Science and technology in the United Kingdom

"British scientists" redirects here. For the Russian internet meme, see British scientists (meme).

A Watt steam engine, which powered the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom and played a key role in it becoming the world's first industrialised nation^{[note 1]}

Science and technology in the United Kingdom has a long history, producing many important figures and developments in the field. Major theorists from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland include Isaac Newton whose laws of motion and illumination of gravity have been seen as a keystone of modern science and Charles Darwin whose theory of evolution by natural selection was fundamental to the development of modern biology. Major scientific discoveries include hydrogen by Henry Cavendish, penicillin by Alexander Fleming, and the structure of DNA, by Francis Crick and others. Major engineering projects and applications pursued by people from the United Kingdom include the steam locomotive developed by Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian, the jet engine by Frank Whittle and the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee. The United Kingdom continues to play a major role in the development of science and technology and major technological sectors include the aerospace, motor and pharmaceutical industries.

Important advances made by British people

Further information: List of British innovations and discoveries

Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) with his important contributions to classical physics and mathematics

Charles Darwin (1809–82) whose theory of evolution by natural selection is the foundation of modern biological sciences^[1]

England (which included Wales at the time) and Scotland were leading centres of the Scientific Revolution from the 17th century.^[2] The United Kingdom led the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century,^[3] and has continued to produce scientists and engineers credited with important advances.^[4] Some of the major theories, discoveries and applications advanced by people from the United Kingdom are given below.

• The development of empiricism and its role in scientific method, by Francis Bacon (1561–1626).^[5]
• The laws of motion and illumination of gravity, by physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian, Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727).^[6]
• The discovery of hydrogen, by Henry Cavendish (1731–1810).^[7]
• The steam locomotive, by Richard Trevithick (1771–1833) and Andrew Vivian (1759–1842).^[8]
• An early electric motor, by Michael Faraday (1771–1867), who largely made electricity viable for use in technology.^[9]
• The theory of aerodynamics, by Sir George Cayley (1773–1857).^[10]
• The first public steam railway, by George Stephenson (1781–1848).^[11]
• The first commercial electrical telegraph, co-invented by Sir William Fothergill Cooke (1806–79) and Charles Wheatstone (1802–75).^[12][13]
• First tunnel under a navigable river, first all iron ship and first railway to run express services, contributed to by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–59).^[14]
• Evolution by natural selection, by Charles Darwin (1809–82).^[1]
• The invention of the incandescent light bulb, by Joseph Swan (1826–1914).^[9]
• The unification of electromagnetism, by James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79).^[15]
• The first practical telephone, patented by Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922).^{[16][note 2]}
• The discovery of penicillin, by biologist and pharmacologist, Sir Alexander Fleming (1881–1955).^[17]
• The world's first working television system, and colour television, by John Logie Baird (1888–1946).^[18][19]
• The first meaningful synthesis of quantum mechanics with special relativity by Paul Dirac (1902–84) in the equation named after him, and his subsequent prediction of antimatter.^[20]
• The invention of the jet engine, by Frank Whittle (1907–96).^[21]
• The invention of the hovercraft, by Christopher Cockerell (1910–99).^[22]
• The colossus computer, by Alan Turing (1912–54), an early digital computer (a code breaker in WWII made in Bletchley Park).^[21]
• The structure of DNA, by Francis Crick (1916–2004) and others.^[23]
• The invention of modern data communication by Donald Davies (1924–2000), including packet switching, high-speed routers, hierarchical computer networks, layered communication protocols and the essence of the end-to-end principle.^{[24][25][26][27][28][note 3]}
• The theoretical breakthrough of the Higgs mechanism to explain electroweak symmetry breaking and why some particles have mass, by Peter Higgs (1929–2024).^[32]
• Theories in cosmology, quantum gravity and black holes, by Stephen Hawking (1942–2018).^[33]
• The invention of the World Wide Web, by Tim Berners-Lee (1955–).^[34][35]

Technology-based industries

Further information: Aerospace industry in the United Kingdom, Automotive industry in the United Kingdom, and Pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom

The Airbus A380 has wings and engines manufactured in the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom plays a leading part in the aerospace industry, with companies including Rolls-Royce playing a leading role in the aero-engine market; BAE Systems acting as Britain's largest and the Pentagon's sixth largest defence supplier, and large companies including GKN acting as major suppliers to the Airbus project.^[36] Two British-based companies, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, ranked in the top five pharmaceutical companies in the world by sales in 2009^[37] and UK companies have discovered and developed more leading medicines than any other country apart from the US.^[38] The UK remains a leading centre of automotive design and production, particularly of engines, and has around 2,600 component manufacturers.^[39] Investment by venture capital firms in UK technology companies was $9.7 billion from 2010 to 2015.^[40]

The UK is one of only 3 nations with $1 trillion technology industry.^{[citation needed]}

Scientific research

Further information: Universities in the United Kingdom, List of science parks in the United Kingdom, and List of UK government scientific research institutes

A Welsh Government short video of science in Wales

Scientific research and development remains important in British universities, with many establishing science parks to facilitate production and co-operation with industry.^[41] Between 2004 and 2012, the United Kingdom produced 6% of the world's scientific research papers and had an 8% share of scientific citations, the third- and second-highest in the world (after the United States' 9% and China's 7% respectively).^[42][43] Scientific journals produced in the UK include Nature, the British Medical Journal and The Lancet.

