Polymer Testing 32 (2013) iii

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Polymer Testing

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Editorial

I am always intrigued by lists of the best this or the top ten that, particularly when they have been compiled by public vote.The interest largely stems from being amazed at the wide diversity of opinion and pondering on how people can have suchstrange or stupid ideas (i.e. they are not the same as your opinion). At the end of the day, the results have no absolute meaningbut simply reflect a snapshot of the views of the particular collection of people who responded to the poll. Nevertheless, theygive a good idea of the range of items within the particular population and the different ways of thinking about/looking at thesubject.

One such poll in progress at the time of writing is concerned with the best British invention of the last 100 years. There aretwo categories, the best past invention and the recent inventionmost likely to shape our future. Obviously, this is restricted interms of time and, in particular, by covering only those inventions that originated in the UK. However, looking at the lists, itwould appear that the British can lay claim to rather more than their fair share of innovation considering the size of thecountry.

In the past category, the subjects range from cats eyes roadmarking (which I have always considered amasterpiece but theidiot powers that be have been reducing) to the double helix structure of DNA. How do you rank such diverse subjects – not Isuspect by any sustainable line of reasoning. This is demonstrated by the top five at the time I looked – The BMC Mini, X-raycrystallography, the Universal Machine, theMallard locomotive and pulsars. I can’t start to understand the thinking that led tothat list but I reckon most voters were idiosyncratic Brits. To me, it is astonishing that the jet engine and theWorldWideWebwere not near the top, whilst the least meritorious were the first automatic coffee pot and the cyclone vacuum cleaner. Ourarea of interest was fairly well represented. In addition to crystallography therewere polyethylene, holography, finite elementanalysis, Netlon, polyester, carbon fibre and the mass spectrograph. Perhaps none of the other great introductions to thetesting world were of British origin. Anyway, out of loyalty, I voted for polyethylene.

The future influence category was much shorter and was a bit more consistent in the quality of subjects. The top five wereionic liquid chemistry, the raspberry pi, organ printing, graphene and the Higgs boson. I am not sure how the raspberry pi gotin there – shake a few schools certainly but not theworld. In addition to graphene, the polymerworldwas also represented bymetamaterials and plastic electronics. Not too surprisingly, there were was nothing from testing, but then one has to admitthat it is highly unlikely that any testing subject could ever cause the world to sit up and notice, nor to have a profoundinfluence on our lives – except of course when lack of testing could be said to be the cause of a major disaster, but the publicwould not know that.

R. BrownE-mail address: roger@eleventowns.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0142-9418(13)00089-5