The Best Inventions Of The Year

From the phone that has changed phones forever, to futuristic cars, to a building made of water, to a remote-controlled dragonfly—a dazzling display of ingenuity

—By Maryanne Murray Buechner, Kristina Dell, Andrea Dorfman, Lev Grossman, Anita Hamilton, Rebecca Winters Keegan, Jeffrey Kluger, Michael D. Lemonick, Coco Masters, Lisa McLaughlin, Alice Park, Julie Rawe and Deirdre van Dyk

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Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

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Both his mother and his wife were deaf, hence his interest in acoustics. Others had created working phones, but Bell gave us the first commercially practical telephone, as well as the metal detector and the graphophone, an improved version of the phonograph.

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