England and Scotland
England and Scotland were leading centres of the Scientific Revolution from the 17th century.[293] The United Kingdom led the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century,[265] and has continued to produce scientists and engineers credited with important advances.[294] Major theorists from the 17th and 18th centuries include Isaac Newton, whose laws of motion and illumin
ation of gravity have been seen as a keystone of modern science;[295] from the 19th century Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution by natural selection was fundamental to the development of modern biology, and James Clerk Maxwell, who formulated classical electromagnetic theory; and more recently Stephen Hawking, who advanced major theories in the fields of cosmology, quantum gravity and the investigation of black holes.[296]
Major scientific discoveries from the 18th century include hydrogen by Henry Cavendish;[297] from the 20th century penicillin by Alexander Fleming,[298] and the structure of DNA, by Francis Crick and others.[299] Famous British engineers and inventors of the Industrial Revolution include James Watt, George Stephenson, Richard Arkwright, Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.[300] Other major engineering projects and applications by people from the UK include the steam locomotive, developed by Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian;[301] from the 19th century the electric motor by Michael F
araday, the first computer designed by Charles Babbage,[302] the first commercial electrical telegraph by William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone,[303] the incandescent light bulb by Joseph Swan,[304] and the first practical telephone, patented by Alexander Graham Bell;[305] and in the 20th century the world’s first working television system by John Logie Baird and others,[306] the jet engine by Frank Whittle, the basis of the modern computer by Alan Turing, and the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee.[307]
