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Favourite And Least Favourite Inventions

The Results.
To mark the 150th anniversary of The Patent Office, we asked you to nominate the best and worst inventions.

From your nominations, a short list was drawn up and then voted on by Today listeners. We received over 5000 votes in all.

Here are the results:

FAVOURITE INVENTIONS:

  • Bicycle - 70% (influenced by voting campaign)
  • Cat's Eyes - 2%
  • Computer - 4.5%
  • Internal Combustion Engine - 4%
  • Internet - 3.5%
  • Light Bulb - 3%
  • Penicillin - 4.5%
  • Radio - 5.5%
  • Telephone - 1.5%
  • Television - 1.5%
LEAST FAVOURITE INVENTIONS:

  • Atomic/Nuclear Weapons - 31.5%
  • Car alarms - 6%
  • Internal Combustion Engine - 11%
  • Landmines - 21.5%
  • Mobile Phones - 7%
  • Plastic Bags - 8%
  • Sinclair C5 - 2%
  • Speed Cameras - 7.5%
  • Television - 3.5%
  • Tetrapack© Cartons - 2%
As good an invention as the bicycle may be, it is clear that there was an orchestrated campaign by some groups to get people to vote for our two-wheeled friend. 'Today' has located a number of websites that linked directly to this page, calling on its readers to 'vote for the bicycle'.

Nonetheless, the list makes for some interesting reading and we thank everyone for their participation.

LINKS
Some inventors' vote suggestions
See the latest invention from Britain's leading inventor - EXCLUSIVE!
The UK Patent Office
The European Patent Office
The US Patent Office

Please Note:
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites


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