Inventions of XX-XXI century

Great Britain produced many of the most influential scientists, mathematicians and inventors in modern history. With influential people, come influential ideas, theories and inventions, some of which have the potential to change the world forever. During XX-XXI century in the UK were devised a lot of inventions. Their enumeration would take much time so today I would like mention the most significant and the most interesting.

XX CENTURYThe first of the inventions that I would like to is the creation of nuclear physic by Ernest Rutherford. When he was studying at Manchester University, Rutherford discovers that the atom is a small, heavy nucleus surrounded by orbital electrons.

In 1901 Hubert Booth patents the first vacuum cleaner. His large machine is first used in stores.

1906-1930 FREDERICK HOPKINS DISCOVERS VITAMINS

As a young man Frederick Hopkins works for six months as an insurance clerk before he takes a course in chemistry, sits an examination, and does so well that Thomas Stevenson, an expert in poisoning, engages him as his assistant. Hopkins contributes to several important legal cases, takes his London University degree in the shortest possible time, and then studies medicine at Guy's Hospital, London.

Biochemistry is a new, underfunded field, but Hopkins pursues his research. In 1929 Hopkins shares the Nobel Prize with Christiaan Eijkman for discovering substances vital to life and maintaining health – vitamins.

1914 BRITS INVENT AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

Many people consider military inventions curse, and hardly the best work produced by anybody. However, without them civilized people would die at the hands of barbarians.

In 1914, the Brits launch HMS Ark Royal, the world's first aircraft carrier. The Americans launch their first carrier in 1920. At the beginning of World War II,

1924 -1928 JOHN LOGIE BAIRD BECOMES FIRST TO TELEVISE PICTURES

He is plagued by ill health, but John Logie Baird decides to create a television, a dream of many scientists. Within two years Baird has built his first crude set.

Two years later Baird demonstrates the world's first television to fifty scientists in his attic workshop. The next year, 1927, he demonstrates television over 438

miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow, and in 1928 he achieves the first transatlantic television transmission between London and New York.

The BBC begins using Baird's television in 1929, but Baird's television works mechanically. He is exploring electronically supported television when he is edged out by Marconi.

In 1930 Baird demonstrates big-screen television in the London Coliseum, televises the first live TV transmission (of a horse race), develops colour television, and is the first to demonstrate ultra-short wave transmission.

1949 ZEBRA CROSSINGS FOR PEDESTRIANS

Zebra crossings are one of those inventions that has been adopted around the world. The first zebra pedestrian crossings are traced back to the Belisha beacons named after the Minister of Transport, Leslie Hore-Belisha, who introduced them in 1934.

Pedestrians have right of way in the zebra crossing once they have put a foot on it. However, they do depend on motorists stopping and giving way.

1960s PETER SCOTT PUTS CONSERVATION ON MAP, FOUNDS WWF, WORLD

WILDLIFE FUND (NOW KNOWN AS WORLDWIDE FUND FOR NATURE)

Peter Scott, Julian Huxley, Max Nicholson, and several others found WWF to help save wildlife and habitats. His father, Robert Falcon Scott, would have been pleased. As he lay dying in Antarctica, he hoped his young son would be interested in natural history.

Peter Scott is particularly interested in wildfowl. He paints them, writes about them, and establishes trusts to preserve their habitat. The first man knighted for his contributions to protecting nature, he originates the Red Data Books, which identify endangered species, and are an essential tool for conservationists.

Today WWF is an international organisation with hundreds of thousands of members. It sponsors projects around the world to conserve beach, forest, and wetlands and to create living relationships for the people and the animals who share these lands. WWF was led for years by Sir Peter and later by HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

1989 TIM BERNERS-LEE INVENTS THE LIBERATING, CIVILISATION-ALTERING

WORLD WIDE WEB

In the 1960s, the United States “saw universal networking as a potential unifying human revolution” and implemented a “highly robust and survivable” physical network based on packet switching. The Internet was born as an open and organic enterprise that established interconnection and routing policies, and welcomed expanding networks of users. It required just one other thing for

worldwide use: a way for all its users to communicate – www or the World Wide Web.

The son of parents who met while working on computers, Tim Berners-Lee grows up playing unconventional games at the dinner table. At Oxford, he builds his own working electronic computer out of spare parts and a TV set.

He hits on the idea of linking files on his computer, and writes a computer program he calls Enquire.

But that is only the beginning. Working alone, Tim Berners-Lee takes the concept of freely accessing knowledge and communicating around the world as far as they have ever been taken. He decides to open up his computer to everyone, and invite them to link their material. In his vision there is no central manager, no central database, and no scaling problems. The world wide Web is open-ended and infinite. But for this to occur it has to have a language.

So Tim weaves together a relatively easy-to-learn coding system — HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language). He designs an addressing scheme that gives each Web page a unique location or url (universal resource locator), and he hacks a set of rules called HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) that allow these documents to be linked together on computers across the Internet. In less than a decade his program will create a global mass medium.

XXI CENTURY

2000 - 2012 BRIT JONATHAN IVE DESIGNS FOR APPLE - iMacs, iPods, iPhones,

iPads

2005 MANCHESTER SCIENTISTS DISCOVER UNKNOWN MATTER

A team of British and Russian scientists at the University of Manchester discover a new class of previously unknown materials which are one atom thick and exhibit properties never seen before.

The new materials are ultra-thin, but can be ultra-strong, highly-insulating or highly-conductive. The discovery opens up fascinating possibilities – clothing that insulates but is lighter than gossamer; extremely light and strong computers made from materials with only one atom.

2005 YORKSHIRE CANCER RESEARCH MOVES TOWARD PROSTATE CANCER CURE

Working at the Yorkshire Cancer Research Unit (YCR) at the University of York, Norman Maitland and Anne Collins extract and grow prostate tumour stem cells. This is an exciting development in creating a therapy for eliminating cancer cells. Existing treatments typically reduce the number of cancer cells, but do not

eradicate them. Now that tumour stem cells have been grown, specific therapies for killing them can be developed.

2006 BRITS USE JUICE FROM MAGGOTS TO SPEED HEALING OF WOUNDS

Maggots have been deliberately applied to wounds to get rid of dead tissue and kill bacteria by eating it. Now, according to The Telegraph, "Scientists from Bradford University have discovered an extra benefit: the secretions produced by the maggots actually speed up the body's healing process." They expect that within three years they will have bandages infused with maggot juice to speed the regeneration of injured flesh.

2006 BRITISH AND AMERICAN RESEARCHERS RESTORE SIGHT TO BLIND USING

CELL TRANSPLANTS

British and American researchers are using cell transplants to restore sight to blind mice, and hope “it may be possible for doctors to treat conditions that cause irreversible blindness, such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic eye damage” for hundreds of thousands who have lost their sight.

The plan is to use stem cell-like retinal cells from the affected patient. The research was published in the magazine Nature.

2007 BRITISH RESEARCH TEAM GROWS HEART VALVE FROM STEM CELLS

A British research team led by Sir Magdi Yacoub, a professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College London and one of the world's leading heart surgeons, has grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time. If trials scheduled for later this year prove successful, replacement tissue could be used in transplants for hundreds of thousands of people suffering from heart disease within three years. Since the stem cells are not embryonic, and can be supplied by the person who needs the heart, no immune-rejection problems occur.

All these staff made our life easier and saved a lot of lives. Thank to British inventors we have such a thing as VITAMINS, PENICILLIN, THE JET PLANE, WORLD WIDE WEB, RADIO TELESCOPES, BIRTH CONTROL PILL and many other useful things.