right, so far i have a few names for this stuff

bump mapping: Jim/James Blinn (he goes by both names)

IK: a theory in robotics.... so i'm told to look around there... looking for any short cuts, does anyone know anything about robotics? specifically to IK?

Texture Mapping: Ed Catmull

NURBS: Pierre Bézier and Paul de Casteljau, orignally born from B-Splines...i should probably pick a more... uh... formal word than 'born', i suppose originating would work?

Sub-D: i'm told was G. Chaikin whose algorithms were later refined by Catmull/Clark, Wikipedia do not mention Chaikin though, but perhaps if there is a paper from Catmull and Clark about it they will reference him

Lofting: a term with a history... don't know who made the algorithms though

Particles: i'm told William Reeves was one of the people involved, but he's not the first


still missing displacement, normal, rigging, and skeletons... but i guess skeletons are explained by ummm... inspiration from living entities....