Wikijunior:Famous Inventors/Inventors in Transportation/Werner von Siemens

Link to Werner Von Siemens's Wikipedia entry

When, Where, and to whom was he or she born?
Werner Von Siemens was born December 13, 1816.

He was born in Lenthe, Germany.

What was his or her childhood like?
 Did You Know? He was the fourth of 14 children, and left school without any qualifications.
 * The SI unit of electrical conductance is named after him.
 * He invented the needle telegraph.
 * He invented the dynamo.

Why did this person become interested in science?
He intended to study at the Bauakademie Berlin but could not afford it.

Where did this person go to school?
Prussian Military Academy's School of Artillery and Engineering.

What problem did he or she uncover that needed solving?

 * 1) Urban passenger transport.
 * 2) Danish military naval blockade of Kiel in Germany.
 * 3) Inefficient telegraph communication.

What solutions had already been tried that did not solve the problem? Why wasn't it working?

 * 1) Horse-drawn tram. Horses required lots of maintenance.
 * 2) Sea mines
 * 3) Morse code telegraph

What did this person invent that solved the problem?



 * 1) The world's first electric elevator in 1880, the trolleybus and electric tram.
 * 2) Electrically-charged sea mines
 * 3) Pointer telegraph

How did the invention solve the problem?
For urban passenger transport the tram and trolleybus increased passenger capacity, energy efficiency and were zero emissions.

How has this inventor changed people and the world?
Widespread adoption of electric tram.

What happened to this inventor in the end?
He was enobled in 1888 then he died in 1892. His company Siemens persists as a global company.

If you could ask this inventor one question, what would you ask?
What he thinks of cars and sustainable urban transit today.

If you could bring this inventor to today and tell him or her one thing, what would you tell him or her about the effect of his or her invention?
Light rail is the modern incarnation of trams with multiple axles and bogies on individual carriages.