This is alist of Polishinventors anddiscoverers. The following incomplete list comprises people fromPoland and of Polish origin, and also people of predominantly Polishheritage, in alphabetical order of surname.

• Bruno Abakanowicz: inventedintegrapf, a mechanical analog computing device for plotting the integral of a graphically defined function.^[1]
• Osman Achmatowicz Jr.: specialist in the field oforganic chemistry. Inventor of theAchmatowicz reaction.^[2]
• Karol Adamiecki: management theorist. Together withFrederick Winslow Taylor andHenry Fayola the creator oforganisation and management science. In 1925 Adamiecki founded the Polish Institute of Scientific Management.
• Albert Wojciech Adamkiewicz: pathologist. His research of the variablevascularity of thespinal cord was an important contribution to the development of modern clinicalvascular surgery. He is known forArtery of Adamkiewicz andAdamkiewicz reaction.^[3]
• Henryk Arctowski: scientist and explorer. Living in exile for a large part of his life, he was one of the first persons to reachAntarctica during winter and became an internationally renownedmeteorologist.^[4]

• Joseph Babinski: neurologist, discoverer of theBabinski reflex.^[5]
• Stefan Banach: considered one of the world's most important and influential 20th-century mathematicians, creator ofBanach space. He was one of the founders of modernfunctional analysis, and an original member of theLwów School of Mathematics. His major work was the 1932 book,Théorie des opérations linéaires (Theory of Linear Operations), the first monograph on the general theory of functional analysis.
• Feliks Barański: pioneer and the specialist in the field ofDifferential equations.
• Jan Józef Baranowski: took part in theGreat Emigration. InventedRailway signal device,ticket machine andgas meter.
• Mieczysław G. Bekker: co-authored the general idea and vitally contributed to the design and construction of theLunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) used byNASA in missionsApollo 15,Apollo 16, andApollo 17 on theMoon. He was the author of several patented inventions in the area of off-the-road vehicles, including those for extraterrestrial use.^[6]
• Benedict of Poland: PolishFranciscan friar, explorer, and interpreter, participant of the pioneering European trip to the capital of theMongol Empire in the 13th century.
• Edmund Biernacki: physician, the first one to note a relationship between the sedimentation rate of red blood cells in a human blood sample and the general condition of the organism. This method is now known as theBiernacki Reaction.
• Michał Borysiekiewicz: invented the first "electronic eye" for blind people.
• Michał Boym: 17th-century Jesuit missionary, scientist and explorer, who was the first in Europe to describeKorea as a peninsula, as until then it was believed to be an island, and the first in Europe to establish the factual location of a number of Chinese cities and theGreat Wall of China.^[7]
• Josef Božek: managed to put into operation one of the first steam engines in theCzech lands.
• Stefan Bryła: designed and builtthe first welded road bridge in the world.^[8][9]
• Janusz Brzozowski: computer scientist known for developing theBrzozowski derivative andBrzozowski's algorithm.^[10]
• Tytus Liwiusz Burattini: inventor of themicrometer.

• Maria Skłodowska-Curie: conducted pioneering research onradioactivity. She was thefirst woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman towin twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences –physics andchemistry. She was also the first woman to become a professor at theUniversity of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in thePanthéon in Paris.^[11]
• Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik): mathematician, physician, translator, diplomat. Most commonly known as anastronomer who formulated amodel ofthe universe that placedthe Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe included in his workDe revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).
• Napoleon Cybulski:, physiologist, discoverer ofadrenaline, one of pioneers ofendocrinology andelectroencephalography.^[12]
• Jan Czochralski: chemist, invented theCzochralski process, commonly used for growingcrystals and in the production ofsemiconductor wafers.^[13]

• Marian Danysz: physicist, co-discovered thehypernucleus.^[14]
• Kazimierz Dąbrowski: psychologist, psychiatrist, and physician, author of the theory of "positive disintegration".
• Henryk Derczyński: a photographer, created an isohelia technology, a technique that sharpens contrasts and defines three-dimensional images.^[15]
• Stefan Drzewiecki: engineer and inventor, built the first submarine in the world with electric battery-powered propulsion.^[16]
• Jarosław Duda: computer scientist, a graduate ofJagiellonian University and inventor ofAsymmetric numeral systems (ANS), a family of entropy encoding methods widely used indata compression.^[17]
• Jan Dzierżon:apiarist who discovered the phenomenon ofparthenogenesis inbees^[18] and designed the first successful movable-framebeehive (1838).^[19]

