
Inventors killed by their own inventions - davedx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_their_own_inventions
======
aitchnyu
I thought the idea of young people giving blood to rejuvenate old billionaires
was modern.

> Alexander Bogdanov (22 August 1873 – 7 April 1928)...After undergoing 11
> blood transfusions, he remarked with satisfaction the improvement of his
> eyesight, suspension of balding, and other positive symptoms. His fellow
> revolutionary Leonid Krasin wrote to his wife that "Bogdanov seems to have
> become 7, no, 10 years younger after the operation"... But a later
> transfusion cost him his life, when he took the blood of a student suffering
> from malaria and tuberculosis

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bogdanov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bogdanov)

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
How bizarre - how rich do you have to be to become a vampire?

~~~
vanderZwan
Weren't vampires originally not-so-subtle symbol for aristocracy to begin
with?

~~~
msla
The vampires we have now are a creation of literature, conscious borrowings,
and deliberate de- and reconstructions. Ancient beliefs were varied and
inconsistent, as you'd expect from a vague category comprised of "various
folklore people used to believe about dead bodies getting up and being pests
to the living"; in some ways, ancient vampires are closer to what we'd call
zombies, and ancient zombies are closer to what we'd consider robots, in terms
of being used for slave labor.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie)

~~~
kej
This is one of my favorite Wikipedia page, and I don't get to bring it up very
often:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vampire_traits_in_fo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vampire_traits_in_folklore_and_fiction)

~~~
DogOnTheWeb
I hope it is canon that Count Chocula turns to "chocolate cereal dust" upon
death.

~~~
tim333
I found this from the talk page amusing:

>This article is AWFUL. I'm trying to do some research on comparative
mythology of vampires, by culture, and am literally seeing Count Chocula in
the same list as this broad-stroke "European" generalization.

------
bogle
Wow, Thomas Midgley, Jr. died from his own Heath Robinson contraption for
lifting him out of bed but not before he put lead into petrol and created
CFCs. Should have done those the other way around and saved us all a whole lot
of grief.

~~~
probably_wrong
For those that didn't follow the link to Thomas Midgley Jr.'s Wikipedia page,
the "Legacy" section is definitely worth a read:

> Midgley's legacy has been scarred by the negative environmental impact of
> leaded gasoline and Freon. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that
> Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in
> Earth's history", and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an
> instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny".

Multiple sources seem to agree that the reason he chose to add lead to
gasoline rather than ethanol (which was both greener and cheaper) was due to
profit: his company could patent leaded gasoline, but not ethanol. That's an
interesting lesson that we should learn any day now.

~~~
hyperpallium
If ethanol was better and unpatentable, competitors could have used it instead
of paying patent licensing fees.

~~~
jandrese
Ethanol has downsides too, like eating up the rubber bits in your fuel system.

~~~
mhh__
I thought that was methanol or is it both?

~~~
jandrese
Ethanol too. That's why you need to be careful if you have an older car and
live in one of those states that does E85.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
E85 pumps are clearly marked. It's E15 that is the threat.

------
jihadjihad
One of the strangest articles I've come across on Wikipedia is about the
brazen bull[0], whereby the inventor of said bull pitches the idea to the
ruler of the land, only to be thrown in it himself after the ruler is repulsed
that such a thing should exist.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull)

~~~
lqet
Well, the article states that

> Some modern scholars question if the brazen bull ever really existed,
> attributing reports of the invention to early propaganda.

However, it certainly wouldn't be the most barbaric form of execution humans
have invented [0].

> Pendulum: A type of machine with an axe head for a weight that slices closer
> to the victim's torso over time.

> Scaphism: An Ancient Persian method of execution in which the condemned was
> placed in between two boats, force fed a mixture of honey and milk, and left
> floating in a stagnant pond. The victim would then suffer from severe
> diarrhea, which would attract insects that would burrow, nest, and feed on
> the victim.

> Blowing from a gun: Tied to the mouth of a cannon, which is then fired.

> Blood Eagle: Cutting the skin of the victim by the spine, breaking the ribs
> so they resembled blood-stained wings, and pulling the lungs out through the
> wounds in the victim's back. Used by the Vikings.

> Flaying: The skin is removed from the body.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methods_of_capital_pun...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methods_of_capital_punishment)

