The best road to progress is freedom's road. - JFK
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Engineers during World War Two test a model of a model of a Halifax bomber in a wind tunnel, an invention that dates back to 1871
The following is a list and timeline of innovations as well as inventions and discoveries that involved British people or the United Kingdom including predecessor states in the history of the formation of the United Kingdom. This list covers innovation and invention in the mechanical, electronic, and industrial fields, as well as medicine, military devices and theory, artistic and scientific discovery and innovation, and ideas in religion and ethics.
The scientific revolution in 17th century Europe stimulated innovation and discovery in Britain.[1] Experimentation was considered central to innovation by groups such as the Royal Society. The English patent system evolved from its medieval origins into a system that recognised intellectual property; this encouraged invention and spurred on the Industrial Revolution from the late 18th century.[2] During the 19th century, innovation in Britain led to revolutionary changes in manufacturing, the development of factory systems, and growth of transportation by railway and steam ship that spread around the world.[3] In the 20th century, Britain's rate of innovation, measured by patents registered,[4] slowed in comparison to other leading economies, although science and technology continued to develop rapidly in absolute terms.
An improved seed drill is designed by Jethro Tull.[10] it is used to spread seeds around a field by a rotating handle which makes seed planting a lot easier
The Watt steam engine, conceived in 1765, goes into production. It is the first type of steam engine to make use of steam at a pressure just above atmospheric.
Sir Humphry Davy creates the first incandescent light by passing a current from a battery, at the time the world's most powerful, through a thin strip of platinum.
SS Great Britain, the world's first steam-powered, screw propeller-driven passenger liner with an iron hull is launched. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, it was at the time the largest ship afloat.
1847
Boolean algebra, the basis for digital logic, is introduced by George Boole in his book The Mathematical Analysis of Logic.[36]
The first safety bicycle is designed by the English engineer Harry John Lawson (also called Henry). Unlike the penny-farthing, the rider's feet were within reach of the ground, making it safer to stop.
The first commercially successful safety bicycle, called the Rover, is designed by John Kemp Starley. The following year Dan Albone produces a derivative of this called the Ivel Safety cycle.
The concept of microprogramming is developed by Maurice Wilkes from the realisation that the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a computer could be controlled by a miniature, highly specialised computer program in high-speed ROM.
LEO is the first business application (a payroll system) on an electronic computer.
1952
Autocode, regarded as the first compiled programming language, is developed for the Manchester Mark 1 by Alick Glennie.
1953
James Watson (an American) and Francis Crick, of Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, analyise X-ray crystallography data taken by Rosalind Franklin of King's College, to decipher the double helical structure of DNA. They share the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work.[55]
1955
The first accurate atomic clock, a caesium standard based on a certain transition of the caesium-133 atom, is built by Louis Essen at the National Physical Laboratory. This clock enabled further development of general relativity, and started a basis for an enhanced SI unit system.[56]
Clifford Cocks develops the algorithm for the RSA cipher while working at the Government Communications Headquarters, approximately three years before it was independently developed by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman at MIT. The British government declassified the 1973 invention in 1997.[63]
1979
The tree shelter is invented by Graham Tuley to protect tree seedlings.[64]
Sir Tim Berners-Lee writes a proposal for what will become the World Wide Web. The following year, he specified HTML, the hypertext language, and HTTP, the protocol.[65]
Beagle 2, a British landing spacecraft that forms part of the European Space Agency's 2003 Mars Express mission lands on the surface of Mars but fails to communicate. It is located twelve years later in a series of images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that suggest two of Beagle's four solar panels failed to deploy, blocking the spacecraft's communications antenna.
Raspberry Pi, a single-board computer, is launched and quickly becomes popular for education in programming and computer science.[71]
2014
The European Space Agency's Philae lander leaves the Rosetta spacecraft and makes the first ever landing on a comet. The Philae lander was built with significant British expertise and technology, alongside that of several other countries.[72][73]
Ferranti Mark 1 - Also known as the Manchester Electronic Computer was the first computer to use the principles of early CPU design (Central processing unit) - Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn - Also the world's first successful commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.