• Artur Ekert: physicist; one of the pioneers ofquantum cryptography.^[20]

• Maksymilian Faktorowicz: founder of theMax Factor cosmetics company, popularized the term "make-up", had perfected the first cosmetic specifically created for motion picture use—a thinner greasepaint in cream form and largely developed the modern cosmetics industry in the United States.^[21]
• Kazimierz Fajans: physical chemist, pioneer in the science of radioactivity and the discoverer of chemical elementprotactinium.^[22]
• Edward Flatau:neurologist.
• Julius Fromm: chemist, entrepreneur, one of the inventors of therubbercondom.
• Casimir Funk:,biochemist, the first to formulate (1912) the concept and the term ofvitamins originally calling them "vital amins"/"vit- amins" discovered first vitamins, i.e B1^[23][24]

• Leo Gerstenzang: Polish-American inventor who in 1923 created the first contemporarycotton swab or Q-Tips.
• Ludwik Gross: virologist. He discovered two differenttumor viruses —murine leukemia virus and mousepolyomavirus — capable of causing cancers in laboratory mice.^[25]
• Ryszard Gryglewski: physician and pharmacologist. He co-discoveredprostacyclin (1976), which set off many further scientific discoveries.^[26]
• Andrzej Grzegorczyk: mathematician and logician, who introduced theGrzegorczyk hierarchy, a hierarchy of functions used incomputability theory.
• Rudolf Gundlach: military engineer, inventor and tank designer, inventor of theVickers Tank Periscope MK.IV also known as the Gundlach Periscope.

• Józef Hofmann: musician, inventedPaper clips.
• Johannes Hevelius:astronomer who gained a reputation as "the founder oflunar topography", and described ten newconstellations, seven of which are still used by astronomers.

• Stefania Jabłońska: physician; in 1972 Jabłońska proposed the association of the human papilloma viruses withskin cancer inepidermodysplasia verruciformis; in 1978 Jabłońska and Gerard Orth discovered HPV-5 in skin cancer; Jabłońska was awarded the 1985Robert Koch Prize.^[27][28]
• Wojciech Jastrzębowski: scientist, naturalist and inventor, one of the fathers ofergonomics.
• Walery Jaworski: one of the pioneers ofgastroenterology in Poland who made one of the first observations ofHelicobacter pylori and published those findings in 1899 in a book titledPodręcznik chorób żołądka (Handbook of Gastric Diseases).^[29]

• Jacek Karpiński: pioneer incomputer engineering andcomputer science. He became a developer of one of the firstmachine learningalgorithms, techniques forcharacter andimage recognition. In 1971, he designed one of the first minicomputers, theK-202.
• Adam Adamandy Kochański: mathematician, physicist,clockmaker, who found an approximation of π today called the Kochański's Approximation.^[30] He also suggested replacing the clock's pendulum with a spring, constructed a clock with a magnetic pendulum, and was the author of the world's first systematic paper on the construction of clocks.
• Jerzy Konorski:neurophysiologist, discoverer of secondary conditioned reflexes andoperant conditioning. He also proposed the idea of gnostic neurons, a concept similar to thegrandmother cell. He coined the termneural plasticity.^[31]
• Hilary Koprowski: virologist and immunologist, who developed the world's first effective livepolio vaccine.^[32]
• Kazimierz Kordylewski:astronomer, discoverer of theKordylewski clouds.^[33]
• Józef Kosacki: invented thePolish mine detector, a first man-portable device used by theallied forces during theWorld War II.^[34]
• Tadeusz Kościuszko: Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian and American warhero andmilitary leader,military engineer, colonel in theContinental Army during theAmerican Revolutionary War, creator of theWest Point state-of-the-artFortifications, prepared a nationalKosciuszko Uprising in Poland against theRussian Empire and acted as the Supreme Commander.
• Tadeusz Krwawicz:ophthalmologist who pioneered the use ofcryosurgery in ophthalmology.^[35]
• Stefan Kudelski: audio engineer known for creating theNagra series of professional audio recorders later sold to BritishBBC, American stationsNBC,ABC,CBS, but also plenty of radio stations including famousRadio Luxembourg. Kudelski received prestigious Oscar Awards in 1965, 1977, 1978, and 1990. He also won two Emmy Awards in 1984 and 1986.^[36]
• Jerzy Kukuczka:alpinist, the second man in history to climb all fourteenEight-thousanders including three as first ascents, established a new route onK2 inalpine style called the "Polish line".
• Wojciech Kurtyka:mountaineer,alpinist, one of the alpine style climbing pioneers, after climbing through the "Shining Wall" onGasherbrum IV theClimbing magazine declared beat the wall to get the greatest achievement of mountaineering in the twentieth century.
• Stephanie Kwolek (1923–2014): Americanchemist of Polish origin, inventor ofKevlar.^[37]