~~~
orblivion
To be honest, getting blown apart by a cannon sounds great compared to any of
these other ones, including the bull.

~~~
MrMember
No kidding. Probably quite gruesome to the spectators but a very quick death
for the condemned.

------
danohuiginn
Some beautiful synchronicity going on with the headlines here:
[https://ohuiginn.net/tmp/hn_inventors.png](https://ohuiginn.net/tmp/hn_inventors.png)

------
chris_wot
You know, I heard a story I could never track down. Apparently the Soviets
were working on a rocket that would explode several miles from the ground,
which they believed would cause maximum damage.

I had heard that all development stopped because the entire team watched on
its initial test. They had carefully built an altimeter into the device that
triggered the explosion at the desired height. Like all good plans gone awry
they completely forgot that a rocket must first go _up_ before it can go
_down_ and at launch it hit it's desired altitude on the way up at which point
it exploded and took out the entire rocket development team.

Anyone know if this is a real thing?

~~~
jandrese
That sounds like an urban legend, but there might be a kernel of truth hidden
in the story.

~~~
chris_wot
Perhaps a corruption of the Nedelin catastrophe:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe)

------
JasonFruit
> Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier was the first known fatality in an air crash
> when his Rozière balloon crashed on 15 June 1785 while he and Pierre Romain
> attempted to cross the English Channel.

Let's be very clear about how bad an idea this was: it was a balloon filled
with hydrogen, with a chamber beneath it filled with hot air warmed by an open
fire. An open fire. Beneath a container of hydrogen.

Later ones filled with helium were more successful, as they allow the
balloonist to control buoyancy without dropping ballast or carrying enough
fuel to maintain lift sufficient for the entire craft.

But who sticks a hydrogen balloon over an open fire and expects good things?

~~~
trhway
i think your comment isn't just toward the guy. Lets put that into perspective

>they allow the balloonist to control buoyancy without dropping ballast or
carrying enough fuel to maintain lift sufficient for the entire craft.

1\. Rozier invented that 2 chamber balloon.

2\. helium was discovered only more than half a century later.

If anything, i think the guy deserve the respect for what he did directly
risking his life in the face of the known and unknown dangers and limited
knowledge and technology of the time.

~~~
JasonFruit
The combustibility of hydrogen was no secret; de Rozier was a chemist, and in
fact famously demonstrated that feature of hydrogen by inhaling it and blowing
it out across an open flame. There are risks to be bravely taken, and then
there's foolhardy disregard for the dangers one knows. I think de Rozier fell
into the second class of risk-takers.

The first class? Try Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher, Geoffrey de Havilland, the
X-15 pilot whose name I can't recall — all these died testing something they
couldn't have known would kill them, and the world gained from their
sacrifice.

De Rozier had an idea that he _knew_ he couldn't safely implement, but went
ahead and did it anyway, and died. What did we learn from it? We knew hydrogen
was flammable — de Rozier himself demonstrated it safely, except for his
eyebrows. The balloon was only flown the once, and there's no evidence he
grasped its potential, having little understanding of piloting a balloon.
Useless sacrifice, in my opinion.

~~~
trhway
>Let's be very clear about how bad an idea this was: it was a balloon filled
with hydrogen, with a chamber beneath it filled with hot air warmed by an open
fire. An open fire. Beneath a container of hydrogen.

sounds familiar -
[https://youtu.be/fSTrmJtHLFU?t=43](https://youtu.be/fSTrmJtHLFU?t=43)

> Useless sacrifice, in my opinion.

i wonder where you draw a line between the Challenger and De Rozier, of course
if you draw any line here at all.

~~~
JasonFruit
(I'll spare you argument about your facile comparison between a strong
aluminum tank covered with 5000 pounds of thermal-protective material and a
thin silk balloon.)

The Challenger astronauts didn't have all the knowledge they needed to be
aware of the certainty of their own deaths — I'd hold that there was no such
certainty. The explosion was due to a confluence of events beyond their
control, even beyond their knowledge. De Rozier had all the knowledge he
needed to avoid dying, and no new information was gained by his death. There's
not just a line between the two, there's a broad gulf, dividing reasonable
reliance on systems that one knows could fail, and unreasonable trust in a
device one knows to be misconceived from the start.

------
dontbenebby
Thanks for sharing OP!

Here's my personal favorite Wikipedia list: List of lists of lists

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists)

~~~
HNLurker2
Now that's meta-meta article

------
shoo
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVE_Mizar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVE_Mizar)

> The AVE Mizar (named after the star Mizar) was a roadable aircraft built
> between 1971 and 1973 by Advanced Vehicle Engineers [...] The prototypes of
> the Mizar were made by mating the rear portion of a Cessna Skymaster to a
> Ford Pinto.

