Scottish inventions and discoveries solely to the subject, as well as scores of websites listing Scottish inventions and discoveries with varying degrees of science. Even before the Industrial Revolution, Scots have been at the forefront of innovation and discovery across a wide range of spheres. Some of the most significant products of Scottish ingenuity include James Watt's steam engine, improving on that of Thomas Newcomen, the bicycle, macadamisation (not to be confused with tarmac or tarmacadam), Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the first practical telephone, John Logie Baird's invention of television, Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin and insulin. The following is a list of
Necessity is the mother of invention our invention." Jowett's translation is noted for injecting flowery, if not florid, language familiar to his Victorian era audience. Jowett himself, in "Plato's Republic: The Greek Text", Vol. III "Notes", 1894, p. 82, gives a literal translation of Plato as "our need will be the real creator," without the proverbial flourish. In an address to the Mathematical Association of England on the importance of education in 1917, Alfred North Whitehead argued that ""the basis of invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity."" and in contrast to the old proverb ""Necessity is the mother