Britons on British Inventions

"It's true to say that throughout the 18th and 19th centuries Britain was the most inventive nation," Lindsay Sharp, director of the U.K National Museum of Science & Industry, told The Times as is sets out to find Britain's greatest invention. "Or at least the best at getting inventions to work on a large scale. After that, unfortunately, things started to unravel." At which point, it seems, Britain lost the plot. "The First World War was a disaster, and not just because we lost a generation. The European economy was shot to pieces. The Americans steamed ahead."