Britain's top innovations

[Goldgato]

In the interest of full disclosure, I've posted this elsewhere but just reposted it here. The list is still recent though.

Top British Innovations

Apparently the British got the chance to vote for the top innovations of the past 100 years to come out of that country and, well, let's look at the results.

1. Alan Turing's universal machine, the theoretical basis for modern computing. Well that certainly is important, computers may well be one of the most significant factors adding to the growth of technology in the 21st century.

2. BMC Mini, highly influential small car design. Hmm. That's quite the decline in significance from the basis of modern computing. Has Britain hit bottom already? Hopefully not or this would be an awfully short list. Let's take a look at what the Mini beat out.

X-ray crystallography technique
Discovery of Pulsars
Mallard
World Wide Web
Liquid crystal
Polyethylene synthesis
Penicillin
Concorde

Good God Britain. This is just the top ten. Ten in and the Mini has already beaten out such frivolities as the World Wide Web and penicillin? Hell, these were both beaten out by the Mallard, a steam train whose claim to fame is being the fastest steam train ever built. Does "innovation" have a British connotation I'm just not familiar with?

The Concorde comes in at number ten for being the first supersonic passenger airline in regular service. While supersonic flight is really cool, it's hardly more innovative than the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA that allows us to study such fields as biotechnology, genetic engineering, and synthetic biology.

Actually these three innovations I've singled out - the Mini, the Mallard and the Concorde - have a theme: they're improvements on some past innovation. The steam engine was an innovation, and so was figuring out how to make it a useful form of transportation; making it go faster was not. The car was an innovation, the Mini was a modification to its basic design. Sustained human flight was an innovation; sustained human flight at supersonic speeds required great innovation but was not itself innovative.

Do the British really hold these up as their greatest innovations? Above penicillin? Above the double helix? Above genetic sequence, above stem-cells, above the jet engine that made the Concorde possible in the first place?

[Suicidesoldier#1]

People just like cars.

Also I don't know if they can be credited with the invention of the internet or not.


It's about innovations, and the British were not the first ones to come up with working liquid crystal displays, but Gray's work eventually lead to them being widely used.

So I guess that counts an innovation.

[MegaTurkey]

I guess it all depends on whose opinions were being sampled? Is the ranking based on an open public poll or was it only open to professionals? With the above rankings, I suspect the former.

To be honest I'm quite surprised to see that British Standard Whitworth threads aren't there. Sure it doesn't have a nice ring to it and only an anorak or engineer may appreciate it to its true potential but it only ushered in the age of modern engineering and enabled true, high quality and cheap mass production by standardising screw nuts and bolts (collectively known as "screw threads" ) and tools such as spanners (wrenches) on a universal scale across the empire... rolleyes

So thanks to the standardisation brought about by BSW, innovation such as the Mini, Mallard (BSW was arguably railway's golden opportunity) and even the precision instruments used in many, if not all, the aforementioned discoveries could not have been possible or practical without the humble BSW or its grand legacy.

[Touching Hair]

MegaTurkey hit the nail on the head. The public opinion changes from one moment to another and would largely depend on whatever stories are currently being published.

Over the past few months there has been a lot of media attention focused on Alan Turing and his achievements because of his recent birthday and because of the way he was treated by the British Government. Before all the media attention very few people knew of him.

[Labtech_Sasha-Ak-Amun]

As a Brit I would say that as a nation we like to screw around with polls, voting and so on. I don't that many people think that the mini was one of the greatest thing ever, just that a lot of people think it's funny to put that done.

Like voting in Boris Johnson for London mayor.