Britain was one of the largest recipients of research funding from the European Union. From 2007 to 2013, the UK received €8.8 billion out of a total of €107 billion expenditure on research, development and innovation in EU Member States, associated and third countries. At the time, this represented the fourth largest share in the EU.^[44] The European Research Council granted 79 projects funding in the UK in 2017, more than any other EU country.^[45][46] The United Kingdom was ranked 5th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024.^[47]

See also

• Government Office for Science
• Internet in the United Kingdom
• List of exports of the United Kingdom
• Manufacturing in the United Kingdom
• Telecommunications in the United Kingdom

Notes

1. Watt steam engine image: located in the lobby of into the Superior Technical School of Industrial Engineers of the UPM (Madrid)
2. Alexander Graham Bell, born and raised in Scotland, made a number of inventions as a British citizen, notably the telephone in 1876; he did not become an American citizen until 1882, and then spent the remaining years of his life predominately living in Canada at a summer residence.
3. In the early 1960s, Paul Baran invented distributed adaptive message block switching for digital communication of voice messages using switches that were low-cost electronics. His work did not include routers with software switches and communication protocols, nor the idea that users, rather than the network itself, would provide the reliability.^[29][30][31]

References

1. C. Hatt, Scientists and Their Discoveries (London: Evans Brothers, 2006), ISBN 0-237-53195-X, p. 46.
2. J. Gascoin, "A reappraisal of the role of the universities in the Scientific Revolution", in David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman, eds, Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), ISBN 0-521-34804-8, p. 248.
3. "European Countries – United Kingdom". Europa (web portal). Retrieved 15 December 2010.
4. E. E. Reynolds and N. H. Brasher, Britain in the Twentieth Century, 1900–1964 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), p. 336.
5. Urbach, Peter (1987). Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science: An Account and a Reappraisal. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Co. ISBN 9780912050447. p. 192.
6. E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Mineola, NY: Courier Dover, 1924, rpt., 2003), ISBN 0-486-42551-7, p. 207.
7. Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach, Cavendish (American Philosophical Society, 1996), ISBN 0-87169-220-1.
8. I. James, Remarkable Engineers: From Riquet to Shannon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), ISBN 0-521-73165-8, pp. 33–6.
9. B. Bova, The Story of Light (Sourcebooks, 1932, rpt., 2002), ISBN 1-4022-0009-9, p. 238.
10. Ackroyd, J.A.D. Sir George Cayley, the father of Aeronautics Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 56 (2), 167–181 (2002). Retrieved: 29 May 2010.
11. Davies, Hunter (1975). George Stephenson. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-76934-7.
12. Hubbard, Geoffrey (1965) Cooke and Wheatstone and the Invention of the Electric Telegraph, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London p. 78
13. The electric telegraph, forerunner of the internet, celebrates 170 years BT Group Connected Earth Online Museum - Retrieved March 2010
14. R. Tames, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Osprey Publishing, 3rd edn., 2009), ISBN 0-7478-0758-2.
15. C. Hatt, Scientists and Their Discoveries (London: Evans Brothers, 2006), ISBN 0-237-53195-X, p. 30.
16. "Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922)", Scottish Science Hall of Game, 159 (4035): 297, 1947, Bibcode:1947Natur.159Q.297., doi:10.1038/159297a0, S2CID 4072391.
17. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1945 Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst B. Chain, Sir Howard Florey", Nobelprize.org, archived from the original on 23 June 2011.
18. "John Logie Baird (1888–1946)", BBC History, archived from the original on 21 June 2011.
19. The World's First High Definition Colour Television System McLean, p. 196.
20. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1933". The Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2007-11-24.
21. Jeffrey Cole, Ethnic Groups of Europe: An Encyclopedia (London: ABC-CLIO, 2011), ISBN 1-59884-302-8, p. 121.
22. "Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell" Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine, Hovercraft Museum, retrieved 24 June 2011.
23. C. Hatt, Scientists and Their Discoveries (London: Evans Brothers, 2006), ISBN 0-237-53195-X, p. 56.
24. Yates, David M. (1997). Turing's Legacy: A History of Computing at the National Physical Laboratory 1945-1995. National Museum of Science and Industry. pp. 132–4. ISBN 978-0-901805-94-2. Davies's invention of packet switching and design of computer communication networks ... were a cornerstone of the development which led to the Internet
25. Naughton, John (2000) [1999]. A Brief History of the Future. Phoenix. p. 292. ISBN 9780753810934.
