they invented things that killed them?

Edison - shade of Bill Gates today?

Bill and Melinda Gates have billions invested in Monsanto GMO's.

Edison wasn't a genius! He wasn't even an inventor but a good business man with American name. That's why Americans ignore Nikola Tesla, Leon Scot and many others who were riped off by Edison in well known democratic- american way.

True enough. He used others ideas and patented first. Hero of Bill Gates I'm sure.
Actually it's a bit like Americans claiming it was the Wright Bros "inventing" the heavier-than-air-machine.- A Frenchman did that - AND was the 1st to fly !- Wrights had the first "Controlled flight" - Big difference. All should be celebrated.

true!!! history is written by survivors........

I concur! However I'm sure if you ask a "properly" educated America (oxymoron?) they will also agree.

All who disagree, go to theotmeal.com and read about Eddison and Tesla. Hopefully since it's fact in funny comics, it should be able to wrap around your brain rather easily.

did i miss it, or did the article bypass the inventor of the segway?

Nick - By buzzing Germans do you mean hostile German aircraft? The war against Germany ended in May 1944; shouldn't have been any "buzzing Germans" in the "late forties", but then again, I wasn't there...

"Brave men all who work/live in this universe of raw courage.... Bravi all.." Agree, 100%

May 1945, turnip!

I've never met a Vegan who has lived for ever and I guess I never will, I'll be dead by then and I will leave a little space for someone to come after me!

It is not correct that we as Humans are vegan! We are omnivors! THis is why we have colonised the whole planed and are the dominant species (of the superior animals). It is true to say though that we could do with eating less meat.
To realise we are onmivors, look at our denture and intestines. They are "generalists". It is important not to loose this ability to eat (nearly) anything as it helps with survival.

HUMAN BEINGS ARE VEGANS AND ALWAYS ATE ONLY FRUITS VEGETABLES NUTS SEEDS AND GRAINS ALL ANIMAL PRODUCTS ARE POISON

Someone's chatting shit. Did you fail biology?

Bollocks!

i guess cavemen who ate each other were never told your fact??

Hey anonymous

Our Australopithicine ancestors began consumming red meat and began to grow larger brains. It allowed them to become us. We are omnivores and requrie a wide variety of foods to maintain who and what we are.

meat in brain? ok, just start a scientific study

ehhh no, not quite. ever studied the digestive system?

Tesla gets far to little credit for the ideas Edison stole. Edison is a pirate not an innovator

given the millions of people who say this, I believe Tesla does get enough credit.

People say this because it is the simple truth. He deserved to have that achievement during his life, not a hundred years later. Maybe you need to go read some more misconstrued history material.. alone.. far, far away, where no one has to interact with your ignorance.

IT IS THE SIMPLE TRUTH

Most of the major inventions over the centuries were Christian Based countries :eg James Watts (steam engine) write brothers (first flying machine) I can on but its endless

Of course there is the little matter of the contribution of Islam to mathematics, but don't let that stop you as you draw up your endless list.

Those guys who built the pyramids, chancers the lot of them.

The Inca civilisation in Peru, savages the lot of them.

What did the Romans know about engineering after all.

I'll grant you one thing though. Jesus was a hell of a carpenter. He could make a mean coffee table according to the gnostic gospel I keep by my bedside.

Driven2travel:

I'm a creationist. And I know you were speaking to me, because I'm an egotist as well.

Darwin awards?

Those which invented "animal originated foods Diet"are killed by their invention and kills others too!!

Actually humans were originally mostly meat Eaters (we have Canines) as well as opportunist eaters.(Hunter/Gatherers) Farming which allowed a more vegetarian diet was "invented" later and annually kills hundreds of farmers each year

Says who? Early archeological evidence suggests only 10% of calories came from meat, the rest from berries, nuts, roots etc I.e. gathering rather than hunting. In other words the more feminine role has always provided more than the masculine.

I think before Man devised implements necessary for hunting the only way to survive would have been gathering. Technology , albeit primitive, is required for hunting. None is required for gathering. So gathering (i think) must have preceded hunting.This line of reasoning suggests that we are vegetarians-turned-omnivores. But again, I wasn't there when this was happening, so I am just speculating.

hunting wild goats first then gathering them and making a living on them (still working nowadays) just like ants with other species of insects

That's a a bit far fetched.

The Philosopher's Stone oblivious to gold, all of them died from it

or they all died by the Illuminati to control there inventions

No, it was the guy who bought the company from the inventor

That's a little like describing a gun barrel as an otherwise well functioning water pipe. The parasites in the investment banking sector have as their modes operandum to steal little slices of the fruits of everyone else's labour, till there is nothing left.

Nobel,s brother one of the co developers of dynamite was killed by Nitro Glyserine explosion.

Well, then he wasn't killed by his invention, dynamite was invented as a replacement for nitroglycerine precisely because the latter was so volatile and dangerous

So, would the survival of mankind be a good thing? Do you seriously think technology has made that more likely? It seems more likely to me that the Gadareen rush to ever increasing calorie production and resultant population expansion is a guarantor of our extinction. Sadly, it seems we will take a lot of other species with us. Still, when the sun goes nova, none of this will matter.

When it's impossible to defend Americans from unmanned drones,
and cost less to buy iDrones that attack than new iPhones, hang up!
Who makes drones to break American bones? Can any inventor survive?

Some inventions in the financial sector such as short-selling and CDOs have killed many and almost brought down an entire otherwise well functioning global economy!

global economy implies equality, equality never works for economy

c'est pas faux.

Some of us inventors are still here - luckily for the far future survival of mankind. (a bit pathetic maybe yet sadly true). Wishing well for stock owners of all hundreds and thousands of (originally) invention-based companies as well.