The world's first oil refinery and a process of extracting paraffin from coal laying the foundations for the modern oil industry - James Young (1811–1883)[105]
The pay toilet - John Nevil Maskelyne, Maskelyne invented a lock for London toilets, which required a penny to operate, hence the euphemism "spend a penny".
Chemical Telegraph (Automatic Telegraphy) Alexander Bain (1846) In England Bain's telegraph was used on the wires of the Electric Telegraph Company to a limited extent, and in 1850 it was used in America.[131]
Smallpox vaccine - Edward Jenner with his discovery is said to have "saved more lives (...) than were lost in all the wars of mankind since the beginning of recorded history."[135][136][137]
isolation of fibrinogen ("coagulable lymph"), investigation of the structure of the lymphatic system and description of red blood cells by the surgeon William Hewson (surgeon)
In vitro fertilisation - Developed by Sir Robert Geoffrey Edwards with a first successful birth in 1978 as a result of natural cycle IVF where no stimulation was made.
Ambulight PDT: light-emitting sticking plaster used in photodynamic therapy (PDT) for treating non-melanoma skin cancer. Developed by Ambicare Dundee's Ninewells Hospital and St Andrews University. (2010)[158]
Primary creator of the artificial kidney (Professor Kenneth Lowe - Later Queen's physician in Scotland) [159]
Turret ship - Although designs for a rotating gun turret date back to the late 18th century, the HMS Trusty was the first warship to be outfitted with one.
Battle Tank/The tank - Developed and first used in combat by the British during World War I as a means to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Attributed to Ernest Dunlop Swinton
The first modern pharmacopaedia, William Cullen (1776) The book became 'Europe’s principal text on the classification and treatment of disease' [176]
The first postcards and picture postcards in the UK [177]
Science
Modern atomic theory - Considered the father of modern chemistry, John Dalton's experiments with gases led to the development of what is called the modern atomic theory.[9][178]
Cell biology - Credit for the discovery of the first cells is given to Robert Hooke who described the microscopic compartments of cork cells in 1665[178]
Stephen Hawking - World-renowned theoretical physicist made many important contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes
Publishes Opus Maius, which among other things, proposes an early form of the scientific method, and contains results of his experiments with gunpowder - Roger Bacon[213]
Thoroughbred Horseracing - Was first developed in 17th and 18th century England
Polo - its roots began in Persia as a training game for cavalry units, the formal codification of the rules of modern Polo as a sport were established in 19th century England
oldest sporting competition in the world: The Antient Silver Arrow Archery competition known as the Scorton Arrow as it was originally held in Scorton, Yorkshire. It was first shot for in 1673.[227]
Aeronautics and flight. As a pioneer of glider development & first well-documented human flight he discovered and identified the four aerodynamic forces of flight - weight, lift, drag, and thrust. Modern airplane design is based on those discoveries including cambered wings. He is sometimes called the "Father of aviation" - George Cayley[228]
Steam Powered Flight with the Aerial Steam Carriage - John Stringfellow- The world's first powered flight took place at Chard in Somerset 55 years before the Wright brothers attempt at Kitty Hawk[229]
World's first underground railway and the first rapid transit system. It was also the first underground railway to operate electric trains - London underground
The world's first patent for an underwater echo ranging device (Sonar) - Lewis Richardson
hydrophone Before the invention of Sonar convoy escort ships used them to detect U-boats, greatly lessening the effectiveness of the submarine - Research headed by Ernest Rutherford
Transplant rejection: Professor Thomas Gibson (1940s) the first medical doctor to understand the relationship between donor graft tissue and host tissue rejection and tissue transplantation by his work on aviation burns victims during World War II.[241]
Metaflex fabric innovations thereof - University of St. Andrews (2010) application of the first manufacturing fabrics that manipulate light in bending it around a subject. Before this such light manipulating atoms were fixed on flat hard surfaces. The team at St Andrews are the first to develop the concept to fabric.[254]
^Willcox, William Bradford; Arnstein, Walter L. (1966). The Age of Aristocracy, 1688 to 1830. Volume III of A History of England, edited by Lacey Baldwin Smith (Sixth Edition, 1992 ed.). Lexington, Massachusetts. p. 133. ISBN 0-669-24459-7.
