World & Tech Milestones

In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell published the “second greatest unification in physics” since Newton.
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Theodore Maiman built the first working laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation).
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Alexander Graham Bell sent the first voice message over a telegraph wire in 1876.
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Thomas Edison (the man with 1093 patents) demonstrated the first practical lightbulb in 1879.
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In 1886, radio waves were transmitted and received for the first time by Heinrich Hertz.
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The Michigan Micro Mote is a fully autonomous computing system that acts as a smart sensing system.
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The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer was the first large-scale computer to run at electronic speed.
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Bill Hewlett and David Packard finalized their partnership in January 1939 after supplying oscillators to Disney.
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LASIK surgery came about thanks to ultrafast femtosecond lasers, the direct result of Michigan research.
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“Human computers” were often utilized in order to solve mathematical problems and process data.
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The NASA Center for Space Terahertz Technology pioneered the development of Terahertz antenna arrays.
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In 1896, at the age of 22, Guglielmo Marconi first demonstrated wireless transmission by radio.
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ECE alum Lee Boysel and his team created the first single-chip CPU microprocessor.
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Leith made holography a reality, stunning the world with his holographic train in 1964.
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Center for Photonic and Multiscale Nanomaterials focuses on controlling light interactions with matter.
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Department Chair William Gould Dow was responsible for bringing industry- and government-sponsored research to Michigan.
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Prof. Battacharya was instrumental in early understanding of the tiny semiconductor particles called quantum dots.
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The first Research Center in Wireless Integrated Microsensing and Systems forged advances in many fields.
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In 1963, two organizations merged to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE.
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John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain invented the transistor in 1947.
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Extremely accurate probes us a variety of technologies to make mapping the brain with light possible.
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