Good point! What sorts of inventions do you create?

this is called self-ownage! lol

anyway sad they didn't get to see their inventions to the end

I think not only inventors

feeling very bad for them.

This article would probably have been more appropriately titled "Innovators who were killed by their work".

This is a great article!

Hey wasn't the segway inventor killed driving one off a cliff?

the president of the company was killed on his segway not the inventor

Nope

yep

an owner of the company was, not the inventor

Tragic indeed

The guy who invented the electric chair or am I wrong?

I hope you're right.

You forgot Jimi Heselden, inventor of the Segway. He drove his two wheeled contraption over a cliff.
Maybe he was testing a new model that had retro-rockets, and they failed to ignite.

Dean L. Kamen invented the Segway. Jimi Heselden merely bought the company shortly before his cliff plunge.

Not only inventions of technology but also those of philosophy can kill their inventors..

Shang Yang (390-338 BC), a Chinese philosopher for legalism ("everyone must absolutely obey laws"), became a politician of Qin and conducted reforms but was later plotted by his adversaries. So he fled anonymously to an inn, but its host refused for him to stay, saying, "Sorry, I can't host an anonymous person, under the laws of Mighty Shang Yang."

Nothing can go wrong can go wrong can go wrong can go wrong.......

This should not detour prospective inventors because death from your own invention is exceedingly rare. For example, I am putting together the world's first self replicating, indestructible, 7 foot, humanoid, self-evolving robot that puts it's own survival above all else. What could possibly go wrong?

Try to turn it off, and it will turn YOU off . . . PERMANENTLY !

What?  No.... That's crazy talk.  

Can I have a female one ?

I'll name her Sarah

compliment to an unknown

My mother often used this quote from Confucius "Man's own invention, will be man's own destruction" and it could quite possibly come to pass..

Not AJ Hackett that's for sure.

Every invention involves with risk, it is
a matter of levels

Yes...an interesting...Segway

The scooter?

Captain William Abraham Pitt invented the underwater cable ferry and died from serious injuries sustained when he fell into the machinery of the ferry. One of the two cable ferries currently operating at Gondola Point, NB, Canada is named the "William Pitt II" in his honor.

When we were being lectured about the internal combustion engine and the explosive properties of Petrol we were told about two men who extrapolated the concept and tried NitroGlycerine. At least that was the conclusion of the investigation team.

A couple of others, the inventor of the Rainbow Kite and I don't know if this qualifies as an invention, but the guy that invented bungee jumping or maybe bungee catapaulting, died when he hit his head on a crane when launched. His wife died the same way at a memorial to him.

He didn't invent it, he copied it. It is a very old tribal rite. In the original version a perfect jump has the jumper brushing the ground.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdmbkeJe6zo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwtzCp5rPJs&feature=related

That's true. These people lived in Africa. I've seen it on Discovery Channel, too, how bungee jumping started.

Try Melanesia.

No, I didn't invent Lightning. I invented the Lightning Rod as someone has already daid on this page. Only God, or Mother Nature invented lightning!

You're thinking of Benjamin Franklin

He was interested in lightning and invented the lightning rod. He died of old age much later.

So Benjamin Franklin invented old age.

That guy that invented lightning, I think he was a president? On the hundred dollar bill, wasn't he killed after he invented lightning? *smirks*

Cute quip Billy Bob. My eyes widened at your comment the first time I read it. Then I noticed your smirk indicating that you knew these things weren't the case.

Didn't the guy who invented the 'Segway' die when he wrecked one?

No, it was a rich man who bought the company from the original inventor. He fell off a cliff using the segway.

Yes, he went over a cliff on his 4x4 version and was found at the bottom....

4/4 to the floor

No fatal crash victim was the man who bought the Segway company from the inventor.

These people were courageous except the BULL guy

how is that not irony? you should review the definition yourself.

If no one was first we would still be in the dark ages.

What about the guy who invented the Segway and drove off a cliff with it?

He did not invent Segway. He bought the Segway company.

Dean Kamen invented it in order to make a similar wheelchair less expensive to produce.

never happened

The Segway was invented by Dean Kamen, who is still alive and well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen). The guy killed in the accident was the owner of the Segway company, which he had purchased a few months before the fatal accident.

7? I count 8.

@Simon - Photos 1 and 3 depict the same inventor, so there are indeed 7, not 8.

How can he die two years before he is returned to prison?

Tragic irony? While it may be sad and a "bummer" getting killed by your invention it is not ironic. I am amazed at how many professional writers use the word "irony" or "ironic" for things that are clearly not. They should know better.

Ironically, his name was Justice...

I guess the irony is that the people in this article gave these ideas life yet the ideas take their creators lives.

Naw, you're wrong! Everyone knows Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest by two gun pistol packin' Smelly Pete of Deadwood. It was that famous shoot out at the KO coralle.

so, where is it then?

I thought Mr Guilloutine was hoist by his own petard also?

it wasnt his invention, the device was conceived in England years earlier and was known as the Halifax Gibbet

Nah, there was indeed a Dr. Guillotin who was executed via Guillotin, but that fellow was not the inventor, or even related. Though as another fun fact: the Guillotin family was so embrassed by the device using their name, that they changed their name. The actual inventor died in Paris, 1814, of natural causes.

How could you miss Jack Parsons? Father of the American rocket program and partner to L'Ron Hubbard.

I think he committed suicide death by Segway.

POOR JUSTICE.

If he returned 13 years wouldn't it be 1913 instead of 1911?

While not the founder, very ironic as well

Segway company owner rides scooter off cliff - World news - Europe - msnbc.com

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news-europe/t/segway-compa...

The Segway guy was my first thought too. Couldn't remember how he was involved with the product, though. Thanks for posting!

Ha, this is quite interesting.