26. Campbell-Kelly, Martin (1987). "Data Communications at the National Physical Laboratory (1965-1975)". Annals of the History of Computing. 9 (3/4): 221–247. doi:10.1109/MAHC.1987.10023. S2CID 8172150. the first occurrence in print of the term protocol in a data communications context ... the next hardware tasks were the detailed design of the interface between the terminal devices and the switching computer, and the arrangements to secure reliable transmission of packets of data over the high-speed lines
27. A History of the ARPANET: The First Decade (PDF) (Report). Bolt, Beranek & Newman Inc. 1 April 1981. pp. 53 of 183 (III-11 on the printed copy). Archived from the original on 1 December 2012.
28. Davies, Donald; Bartlett, Keith; Scantlebury, Roger; Wilkinson, Peter (October 1967). A Digital Communication Network for Computers Giving Rapid Response at remote Terminals (PDF). ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-10. Retrieved 2020-09-15. "all users of the network will provide themselves with some kind of error control"
29. Kleinrock, L. (1978). "Principles and lessons in packet communications". Proceedings of the IEEE. 66 (11): 1320–1329. doi:10.1109/PROC.1978.11143. ISSN 0018-9219. Paul Baran ... focused on the routing procedures and on the survivability of distributed communication systems in a hostile environment, but did not concentrate on the need for resource sharing in its form as we now understand it; indeed, the concept of a software switch was not present in his work.
30. Pelkey, James L. "6.1 The Communications Subnet: BBN 1969". Entrepreneurial Capitalism and Innovation: A History of Computer Communications 1968–1988. As Kahn recalls: ... Paul Baran's contributions ... I also think Paul was motivated almost entirely by voice considerations. If you look at what he wrote, he was talking about switches that were low-cost electronics. The idea of putting powerful computers in these locations hadn't quite occurred to him as being cost effective. So the idea of computer switches was missing. The whole notion of protocols didn't exist at that time. And the idea of computer-to-computer communications was really a secondary concern.
31. Waldrop, M. Mitchell (2018). The Dream Machine. Stripe Press. p. 286. ISBN 978-1-953953-36-0. Baran had put more emphasis on digital voice communications than on computer communications.
32. Griffiths, Martin (20070501) physicsworld.com The Tale of the Blog's Boson Retrieved on 2008-05-27.
33. C. Hatt, Scientists and Their Discoveries (London: Evans Brothers, 2006), ISBN 0-237-53195-X, p. 16.
34. Quittner, Joshua (29 March 1999). "Network Designer Tim Berners-Lee". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on 15 August 2007. Retrieved 17 May 2010. He wove the World Wide Web and created a mass medium for the 21st century. The World Wide Web is Berners-Lee's alone. He designed it. He set it loose it on the world. And he more than anyone else has fought to keep it an open, non-proprietary and free.^{[page needed]}
35. McPherson, Stephanie Sammartino (2009). Tim Berners-Lee: Inventor of the World Wide Web. Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 978-0-8225-7273-2.
36. O’Connell, Dominic, "Britannia still rules the skies", The Sunday Times, archived from the original on January 12, 2012
37. "IMS Health" (PDF), IMS Health, archived from the original (PDF) on 13 July 2011.
38. "The Pharmaceutical sector in the UK", The National Archives, 8 August 2007, archived from the original on 7 August 2007.
39. "Automotive industry", Department of Business Innovation and Skills, archived from the original on 2 July 2011.
40. "UK tech firms smash venture capital funding record". London & Partners. 6 January 2016. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
41. M. Castells, P. Hall, P. G. Hall, Technopoles of the World: the Making of Twenty-First-Century Industrial Complexes (London: Routledge, 1994), ISBN 0-415-10015-1, pp. 98–100.
42. Knowledge, networks and nations: scientific collaborations in the twenty-first century (PDF), Royal Society, 2011, ISBN 978-0-85403-890-9, archived (PDF) from the original on 23 June 2011.
43. MacLeod, Donald (March 21, 2006). "Britain Second in World Research Rankings". The Guardian. London. Retrieved May 14, 2006.
44. "How much research funding does the UK get from the EU and how does this compare with other countries?". Royal Society. 23 November 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
45. "Boost for hopes of post-Brexit co-operation as EU awards Britain more research grants than anywhere else". The Telegraph. 6 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
46. "ERC Starting Grants 2017" (PDF). European Research Council. 6 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
47. World Intellectual Property Organization (2024). Global Innovation Index 2024. Unlocking the Promise of Social Entrepreneurship. Geneva. p. 18. doi:10.34667/tind.50062. ISBN 978-92-805-3681-2. Retrieved 2024-10-22. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)