers
    • Scottievm, on 03/29/2008, -7/+5And that pointless rant has what to do with this story?
    • hartley, on 03/29/2008, -3/+12You ment Apple, not Nintendo right? I've never heard Nintendo say they were the first at anything, where as Apple says it constantly.
      Just because you talk to stupid people doesn't mean even a portion of people think Nintendo invented all of those things.
      The only thing they invented/perfected is the d-pad. *in fact they own the term d-pad.*
    • Tahiri, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1"And that pointless rant has what to do with this story?"

      It has as much a point as this article

      "You ment Apple, not Nintendo right? I've never heard Nintendo say they were the first at anything,"

      Actually Nintendo has been literally quoted as claiming they are the source of all innovation (video game related) I can post the quote once I get home from work. That and you can't claim you've never heard some idiot claim Nintendo invented rumble or analog, I've seen it all the time.
    • lamiaconfitor, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1eh, im getting over it all. just as long as its affordable. they can all be crooks.
  • garths, on 03/29/2008, -1/+34I invented digg.com
    • sockpuppets, on 03/29/2008, -5/+4You invented fail.
    • SeventhSon, on 03/29/2008, -1/+7I invented pants.
      • toppgun, on 03/29/2008, -0/+6most useless invention ever!
        • zspade, on 03/29/2008, -0/+11Not true! Pants are extremely useful for keeping hot bacon grease off your junk!
        • xptoast, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1zspades' comment is full of WIN
      • dannydyer1000, on 03/29/2008, -3/+1Would you happen to own Worldwide Pants Incorporated, by any chance? (Anyone get the reference?)
      • lamiaconfitor, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1before or after I invented buttons?
    • raeshao, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Could you please send that damn rebate you owe me?!
  • Helloween2008, on 03/29/2008, -1/+11Dugg for "Edison was a dreamer, and he couldn't be satisfied with just one dead, disgraced inventor under his belt."
  • chi1thook, on 03/29/2008, -15/+7I was taught in school that these guys were harmless nerds but in reality Galeo, Fleming, Bell, Einstein and Edison were all thugs that trampled anyone in their way
    • Rohhob, on 03/29/2008, -3/+12Wow, you're an idiot.
    • Lazydriver, on 03/29/2008, -3/+1You're right on Bell, not so much the others.

      Care to cite? I'll digg you up for making me think though.
  • breatht, on 03/29/2008, -8/+2Rihanna.
    (Why even bother)
  • lou2005, on 03/29/2008, -0/+6I just read a book on Bell, it also said he stole the phone idea. but it was an entirely different story.
    • elipabst, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2From what I've hear about the Bell story is supposedly that the "telephone" Meucci invented didn't transmit intelligible speech, it just sounded like a buzzing noise. So while he definitely had an invention, it was not a telephone in the sense of the one Watson and Bell came up with.

      Plus a number of the other ones in the list are highly suspect as well. I mean it's interesting to note that people came across some of these things first like in case of Penicillin, but if you don't realize what you've found and don't tell anyone about it, then what the hell good is it? It's great that guy was curing hamsters and all, but millions of real people were dying every year that went by.
  • souljaboytellem, on 03/29/2008, -11/+1I knew Edison and Einstein would be on there, the only thing Einstein was try to rape your grandmas
    • Jaliyl, on 03/29/2008, -1/+9buried for your name
    • Lutremi, on 03/29/2008, -1/+3YOUUUUUU fail
    • dannydyer1000, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1the only thing souljaboytellem was try to fail your grammars
    • souljaboytellem, on 03/29/2008, -1/+2Why don't you click on my name, you'll see that it was an ironic name because, I hate soulja boy and everything he's about
  • btraxx, on 03/29/2008, -11/+32"Galileo Galilee or "Gal-Gal," as he is more commonly known"
    Stopped reading right there.
    • sloonark, on 03/29/2008, -10/+3Because you have no sense of humour?
    • DjViral, on 03/29/2008, -8/+3i know lol ... i dont know anyone who calls him this.
      • bowe, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4haha, are you for real? Must be you weren't as tight with GalGal as you thought.
    • mentor, on 03/29/2008, -5/+4Just... utter nonsense. Just because the authors don't know what the ***** Galileo actually did...

