UW’s 175th: Five ways UW–Madison ideas have changed the world

UW News

The world has changed a lot in the 175 years since the founding of the University of Wisconsin. Some history-changing ideas that continue to reverberate around the globe got their start right here on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus.

From hospital operating rooms to deep space, here are just a few of the many ways UW–Madison innovations have changed the world.

Modern weather satellites, with their sophisticated instruments and high-powered cameras, provide crucial information that helps us prepare for and understand everything from hurricanes to droughts. These satellites are also descendants of a scientific endeavor born at UW–Madison.

In the late 1950s, UW professors Vernor Suomi, a meteorologist, and Robert Parent, an engineer, led the design and fabrication of an instrument to measure Earth’s radiation balance. Launched in 1959 aboard the Explorer VII satellite, the instrument became the basis of history’s first successful meteorological experiment from space. Read More…