^O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (1998). "Charles Babbage". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved 2006-06-14.
^Russell, Edward J. (2011). Fertility of the soil. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press. p. 78. ISBN 9781107401761. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
^Journal of the Society of Arts, Volume 6 By Society of Arts (Great Britain)
^Huth, Edward J.; Murray, T. J., eds. (2006). Medicine in Quotations: Views of Health and Disease Through the Ages. American College of Physic. p. 130.
^ abcdefghHall, Carl (2008). A Biographical Dictionary of People in Engineering: From the Earliest Records to 2000. Purdue University Press. ISBN 978-1-55753-459-0.
^Catherine O'Reilly (2008). Did Thomas Crapper Really Invent the Toilet?: The Inventions That Changed Our Homes and Our Lives. Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60239-347-9.
^Joe Nickell (2000). Pen, ink, & evidence: a study of writing and writing materials for the penman, collector, and document detective. Oak Knoll Press. ISBN 978-1-58456-017-3.
^The Picture History of Great Inventors By Gillian Clements
^The kaleidoscope, its history, theory and construction with its application By Sir David Brewster
^US RE 8560, Passmore, Everett G., "Improvement in Lawn-Mowers", published 23 February 1869, issued 28 January 1879; see pg 1, col 2. For a copy, see Google Patents copy. This source indicates the patent number as "6,080". According to "British patent numbers 1617 - 1852 (old series)", the patent number was assigned sometime after 1852 and took the form of "6080/1830".
^Wonders of the nineteenth century: a panoramic review of the inventions and discoveries of the past hundred years John Wesley Hanson W. B. Conkey, 1900
^Pen Portraits: Alexandria Virginia 1739-1900 By T. Michael Miller
^The lancet London: a journal of British and foreign medicine, surgery, obstetrics, physiology, chemistry, pharmacology, public health and news Elsevier, 1870
^Thompson, William Phillips (1920). Handbook of patent law of all countries. London: Stevens. pp. 42
^An account of some remarkable applications of the electric fluid to the useful arts by Alexander Bain
^Alexander Bain of Watten: genius of the North Robert P. Gunn Caithness Field Club, 1976
^Locke, John. A Letter Concerning Toleration Routledge, New York, 1991. p. 5 (Introduction)
^Delaney, Tim. The march of unreason: science, democracy, and the new fundamentalism Oxford University Press, New York, 2005. p. 18
^Saunders, Paul (1982). Edward Jenner, the Cheltenham years, 1795-1823. University Press of New England. ISBN 978-0-87451-215-1.
^Levine, Israel E. (1960). Conqueror of smallpox: Dr. Edward Jenner. Messner. ISBN 978-0-671-63888-7.
^White, Fred (2009). Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery: An Atlas of Rare, Lost and Forgotten Physical Signs. Xlibris Corp. ISBN 978-1-4415-0829-4.
^Scientific American inventions and discoveries By Rodney P. Carlisle
^"The outstanding British surgeon Percivall Pott (1714-1789) and the first description of an occupational cancer.". J BUON (National Center for Biotechnology Information) 11: 533–9. PMID17309190.
^Morris Fishbein, M.D., ed (1976). "Anesthesia". The New Illustrated Medical and Health Encyclopedia. 1 (Home Library Edition ed.). New York, N.Y. 10016: H. S. Stuttman Co. pp. 89
^"Dr James Parkinson". Parkinson's Disease Society of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 2010-12-06.
^ abcWindelspecht, Michael (2003). Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the 19th Century. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-31969-3.
^Anderson; Hellier; Gillon; Triaud; Smalley; Hebb; Collier Cameron; Maxted; Queloz (2009). "WASP-17b: an ultra-low density planet in a probable retrograde orbit". arXiv:0908.1553 [astro-ph.EP]. web