      Buried for gross incompetence
    • cor315, on 03/29/2008, -3/+3are you people for real? IT WAS A ***** JOKE!!! wake up
  • codered1322, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1"Unless someone comes out with six minute abs, then you'd be in trouble."
  • NightVortez, on 03/29/2008, -2/+4"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." -Thomas Edison.
    • Daiken, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1That finally makes sense to me. He tired himself out trying to buy up other people's work.
    • mws715, on 03/29/2008, -0/+0That's why engineers smell bad
  • Chronoped, on 03/29/2008, -0/+43God bless Nikola Tesla! Sadly, much of his best work has gone without mass implementation. The world would be a better place if we payed more attention to Tesla...
    • unreg, on 03/29/2008, -3/+1And why hasn't it been implemented?
      • Xondar, on 03/29/2008, -0/+10The corporations of the day would rather charge for electricity instead of free, limitless electricity transmitted through the air. Oh, and we'd all be dead because of transmitting free power through the air with microwaves.
      • ibookfast, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2Corporate-sponsored artificial scarcity.
      • xptoast, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1At least one of his inventions is in wide use. That would be AC and AC motors.
        • TheFinaleofSeem, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Screw that, I want his infamous death ray.
  • hollywoodphony, on 03/29/2008, -8/+1If Edison hadn't been such a dick, we wouldn't have gotten the band "Tesla" and their whiny songs about what a jerk he was. I'd say the whole thing is a wash, all things considered. It's like if Bret Michaels never had diabetes.
  • wukillabee, on 03/29/2008, -5/+216. Kevin Rose
    • D3koy, on 03/29/2008, -13/+1Welcome to burytown, population...well, I guess there are a lot of us here....
    • Wolfcaster, on 03/29/2008, -4/+4hey, you can't say that about our god!
  • blorguehad, on 03/29/2008, -1/+7dugg for digimon and rhianna
  • bliz, on 03/29/2008, -4/+27cracked.com is just.. crap.. They're insinuating that Einstein didn't come up with E = MC^2 and put Poincare under the heading of "Who actually invented it?" but the best evidence they can offer is not that of Poincare actually coming up with this formula but that of Einstein not citing Poincare in his papers?
  • UNCCEJ1010, on 03/29/2008, -0/+38Well, after looking into the Einstein matter, it seems like Cracked is wrong.
    Poincaré recorded his equations for the final elements of special relativity in a personal letter in 1905.
    Einstein actually published a scholarly paper proposing the theory in 1905 .
    Poincaré's ideas weren't publicly available when Einstein "stole" them.
    • Zlorp, on 03/29/2008, -1/+13whew, thanks for that, i was almost heart broken when i read the Einstein part.
  • Myztry, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4Very few of the big name 'inventors' actually invented the ideas they are known for. Being the first to register an idea at the patent office, or purchasing the ownership to a patent, is often somewhat different than actually inventing it.
    It's all a bit of farce really. Copyright could protect ideas from non-productive verbatim copying. Patents tend to be little more than a tool to establish a control hierarchy over ideas.
    Identical ideas can form and exist with non related individuals. Whatever idea anyone has, one of the hundreds of Billions to preexist you have no doubt had an identical, if not same idea. Who hasn't seen an idea and recognized it as being the same as something they'd mused over in the past? Pretty much everyone.
    The biggest farce with patents, is they don't even need a working implementation. Just a unique(ish) entry in the registry. They turn parallel thinking into a tidy little (falsely) sequential chain, to which fiscal rules can be applied.

  • iwantamonkey, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2What, not Eli Whitney?
  • HanSolo69, on 03/29/2008, -1/+12Do people seriously think Galileo invented the telescope?
  • Killer57, on 03/29/2008, -1/+32I call ***** on the Einstein part. Poincare's book Science and Hypothesis was on the Olympia Academy reading list, it wasn't not about Relativity as we know it, It was predominately about flaws in Newtons theory, which Relativity points out (That Time and Space are not absolute). Poincare never made the connection between the relativity of simultaneity and relativity of time, and he drew back when on the brink of understanding the full ramifications of his ideas about local time. Pincare still clung to physics of old and refused to be a rebel like Einstein and do away with it. Poincare's theory still stated that there was absolute space and time as defined by a rigid immovable ether. Einstein stated that there was no absolute space and time and there was no ether; and that was what made Einstein's theory revolutionary, and since Poincare's science as based on the old notions of absolute time and space, and the ether, they were all thrown out the window. So why would Einstein cite Poincare's theory, when it was based on archaic theories that were soon to die out? Not to mention that Poincare was not the only one postulating such things as Relativity, H.A Lorentz and Ernst Mach also were questions Newton's theory.

    • Archimboldo, on 03/29/2008, -0/+7Cracked just wanted a good story - even if they had to twist the facts. They furthermore had nothing to say about General Relativity, which was a bigger leap from current theory than Special Relativity.

