LONDON - A campaign to identify the most significant invention or discovery in history was launched on June 9 by the Science Museum.
The museum has invited the public to vote for the breakthrough, which has had the greatest impact on the past, present and future to mark the London attraction’s 100th anniversary.
Curators have selected ten items from past centuries, which will form a special Centenary Journey trail at the museum to enable visitors to find out more about them.
The list includes the V2 rocket engine, Model T Ford motorcar and Crick and Watson’s model of the structure of DNA.
“The Centenary Journey tells inspirational stories of the dramatic impact of science and technology on our world,” the Scotsman quoted Tim Boon, chief curator at the Science Museum, as saying.
“With our selection we hope to encourage lively debate and ask the public, which one gets your vote?
“Some of the objects may divide opinion - would we be better off if some of the ‘icons’, which have had negative consequences, had not been invented?” he said.
A number of celebrities have already put their weight behind their favourites among the ten inventions.
“As an asthmatic recovering from a debilitating bout of pneumonia, I am painfully aware of how important a role penicillin has played in curing my lung infection,” musician Nitin Sawhney, who chose penicillin, said.
“In this regard I am hardly alone. Countless lives have been saved by Alexander Fleming’s wonder drug,” he said.
Top Gear presenter James May said his vote would go to the Apollo 10 capsule “as it represents the furthest reach to date of manned exploration”.
Backing the X-ray machine, television presenter and biologist Alice Roberts.
“X-rays provided the first possibility of looking inside someone’s body without cutting them open, a massive medical advance,” she said.
The Centenary Journey will be launched on June 26, 100 years after the museum became an independent organisation, and people who want to cast their votes can do it via the museum’s website, with the results to be Announced in October.
The Centenary Journey objects are:
Thompson’s Atmospheric Engine
V2 rocket engine
Cooke and Wheatstone’s five-needle telegraph
Stephenson’s Rocket
Reynolds’ X-ray set
Model T Ford motorcar
Penicillin
Pilot ACE (Automatic Computing Engine)
Crick and Watson’s DNA model
Apollo 10 module (ANI)
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