INVENTOR

Robert Watson-Watt

1892 - 1973

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Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt (13 April 1892 – 5 December 1973) was a Scottish radio engineer and pioneer of radio direction finding and radar technology. Watt began his career in radio physics with a job at the Met Office, where he began looking for accurate ways to track thunderstorms using the radio waves given off by lightning. This led to the 1920s development of a system later known as high-frequency direction finding (HFDF or "huff-duff"). Although well publicized at the time, the system's enormous military potential was not developed until the late 1930s. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Robert Watson-Watt is the 167th most popular inventor (up from 225th in 2019), the 1,677th most popular biography from United Kingdom (up from 2,008th in 2019) and the 25th most popular British Inventor.

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Among INVENTORS

Among inventors, Robert Watson-Watt ranks 167 out of 426. Before him are Elizabeth Holmes, Zacharias Janssen, Oliver Lodge, Georg Luger, Alfred Vail, and Guillaume Amontons. After him are Robert Metcalfe, Charles Algernon Parsons, Jang Yeong-sil, John Ericsson, Sandford Fleming, and Heinrich Göbel.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1892, Robert Watson-Watt ranks 97. Before him are Donald Wills Douglas Sr., Erich Brandenberger, Takeo Takagi, Richard Neutra, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Radola Gajda. After him are Herman Potočnik, Agnes Smedley, Ivan Šubašić, Joseph Szigeti, Karl Lennart Oesch, and Peljidiin Genden. Among people deceased in 1973, Robert Watson-Watt ranks 87. Before him are Robert Smithson, J. Carrol Naish, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Lorenzo Fernández, Nikos Zachariadis, and Tarsila do Amaral. After him are Merian C. Cooper, Hans Globke, Jarno Saarinen, Soong Ai-ling, Joseph Szigeti, and Betty Grable.

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, Robert Watson-Watt ranks 1,677 out of 8,785. Before him are John Kerr (1824), Joan of Kent (1328), Hugh Lofting (1886), Princess Amelia of the United Kingdom (1783), Maggie Reilly (1956), and William Gull (1816). After him are Geoff Hurst (1941), Thomas Lipton (1848), Arthur Machen (1863), Ealhswith (852), Edward Wilson (1872), and David Chipperfield (1953).

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Among INVENTORS In United Kingdom

Among inventors born in United Kingdom, Robert Watson-Watt ranks 25. Before him are Edmund Cartwright (1743), Samuel Crompton (1753), W. O. Bentley (1888), John Kay (1704), Robert Stirling (1790), and Oliver Lodge (1851). After him are Charles Algernon Parsons (1854), Sandford Fleming (1827), Matthew Boulton (1728), William Murdoch (1754), James Dyson (1947), and David Edward Hughes (1831).

British born Inventors

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