      A more interesting case might be Quantum Mechanics. Ehrenfest came up with a mathematical formalism that looked virtually identical to Schroedinger's wave equation, but for classical mechanics and without a value for Planck's constant and without an interpretation like the Copenhagen interpretation proposed by Bohr's colleagues. It would still be lame to say that Schroedinger, Heisenberg et al "stole" QM from Ehrenfest.
  • daxsymbiont, on 03/29/2008, -10/+3Einstein was a Jew hence easily promotable after the Hitler years.
    • thedeadwalrus, on 03/29/2008, -3/+1And this comment is why we can't cracked.com (a total POS website if you ask me) get away with publishing such lies as this. I don't know for sure about all of them, but as a physicist, the Einstein section is total *****.
      • daxsymbiont, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Are you denying that a Jewish person would be easily promotable after the Hitler years?

        I mean nazis suck balls and Jews don't deserve anything that happened to them but it's easier to promote them after the 40s.

        There may be even a connection between his cultural identity and the usage of relativity to make a bomb against the axis.
  • Xondar, on 03/29/2008, -1/+2Anyone who knows anything about Einstein should know that he didn't "invent" Relativity per se, he was simply audacious enough to postulate it. The cosmology of the time would have eventually had to acknowledge the existence of Relativity, but no one was willing to challenge the Enlightenment notion that the universe was supposedly infinite in time and space. Relativity only works in a finite universe, i.e. a universe that had a beginning and has boundaries in space. It should be noted that Relativity led directly to the Big Bang Theory.
  • RobotLeAwesome, on 03/29/2008, -0/+14All hail Tesla!
  • chkdg8, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2Read, An Underground Education by Richard Zacks.
  • schneid4323, on 03/29/2008, -0/+14Einstein used the equation E=MC^2 from PoincarĂ©, but he was the one whom proved it mathematically and came up with the General Theory of Relativity, it's physics, you don't need to cite equations.
  • thephuckphase, on 03/29/2008, -6/+3where's bill gates. Windows stole the interface/mouse concept from Apple. resulting in him becoming the richest man in the world and steve jobs getting fired.
    • jmg703, on 03/29/2008, -0/+8That's okay, Apple stole "right-click" years later in revenge.
    • Twee, on 03/29/2008, -1/+4and apple stole the gui concept from xerox parc.
      • chevyorange, on 03/29/2008, -3/+1Too bad they didn't pay for it. Then it would be legit.

    • V01dV01cg, on 03/29/2008, -0/+0but Alan Kay credited Ivan Sutherland (Sketchpad) and Doug Engelbart as inspirations for Xerox Parc work.
  • geoffpado, on 03/29/2008, -3/+12Bill Gates? *ducks*
  • pumavan, on 03/29/2008, -0/+20...i invented Napster in college but my damn roommate stole it from me...
  • ronaldmonster, on 03/29/2008, -3/+5Where is Steve Jobs?
  • HydrogenY, on 03/29/2008, -1/+26Gotta defend Galileo. He did not and never claimed to have invented the telescope. He did perfect it though and is famous for what he observed through it. I think everybody apart from Cracked must know this already, but just making sure.
    • ronaldinho, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Oh you will be surprised dude.....by the way, I dare say that most people on this list were not "inventors" (perhaps Einstein is the only exception), but they merely expanded its uses and made it famous, much like how the Chinese invented gunpowder, but Europeans are really the first ones to make regular use of it
  • eouhhohh, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2I think we all know what a prick Edison was...

    http://www.clipstr.com/videos/ThomasEdisonOnFamily ...
  • HydrogenY, on 03/29/2008, -7/+1Also, if this were my list, I'd probably replace Fleming with is Charles Darwin.
    • HydrogenY, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Oh digg me down you weasels, but look it up. The concept of Evolution did not start with Darwin. He merely described a popular theory on how it happens; And I'll guarantee 90% of people don't even know what that theory is or states exactly.

      http://www.aboutdarwin.com/literature/Pre_Dar.html
  • JohnP, on 03/29/2008, -0/+3"He tried selling it to Edison, who saw no practical use in Goebel's invention and refused."

    Sony (an employee) did the same with the Walkman. The difference is that the real inventor, not being dead, sued and won.
  • Bonez, on 03/29/2008, -5/+8what the hell .. where's Bill Gates in this one?
    • secrity, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Why the undiggs? He stole or bought the OS that became MS-DOS / PC-DOS but he seems to take credit for it.
  • DjViral, on 03/29/2008, -0/+4this article was very intriguing and i liked it a lot. but one must remember the 100th monkey effect. there is a collective consciousness ,so can any one individual be credited for an invention.
  • Virgule, on 03/29/2008, -1/+2Steven Paul Jobs seam to know that, too ;(
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