Discoveries and inventions of the uk

Newton called this force "gravity" and determined that gravitational forces exist between all objects.

Using the idea of Gravity, Newton was able to explain the astronomical observations of Kepler.

The work of Galileo, Brahe, Kepler, and Newton proved once and for all that the Earth wasn't the center of the solar system. The Earth, along with all other planets,orbits around the sun.

Time

Bear with us. This might be a strange one to wrap your head around, but the world hasn’t always thought about time in the same way.

Before the 1800s, different places around the world would keep their own time according to the rising and the setting of the sun. There was no universal time framework to connect different cities and countries.

Scientists at the Greenwich Observatory changed all that in 1884 when they created Greenwich Mean Time – the first national standard time framework.

The First Mass-produced toothbrush - 1770-1780

We often take dental hygiene for granted, grabbing that toothbrush morning and night and giving the pearly whites a scrub up. But what would life look like if we didn’t have this invention?

The toothbrush you are familiar with today was invented sometime between 1770 and 1780 by William Addis.

The idea came to him whilst in jail for causing a riot.

He noted that using a rag with soot and salt to clean teeth was ineffective and vowed to develop an easier solution.

He founded the manufacturing company Wisdom that still makes them to this day. 

The Steam Engine - 1698-1801

The first practical patent for an atmospheric pressure steam engine was filed by Thomas Savery in 1698.

Over the next one hundred years or so visionaries like Thomas Newcomen, James Watt and finally Richard Trevithick would refine the design to produce steam engines small enough for uses in things like locomotives.

Richard Trevithick was one of the pioneers of the industrial revolution, a British inventor and mining engineer. He built a full scale steam locomotive in 1801 that used high pressured steam. It was first tested near Redruth in Cornwall on Christmas Eve in 1801 and proved to be a great success. The ‘puffing devil’ paved the way for modern day trains.