• Ignacy Łukasiewicz: inventedkerosene lamp, designed and built both world's firstoil refinery andoil well. Introduced the first modernstreet lamp in Europe.^[38][39]
• Jan Łukasiewicz: inventedRPN (Reverse Polish Notation) used in professionalCalculators as well as by Computers in order to determine the order ofmathematical operations without using parentheses.^[40]

• Ernest Malinowski: civil engineer best known for constructing theFerrocarril Central Andino in thePeruvianAndes, the world's highest railway at the time.^[41][42]
• Henryk Manguski: a telecommunications engineer who worked forMotorola in Chicago. He was the inventor of the firstWalkie-Talkies and one of the authors of his company success in the fields of radio communication.^[43]
• Benoit Mandelbrot: mathematician of Polish descent, known for developing a theory of "roughness andself-similarity" and significant contributions tofractal geometry andchaos theory;Mandelbrot set.^[44]
• Krzysztof Matyjaszewski: chemist, who discoveredatom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP).^[45]
• Jan Mikulicz-Radecki: surgeon, inventor of new operating techniques and tools, one of the pioneers ofantiseptics and aseptic techniques. He is also the inventor ofsurgical mask.^[46]
• Ludwik Młokosiewicz: explorer, zoologist and botanist, who discovered 60 species of plants and animals inGeorgia and theCaucasus.
• Aleksander Możajski: Polish-Russian military officer, built world's firstplane.^[40]

• Jan Nagórski: engineer and pioneer of aviation, the first person to fly an airplane in the Arctic and the first aviator to perform a loop with aflying boat.

• Karol Olszewski: chemist, the first (alongsideZygmunt Wróblewski) to liquefy oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a stable state (not, as had been the case up to then, in a dynamic state in the transitional form as vapour) (1833).^[47]
• Stanisław Olszewski: engineer and inventor, co-creator of modern electricarc welding.^[48]

• Bohdan Paczyński: astronomer, credited with the development of a new method of detecting space objects and establishing their mass using thegravitational lenses effect.^[49]
• Antoni Patek: pioneer in watchmaking and the creator of thePatek Philippe & Co.^[50]
• Janusz Pawliszyn: chemist, inventor ofsolid-phase microextraction (SPME).^[51]
• Jerzy Pniewski: physicist, co-discovered thehypernucleus.^[14]
• Kazimierz Pułaski: Polishnobleman, soldier and militarystrategist, ageneral in theContinental Army during theAmerican Revolutionary War, the creator and the head of thePulaski Cavalry Legion and reformer of the American cavalry. He distinguished himself throughout the revolution, most notably when he saved the life ofGeorge Washington. One of only eight people in the history to be awardedhonorary United States citizenship.
• Kazimierz Prószyński: patented the first film camera, thePleograph, before theLumière brothers, and later went on to improve the cinema projector for theGaumont company, as well as invent the widely used hand-heldAeroscope camera.^[52]
• Antoni Przybylski: Polish-Australianastronomer best known for discoveringPrzybylski's Star.^[53]

• Tadeusz Reichstein: Polish-Swiss chemist and theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate (1950), who was awarded for his work on the isolation ofcortisone.^[54]
• Zbigniew Religa: a pioneer in humanheart transplantation in Poland, he led the team that performed the first successful hearttransplantation in the country,^[55] and in June 1995 he was the first surgeon to graft anartificial valve created from materials taken from human corpses.
• Marian Rejewski: mathematician and cryptologist who reconstructed the sight-unseen German militaryEnigma cipher machine.^[56][57]
• Jerzy Rudlicki:aerospace engineer and pilot. He is best known for his inventing and patenting of theV-tail in 1930, which is an aircraft tail configuration that combines the rudder and elevators into one system.^[58]
• Ludwik Rydygier: surgeon, who performed the first in Poland and second in the world successful surgical removal of the pylorus in a patient suffering from stomach cancer, and the firstpeptic ulcerresection in the world.

