Back in 1962, Ed Sabol thought pro football was going to be big.

Seen in: Jersey Living, Sports

Among the more than 100 patents he obtained while working for RCA, Rajchman developed the electron multiplier calculating device; the read-only memory computer system; the magnetic information-handling system (core memory); and the electronic microcopy apparatus. Your computer would not be the same without Rajchman’s innovations.

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Vladimir Zworykin, a Russian-born inventor, pioneered the first mechanical TV system—using his kinescope—in 1910 and 1929 as director of RCA’s Electronic Research Laboratory in Camden.

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The first FM backpack radio was developed at the Signal Corps Labs at Fort Monmouth in 1941, providing troops with reliable, static-free communication. FM radio relay, born from radar research, was also developed at Fort Monmouth. Military experts number these two inventions among the top five systems that made the Allies victorious in World War II.

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Leo H. Sternbach of Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. in Nutley is known as the father of Valium—a synthesis of the vitamin biotin and the compound 1,4 benzodiazepine. Valium was the bestselling drug in America from 1969 to 1982. Sternbach died in 2005, at age 97, with more than 230 patents to his credit.

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The Intelligent Network Services Architecture, developed by Weber for AT&T at Bell Labs in Holmdel, was integral in flexible customer services such as the 800 number, calling cards, and software-defined network arrangements.

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The Hoboken resident pioneered the use of steam for transportation. He initiated the first regular ferry service from New Jersey to New York, designed and built the first American steam locomotive, and developed the first seagoing steamship. He proposed a vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River and an elevated railroad in New York City.

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John Bardeen and Walter Brattain met as grad students at Princeton. With William Shockley, Bardeen’s manager at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, they won the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics for their invention.

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Atlantic City native Norman Joseph Woodland was inspired in 1948 to create a two-dimensional Morse code to convey product information in grocery stores. He and fellow Drexel University graduate student Bernard Silver patented the idea, which became feasible in the 1970s.

Seen in: Jersey Living