Velcro
Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral invented his first touch fastener when, in 1941, he went for a walk in the woods and wondered why Burdock seeds clung to his coat and dog. He discovered it could be turned into something useful. He patented it in 1955 and subsequently refined and developed its practical manufacture until its commercial introduction in the late 1950s.
William Cronk Elmore
William Cronk Elmore (September 16, 1909 - January 23, 2003) was an American physicist, educator, and author who is best known for his work on and related to the Manhattan project during World War II and as a professor of Physics at Swarthmore College, PA from 1938 to 1974. Bill Elmore authored two influential books during his life, "Electronics-Experimental Techniques" with Matthew Sands and the "Physics of Waves" with Mark Heald. He is also known for deriving a simple approximation for the delay through an RC network, known as the Elmore delay.