Turing, Lovell and the Web
Britain since 1945
Not every British invention of the century was a machine you could see. Alan Turing, a British mathematician, worked out the theoretical device now called the Turing machine, a concept that shaped computer science and the modern computer. Radio astronomy owed its British home to Sir Bernard Lovell, who built the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank after his earlier work with radar; for years it was the largest in the world.
Everyday life changed through smaller devices too. Sir Christopher Cockerell invented the hovercraft. James Goodfellow invented the cash machine, the cashpoint that lets people draw their own money. And Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, and in 1990 information was successfully sent across it for the first time.
What to remember
| The Turing machine | Alan Turing A theoretical device from the 1930s whose theory shaped computer science and the modern computer. |
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| The hovercraft | Sir Christopher Cockerell A British inventor, working in the 1950s. |
| The cash machine | James Goodfellow Invented in the 1960s. The first was put into use by Barclays in Enfield, north London, in 1967. |
| The World Wide Web | Sir Tim Berners-Lee British. Information was first sent over the web on 25 December 1990. |
| The radio telescope at Jodrell Bank | Sir Bernard Lovell Working with radar led him to astronomy. It was the biggest in the world for many years and still runs. |
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| Information first being transferred over the World Wide Web | 1990 This first web transfer followed Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web. |
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