Science and Technology in the United Kingdom

Science and technology in the United Kingdom

Science and technology in the United Kingdom has a long history, celebrating important scientists and producing important developments in the field of science. Scientists from the UK continue to play a major role in the development of science and technology in major sectors. England and Scotland were leading centres of the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century and the UK led the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century and has continued to produce scientists and engineers credited with important advances.

            Newton’s laws of motion are three physical laws that together laid the foundation for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it and its motion in response to the said forces. They have been expressed in several different ways over three centuries. The three laws of motion were first compiled by Isaac Newton and were first published in 1687. Newton used them to explain and investigate the motion of many physical objects and systems.

            Michael Faraday was a British physicist and chemist best known of his discoveries of electromagnetic induction and the laws of electrolysis. His biggest breakthrough in the field of electricity was his invention of the electric motor. Michael Faraday built two devices which produced what we call electromagnetic rotation: that is a continuous circular motion from the circular magnetic force around a wire. Ten years later, in 1831, he began his great series of experiments in which he discovered electromagnetic induction. These experiments form the basis of modern electromagnetic technology.

            Sir William Fothergill Cooke was the co-inventor of the first commercial electric telegraph, which he developed with Sir Charles Wheatstone. In May 1837 they patented a five-needle telegraph as an alarm system and in 1839 they installed the first working commercial electric telegraph for the Great Western Railway. This device was involved in what is thought to have been the first use of telecommunications in an arrest. Following a series of disputes over credit for their inventions, Cooke founded the Electric Telegraph Company in 1848 the world’s first public telegraph company.

            George Cayley is mainly remembered for his pioneer studies and experiments with flying machines, including the working, piloted glider that he designed and constructed. The model glider, which was successfully flown by Cayley in 1804, had the layout of a modern aircraft with a kite-shaped wing towards the front and an adjustable tailplane at the back comprising horizontal stabilizers and a vertical fin. A moveable weight allowed adjustment of the model’s centre of gravity.

            Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, the United Kingdom has developed in many scientific and technological sectors. Ranging from Newton’s laws to the invention of the World Wide Web, UK has played a major role in the development of global technology and its shaping as it is known today. 

Works cited

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cayley

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_laws_of_motion en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Fothergill_Cooke en.wikipedia.org/.../Science_and_technology_in_the_United_Kingdom

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