• Andrew Schally: endocrinologist andNobel Prize laureate (1977)^[59] whose research contributed to the discovery that thehypothalamus controls hormone production and release by the pituitary gland, which controls the regulation of other hormones in the body.^[60]
• Michael Sendivogius: pioneer of chemistry, who developed ways of purification and creation of variousacids,metals and other chemical compounds, and discovered that air is not a single substance and contains a life-giving substance—later calledoxygen.^[61]
• Tadeusz Sendzimir: metallurgist, revolutionisedgalvanisation and rolling process.^[62][63]
• Kazimierz Siemienowicz: military engineer, one of pioneers of rocketry, author ofArtis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima, a work that served as the principal artillery manual in Europe from the mid-16th to the mid-18th centuries, also containing the first printed design of amultistage rocket.
• Maria Siemionow: transplant surgeon and scientist who led a team of eight surgeons through the world's first near-total face transplant.^[64]
• Hugo Steinhaus: mathematician, specialist in the field offunctional analysis.^[65]
• Abraham Stern: inventor of themechanical calculator, topography machine, agriculture machines.
• Josephus Struthius: professor of medicine and personal doctor of Polish kings, who was among the first to provide a visual representation of the human pulse and used it for diagnostic purposes.
• Paweł Edmund Strzelecki: explorer most commonly known for his early explorations of Australia, particularly theSnowy Mountains andTasmania. Climbed and named the highest Australian peak –Mount Kosciuszko.^[66]
• Jan Szczepanik: inventor, with several hundred patents and over 50 discoveries to his name; his inventions founded ground for radio and TV broadcasting.^[67]
• Wacław Szybalski:medical researcher,geneticist andoncologist. He conducted research ondrug resistance andmolecular genetics and is known for theSzybalski's rule.^[68][69]

• Jędrzej Śniadecki: writer, physician, chemist, biologist and philosopher. He was the first person who linkedrickets to lack of sunlight (1822). He also created modernPolishterminology in the field ofchemistry.^[70][71]
• Władysław Świątecki: physicist noted for pioneering research innuclear physics including thenuclear shell model^[72] and for independently predicting the existence of the so-calledisland of stability.^[73]

• Władysław Tryliński:transportation engineer who inventedtrylinka, thehexagonal concrete block widely used in the construction of roads in Poland due to its low cost and durability, becoming a synonym for sidewalks made of them.^[74][75]
• Jacek Trzmiel: was aPolish American businessman, best known for foundingCommodore International. Tramiel later formedAtari Corporation after he purchased the remnants of the originalAtari, Inc. from its parent company.^[76]
• Abraham Icek Tuszyński: entrepreneur, founder of the most prestigious movie theater inthe Netherlands – theTuschinski Theater inAmsterdam.^[77]

• Stanisław Ulam was a mathematician of theLwów School of Mathematics and a member of theManhattan Project. He was assigned toEdward Teller's group, where he worked onTeller's "Super" bomb for Teller andEnrico Fermi. With the aid of a cadre of female "computers", including his wifeFrançoise Aron Ulam, he found that Teller's "Super" design was unworkable. In January 1951, Ulam and Teller came up with theTeller–Ulam design, which is the basis for allthermonuclear weapons. Ulam discovered the concept of thecellular automaton, invented theMonte Carlo method of computation, and suggestednuclear pulse propulsion. In pure andapplied mathematics, he proved some theorems and proposed several conjectures.^[78]

• Warner Brothers (Bracia Wonsal): American-naturalized brothers ofPolish-Jewish origin, created theWarner Bros. Entertainment Inc., one of the biggest and most successful media corporations in the world being one of the"Big Six" American film studios.
• Rudolf Weigl: biologist, physician and inventor, known for creating the first effective vaccine againstepidemic typhus.
• Krzysztof Wielicki: regarded as one of the greatest mountaineers in history. He performed the first winter ascents onMount Everest,Kangchenjunga, andLhotse.^[79]
• Anna Wierzbicka: linguist; known for her work insemantics,pragmatics andcross-cultural linguistics; she's credited with formulating the theory ofnatural semantic metalanguage and the concept ofsemantic primes.^[80]
• Mieczysław Wolfke: the forerunner ofholography and television.^[81]
• Zygmunt Wróblewski: chemist: the first (alongsideKarol Olszewski) to liquefy oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a stable state (not, as had been the case up to then, in a dynamic state in the transitional form as vapour) (1833).^[82]

• Ludwik Zamenhof: creator ofEsperanto, the most successfulconstructed language in the world.^[83]
• Casimir Zeglen, inventor of one of the firstbulletproof vests.^[84][85]
• Witold Zglenicki: geologist and inventor. Pioneer of oil extraction from sea bottom.^[86]

• List of Poles
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