...

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
That one was my favorite. Creating an airplane from a Ford Pinto seems like an
SNL skit.

------
gyaniv
I have to say I'm not I would call someone that creates something that doesn't
work (and will never work) and inventor.

If I just jump from a building and throw a bottle on the way down, saying that
the bottle will 'throw me back up because physics', and then I die
(obviously), I'm not an inventor, I'm just an idiot.

~~~
hutzlibu
Yes, but the guy you are referring to, did invented a parachute, he was just
an "idiot" of not using a dummy first.

~~~
knicholes
Furthermore, in relation to the title of this article, I wouldn't say the
invention of his parachute killed him. It was just the force of him hitting
the ground once his invention failed to work. ;)

------
edoo
Talk about deja vu seeing that first picture of the guy trying to fly. I
jumped out a tree when I was a kid with a plastic grocery bag at each foot,
knee, wrist, elbow, and my neck. I didn't break anything but I never did it
again.

~~~
dillonmckay
Are you an aerospace engineer?

~~~
edoo
Not yet, but it happened at my friend's house whose dad was an aerospace
engineer.

------
envolt
This is also interesting -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths)

~~~
throwawayForMe2
Kurt Godel starved himself to death after his wife was hospitalized because he
would only eat food she cooked! Wow

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
I'm inclined to read between the lines on that one.

~~~
tekkk
" _Later in his life, Gödel suffered periods of mental instability and
illness. He had an obsessive fear of being poisoned; he would eat only food
that his wife, Adele, prepared for him._ "

There's your between the lines. He was mentally ill later in his life, which
caused his untimely death. I don't know what _you_ were reading between the
lines, but if it was making fun of an old man and his mental illness, please
keep it to yourself.

~~~
JasonFruit
There were a lot of ways of reading the implications of their unclear post,
but you assumed the worst and attacked. That doesn't contribute to a
reasonable discussion.

~~~
tekkk
If somebody is being unreasonably ambiguous about an issue I feel personally
strong about I feel it's my responsibility to notify the author that you
shouldn't teeter between comedy and seriousness. Maybe I would say it in
milder manner were it in person, but I think you should at least put the
effort to let the reader know, that you are not mocking the individual in
question.

~~~
JasonFruit
I disagree with your approach. Thank you for explaining it.

~~~
tekkk
I see. Also I have to admit the OP filled my other checkbox which is low-
effort content intended to be amusing. Which I expect to read in Reddit but
not here. And I do like to take confrontational stance in effort to make the
other party to see my point of view in stronger light. I don't see it useful
to try to avoid showing strong emotions in text or in person, I think trying
to be neutral in all situations just makes everything very plain.

And as a disclaimer I did not downvote you nor do I see any purpose to it. If
somebody tries to explain themselves in coherent fashion I think it's
admirable even though I might disagree with them.

~~~
JasonFruit
Neither did I downvote you; I was concerned that you might think so, but I
didn't want to discuss it, because I know that's frowned upon here. The low-
effort try for a laugh bothers me, too.

------
gerbilly
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petard¹

1: Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_with_his_own_petard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_with_his_own_petard))

------
jct3u
Clarence Dally was an assistant to Edison who helped create the X-ray focus
tube. He died from carcinoma caused by radiation exposure. Should be in here?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Madison_Dally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Madison_Dally)

------
thrower123
The thought of a steam-powered bicycle made me do a bit of a double-take at
first, but apparently it was actually quite a viable little contraption.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roper_steam_velocipede](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roper_steam_velocipede)

~~~
MisterTea
I now want a steam powered bicycle. Ding Ding? Allow me to inform you of my
presence via steam whistle. Gives new meaning to "loud pipes save lives". Jerk
behind you? Time for a boiler blow down!

