The curators' top 10 inventions: which is your No1?

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1. Newcomen Engine 1712

Invented by Thomas Newcomen, it was the first practicable steam engine. It pumped water from deep coal mines, making readily available the energy source that powered the Industrial Revolution.

2. Stephenson's Rocket 1829

The first "modern" steam locomotive. Designed by engineer George Stephenson for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

3. Electric telegraph 1837

Invented by Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke, it pre-dated the Morse system and was used to apprehend a murderer travelling from Slough to Paddington - the first time a message could be sent faster than a person could travel.

4. First X-ray machine 1896

Made by London schoolboy Russell Reynolds and his father within a year of the discovery of X-rays.

5. Model T-Ford 1908
The mass-market car led to a production revolution and affordable consumer goods.

6. Penicillin 1928

Alexander Fleming's discovery ofantibiotics - the biggest single breakthrough in the treatment of infectious disease that has saved millions of lives.

7. V2 rocket engine 1944

Although developed by German scientist Wernher von Braun to cause destruction, the technology led to space travel and the moon landing.

8. Pilot ACE computer 1950

Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine was the first multi-purpose programmed computer - the ancestor of today's PCs.

9. Model of DNA spiral molecule 1953

James Watson and Francis Crick revolutionised understanding of how the body works by unravelling the double helix - the structure of the basic building block of life.

10. The Apollo 10 command module 1969

Used for the rehearsal of the moon landing, which was later that year. This is the farthest humans have travelled into space.