| Name | Lived | Known For | Demise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phil Katz | 1963-2000 | PC compression utility PKzip | Suicide by alcoholism | |
| Yahya Ayyah | 1966-1996 | Palestinian bomb maker | A booby-trapped cellular phone | |
| Frederick Cuny | 1944-1995 | International relief expert | Executed in Chechnya | |
| Gary Kildall | 1942-1994 | Author of CP/M and founder of Digital Research | Fatal accident in a bar | |
| Gerald Bull | 1928-1990 | Designer of Iraqi supergun | Assassinated in Belgium | |
| Don Aronow | 1927-1987 | Designer of Cigarette and other high-speed boats | Murdered by drug-smuggler associate | |
| Benjamin Linder | 1962-1987 | Hydroelectric projects in Nicaragua | Killed in Contra raid | |
| Henry Smolinski and Hal Blake | d 1973 | Winged automobiles | A suddenly wingless automobile | |
| Mitrofan Nedelin | d 1960 | Headed Soviet launches at Baikonour | Excessive devotion to schedule | |
| Edwin Armstrong | 1890-1954 | Invented most of radio | Bankruptcy, suicide | |
| Alan Turing | 1912-1954 | Undecidability, Enigma code-breaking, early computers | Suicide by cyanide after medical treatment for homosexuality | |
| John Whiteside Parsons | 1914-1952 | Early work on rocket fuels, Satanist follower of Aleister Crowley | Killed in mysterious explosion in his house | |
| Thomas Midgley | 1889-1944 | Leaded gasoline, CFCs | Paralyzed by polio, then strangled by a harness while getting out of bed | |
| Wallace Carothers | 1896-1937 | Inventor of nylon | Depression, suicide | |
| Peter Palchinsky | 1875-1929 | Leading Russian mining engineer | Executed by Stalin | |
| Rudolf Diesel | 1858-1913 | The eponymous engine | Suicide after loss of control over technology | |
| Thomas Andrews | 1873-1912 | Designer of the Titanic | Drowned after collision with iceberg | |
| Otto Lilienthal | 1848-1896 | Early aircraft | A glider crash | |
| Horace L Hunley | d 1863 | Financier of the Confederate submarine, HL Hunley | Drowned during sea trials in Charleston SC | |
| Horace Wells | 1815-1848 | First use of nitrous oxide as pain reliever | Disbelief, chloroform addiction, suicide | |
| Archimedes | ~290-211 BCE | Volume of the sphere, principles of buoyancy and leverage | Ignored a Roman soldier | |
| Seymour Cray | 1925-1996 | Leading supercomputer designer | Killed in an SUV rollover |