Example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuSLwE4IpnI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuSLwE4IpnI)

------
benj111
What about the Segway guy, Jimi Heselden

~~~
jcl
He bought the company after the product had already been invented. (Now, if
Dean Kamen somehow died to a segway...)

~~~
benj111
Still fits with the theme though. Luis Jiménez didn't _invent_ a sculpture or
the Mustang, but still makes the list.

~~~
jcl
Jiménez certainly designed the thing that killed him. As far as I can tell,
Heselden's involvement was just finanical. The deaths are both ironic, but in
different ways. FWIW, it was enough to get him on a different list:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths#2010s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths#2010s)

~~~
bredren
>Peng Fan, a chef in Foshan, China, was bitten by a cobra's severed head,
which he had cut off 20 minutes earlier while preparing a soup.

My, what a grisly list that is.

~~~
bravura
"Sam Ballard, 29, died from angiostrongyliasis after eating a garden slug as a
dare eight years earlier."

~~~
bredren
I remember reading about this man but did not know he passed. This joke
altered his and many people around him forever. Comedy with absolutely
devastating consequences.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/11/05/young-
rugby...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/11/05/young-rugby-player-
ate-slug-mates-dare-now-hes-dead/)

------
ncr100
No software devs listed, yet.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Bitcoin power consumption causes global warming, humanity went extinct from
extreme climate change.

~~~
jraph
This made me smile.

What could possibly go wrong with a money rewarding GHG emissions?

When you think about it, if successful, Bitcoin will indeed achieve its goal
of freeing us from central banks: no human being will be available to operate
them. Very clever!

------
MagicPropmaker
There's also this Segway incident, though he was a company executive and not
an "inventor"

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news-
europe/t/se...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news-
europe/t/segway-company-owner-rides-scooter-cliff-dies/)

~~~
adgezaza
Came here to post this

------
ourmandave
"What do we say to the God of Death?"

"Okay, start it up."

------
bubblewrap
The list is much shorter than I would have expected.

~~~
Hans_Dorn
You can help by expanding it.

~~~
bubblewrap
I'd like to invent things, but I'd like to avoid dying because of my own
inventions.

------
ozten
Ironically, this list is a great example of survivorship bias.

We only know about inventors killed by their own inventions where the scene
was understood well enough to be reported and the incident notable enough to
survive into Wikipedia.

It would be easy enough for someone way ahead of their time to have an
unexplained death with a bunch of weird artifacts surrounding them.

------
basementcat
Jack Parsons, cofounder of NASA JPL.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_\(rocket_engineer\))

------
faissaloo
You know this isn't a list I would mind being on

~~~
chris_wot
Something tells me you have a higher likelihood than most of attaining your
goal...

------
make3
Special mention for the owner of Segway who rode himself off a cliff to his
death, even if he didn't invent them
[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news-
europe/t/se...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39377851/ns/world_news-
europe/t/segway-company-owner-rides-scooter-cliff-dies/)

------
angusb
the skin in the game here is incredible

------
Iv
Should add Marie Curie

~~~
anoncake
She didn't invent radioactivity or any elements.

~~~
boudin
She did invent a process to isolate radium. But if you want to put it this
way, nobody never invented anything, even a plane is just about manipulating
things that always existed in the environment.

~~~
anoncake
Planes did not exist before humans built them. Radium did.

~~~
boudin
Radium existed but not isolated and not usable for X-Ray for example. Plane
was in nature also before humans, just not assembled yet :)

~~~
anoncake
I don't think we agree on the definition of "plane" :)

------
ericfrederich
So... kinda like the Darwin Awards, but not really?

------
baruchel
I can't believe that nobody has posted
[https://xkcd.com/2142/](https://xkcd.com/2142/) yet!

------
PhasmaFelis
> _Andrei Zheleznyakov, a Soviet scientist, was developing chemical weapons in
> 1987 when a hood malfunction exposed him to traces of the nerve agent
> Novichok 5. He spent weeks in a coma, months unable to walk, and years
> suffering failing health before dying from its effects in 1992 /3._

Hard to feel sorry for that guy.

