Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Lets take a moment to reflect on the mars rovers, and the 4th of July

re: Lets take a moment to reflect on the mars rovers, and the 4th of July
Doug Ellison — (archived)

Well done with MER and all that Jazz, and yes, you're a very very big, very very rich country, but I take offense at this.....

"Life saving drugs? We developed the vast majority... Advances in communication? Ditto... Tech that makes life more comfortable? ditto... knowledge about the universe? NAME ONE OTHER COUNTRY that has done one tenth what the US has done to advance humanity's knowledge of the universe - from the subatomic to the cosmological scale- "

Life saving drugs. Well - the scientific proof of immunisation by Edward Jenner in 1796 is probably the single largest life saving discovery in the history of mankind. Ever taken Antibiotics - thank Alexander Flemming. Had a CT scan? That was us. The Jet Engine - say Hi to Frank Whittle. Photography - all your prints should have Thomas Wedgwood and Sir Humphry Davy on the back. Lightbulbs, he had a hack in 1860, but he got it right in 1875 and demonstrated the first incandescent bulb in 1878 a year before Edison.

The very idea that the Atoms, elements and compouds existed was put forward by Englishman John Dalton - and JJ Thomson disovered the electron. Cant say much more than that for advancing knowledge when it comes to each and every thing that exists in the universe itself. And of course let us not forget Humphry Davy and Sir Michael Faraday, arguably the greatest experimentalist who ever lived - electromagnetism and the motor, are theirs.

You can put it down to Charles Babbage in the 1830's with is mechanical machines, or Alan Turing in 1942 with the first programmable electronic digital computer, you can thank Britain for the beginnings of the device you use to post here. Thanks to Tim Berners Lee for thw WWW and the worlds first browser - mark him up for HTML, HTTP, and URL. First test tube baby? Right here in Bllighty. First cloned animal - that was us as well. Genetic fingerprinting - right here as well.

And let us not forget - that whenever anyone launches a rocket into space - they put an Englishman in the driving seat. Isaac Newton.

So - The internet, the computer, vaccination, jet travel, the atom and it's structure, electromagnetism and the motor, and the laws that govern the motion of everything around us have a rather large stamp on them - and it's NOT Made in the USA

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