A special 24-page ( magazine inspired by the BBC2 season genius of invention RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 00 MICHAEL MOSLEY 3 Lawnmower INvENTED 1827 A nation founded INventor EdwIn BEArd BuddIng What could be more quintessentially British than a perfectly mown lawn in summer? Until inventor Edwin Beard Budding came up with the lawnmower in 1827, this was the preserve only of the very rich, on invention who could afford an army of people to cut their lawns with scythes. Budding already had a Sir James Dyson once work in the way Google’s founders have done. reputation for inventiveness: he devised a repeating told me that he believed Richard Trevithick — the inventor of my choice pistol that predated Samuel Colt’s, a cotton carding part of the reason the in this supplement (see page 7) — is a great machine of a design that is still used today, and British are so good at example of a man who doesn’t get the the first screw-adjusted spanner. DID YOU KNOW? inventing things is recognition he deserves because he failed His first mower was 19in wide, had a box that because we are an island race. I’m not so to commercialise his invention. Berners-lee’s parents were collected the clippings as they were thrown sure I can point to any one particular British ttitudes are changing, and I have Both involved forward by the blades and allowed the user characteristic that has encouraged such a in the absolutely no doubt that our economic developMent to adjust the height of the cut. It was, at great inventing tradition, but our geography future lies in tapping into British of one of the first, still a fairly exclusive item: Oxford certainly has helped. It created its own earliest inventiveness. Programmes such CoMputers, the colleges and the Royal Zoological Society pressures, separated us intellectually as well A ferranti Mark 1, as Dragons’ Den and figures like Steve Jobs were among his first customers. But its as physically from the rest of Europe. It made unveiled in 1951. and James Dyson have certainly inspired popularity spread as more British homes our relatively affluent, well-educated nation my children. They want to make things, but came to have gardens. And because turn to science at a time when the rest of the they also want to sell things. They want to world did not. It gave us a head start. it made lawns more affordable, be entrepreneurs. The result is that we have an enormous it gave an important boost We need invention now to help pull us out amount of history that we can draw on for to sports that were of our current morass, and I’m very hopeful inspiration. We led the Industrial Revolution, played on grass, such our next generation of inventors is going 2 Worldwide web as cricket, rugby and I can look back with huge respect at all to do it. To achieve this, we must reconnect those steps in our engineering and inventive and football. with a culture of innovation that served these past that make my life today so easy. INvENTED 1989 INventor TIM BErnErS-LEE islands so well in the past: where scientists That past — which BBC2 is celebrating this and inventors are appreciated, and where Not to be confused with the internet, which is a system of year with a season of programmes called people see things that inspire them and linked computer networks, the worldwide web was invented Genius of Invention — can also fuel the next 1 Thermos want to make them even better. by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. It was while generation of scientists and inventors. Our universities are world class, with a great working at Cern, the European particle physics lab, that he history of technology behind them. We turn flask wrote a proposal showing how “hypertext” – a way of sharing out a phenomenal number of Nobel Prize information via links – could be married with the internet to winners, and our heritage has made us a very create a system for fellow scientists to share data. INvENTED 1892 INventor open place, ready to embrace talent from He created the first server in late 1990 and, on 6 August, SIr James dEwAr around the world. 1991, the web went live, with the first page explaining how But there is a downside. Perhaps because This humble invention was the to search and how to set up a site. One critical innovation we are used to getting there first, we constantly brainchild of Sir James Dewar, an was that web users could link their page to another without fail to commercialise British invention. Tim eminent professor of chemistry at the need for the other user’s approval. And Berners-Lee Berners-Lee, the father of the worldwide web, Cambridge and leading light of the gave his invention to the world for free. is rightly applauded for giving his invention to Royal Institution. Dewar didn’t the world — yet on another level it would have invent it to keep tea hot on picnics, been nice if he could have benefited from his but to help his experiments on cooling gases, like air and oxygen, 4 Float glass to such low temperatures that they would liquefy. InvEnTEd 1959 InvEntor AlAstAir Pilkington The flask was actually two flasks, one inside the other, touching only When we think of inventions, it’s machines and gadgets that where they joined at the top, and usually come to mind. But what about all the processes needed Have your say with a vacuum in between. Its to create and manufacture the materials the modern world is which of the following purpose was to keep its contents made of? Take glass: almost all the glass we use today is made 50 inventions, compiled either warmer or cooler than the using the “float” process, devised by Alastair Pilkington in 1959. for RT by a group of BBC Michael Mosley presents ambient temperature outside. a new series, The Genius Molten glass is poured from a furnace onto a shallow bath of science experts, is your of Invention, which starts Sadly for Dewar he never molten tin: the glass floats on the tin, and under its own weight favourite? and are there on BBC2 next week patented his invention. When the it spreads out to form a level surface. As it gradually cools on any from the randomly German Thermos Company did, the tin, the glass is drawn off in a continuous ribbon. This displayed list that they’ve he sued them – and lost. process made it far easier and cheaper to make high-quality missed out? vote now at glass, without the need for grinding and polishing. radiotimes.com/inventions 2 RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions RadioTimes 50 Great British Inventions 3 7 Modern fire 5 Chocolate bar extinguisher inventeD 1818 inventor Coming soon… highlights inventeD 1847 inventor JS FRy & SoNS GeoRGe WILLIaM MaNBy of the BBC2 season The first chocolate bar was created by JS Fry & The first recorded fire extinguisher throughout 2013 Sons of Bristol in 1847. It was sold to the public was invented and patented by a as chocolate “delicieux à manger” – delicious to Why the Industrial Revolution London chemist called Ambrose Happened Here Monday 9.30pm eat – because, until this point, chocolate had Godfrey in 1723. Godfrey’s invention investigating why Britain became the been exclusively consumed as a drink. was perhaps motivated by his line world’s most powerful industrial nation. Fry’s company, originally an apothecary, had of business – he was a successful been selling drinking chocolate since the 1750s, manufacturer of the highly flammable The Flying Scotsman at 90 but the breakthrough came about when the chemical phosphorus. His gadget rather marking the anniversary of the great DID YOU KNOW? london—edinburgh steam train. company decided to combine cocoa powder surprisingly used gunpowder to scatter fry’s merged with sugar and cocoa butter to make a product The Railway: Keeping Britain with cadbury the fire-extinguishing liquid, but there’s in 1919, their that could be moulded into a solid bar. It was at least one contemporaneous newspaper on Track Behind the scenes of assets the nation’s rail network. combined in a the cocoa butter – the oil extracted from cocoa report of its success in putting out a blaze. new holding beans – that was the key: it’s melting point The first modern extinguisher, the firm, the british Murder on the Victorian Railway cocoa and matches the temperature of the human body, “Extincteur”, was invented by naval captain investigating the first murder chocolate so it stays solid at room temperature but company. George William Manby in 1818. It’s said he on a passenger train. melts in the mouth. was inspired by the sight of Newton: the Last Magician When other chocolate-makers copied the firemen struggling to fight DID YOU KNOW? the life and work of the physicist, bar, Fry’s upped the ante by introducing the the flames on the top floors george william mathematician, astronomer. first cream-filled bar in 1866. More of a house fire in Edinburgh. manby is most famous for his Speed King the life and career of innovations followed and by the First World His solution was a portable manby mortar, War, Fry’s was one of the largest employers copper cask containing three which fired record-breaking Donald campbell. a line to in Bristol. to four gallons of potassium struggling Turner: Man of Iron ships off shore, examining the artist’s fascination carbonate, which was enabling people dispersed by compressed to be rescued.