10 scientific objects that changed the world

 
New Scientist, which used to be a decent science magazine, has a list of 10 scientific objects that changed the world. You are invited to vote for your favourite on the Science Museum site.

To mark its centenary, the Science Museum in London had its curators select the ten objects in its collection that made the biggest mark on history. Explore them in this gallery, and cast your vote in the public poll to decide the most significant of all.

In fairness, the Science Museum picked ten objects that had a big impact on history. It appears to be New Scientist that labeled these "scientific objects."

Here's a preview.

1. Apollo 10 capsule: engineering, not science
2. Thompson’s Atmospheric Engine: engineering, not science
3. The electric telegraph: engineering, not science
4. Model T Ford: definitely not science
5. Pilot ACE Computer: engineering, but used in science
6. V2 rocket engine: military, not science
7. Penicillin: science as applied to medicine
8. DNA double helix: the only pure science choice
9. X-ray machine: a scientific instrument
10. Stephenson's Rocket: definitely not science

That's quite a list. I really don't like that fact that science and technology are hopelessly confused in the minds of the general public. And I loathe the idea that a so-called "Science Museum" and a so-called "science" magazine can't tell the difference.

The Science Museum in London is a wonderful place but the displays do nothing to teach the difference between real science and its applications.

Here's are some objects that are missing: The Beagle or Darwin's notebooks, Galileo's telescope, the ultracentrifuge, Lucy, the microscope, the electron microscope, William Smith's map, model of an atom, COBE, an early DNA sequencing apparatus, Newton's Principia Mathematica, Lyell's Principles of Geology, a camera, a bottle of oxygen, Pasteur's bell jar, Einstein's 1905 paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" ....

I'm sure there are many more I haven't thought of.

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