Can't ignore the Scots here, but,it has to be the USA,standout scientific and space programmes for instance,only Russia and China can get close. UK well down the line here,way behind France,Japan,India,Iran and North Korea. :)

has to be the uk

led the way in the industrial revolution which shaped the whole world we live in today.

Thomas Newcomen - invented the steam engine 1712 (English)

James Hargreaves - invented the spinning jenny 1764 (English)

James Watt - improves the steam engine (enabling power, trains etc) (Scottish)

Alexander graham bell - patents the telephone 1876 and work with optical telecommunications (Scottish)

John Logie Baird - invented the television (prob the most hours worldwide spent for leisure time)

Previously William Caxton invented the first printing press (1476) bringing reading/books etc to the masses and therefore increasing the spread of ideas and education.

Other notable scientists- Darwin, Davy, Faraday, Fleming, Kelvin, Jenner, Newton, Frank Whittle, and many more.

On top of this some of the worlds largest sports attracting billions of viewers stem from the uk, Football, Golf, Cricket, Baseball, Rugby, Badminton, Snooker, Tennis, Darts, and many more.

I think there is a practise or philosophy within Judaism, where two or more people argue and debate the meaning of something. The idea is to broaden the mind by examining the meaning of something by approaching the subject from many different angles. But I can’t remember its name.

not sure either mac, Mamet discusses something similar though in the first few minutes of this clip, good interview I thought.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTGJHl4xicA
.

America gets my vote ....
completely de-stabilised the Middle East - most aggresive Country on the Planet !
Loves to start wars.

Macadamised roads (the basis for, but not specifically, tarmac): John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836)[3]
    The pedal bicycle: Attributed to both Kirkpatrick Macmillan (1813–1878)[2] and Thomas McCall (1834–1904)
    The pneumatic tyre: Robert William Thomson and John Boyd Dunlop (1822–1873)[10]
    The overhead valve engine: David Dunbar Buick (1854–1929)[11]

Civil engineering innovations

    Tubular steel: Sir William Fairbairn (1789–1874)[12]
    The Falkirk wheel: Initial designs by Nicoll Russell Studios, Architects and engineers Binnie Black and Veatch (Opened 2002)[13]
    The patent slip for docking vessels: Thomas Morton (1781–1832)[14][15]
    The Drummond Light: Thomas Drummond (1797–1840)[16]
    Canal design: Thomas Telford (1757–1834)[17]
    Dock design improvements: John Rennie (1761–1821)[18]
    Crane design improvements: James Bremner (1784–1856)[19]

Aviation innovations

    Aircraft design: Frank Barnwell (1910) Establishing the fundamentals of aircraft design at the University of Glasgow.[20]

Power innovations

    Condensing steam engine improvements: James Watt (1736–1819)[1]
    Thermodynamic cycle: William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872)[21]
    Coal-gas lighting: William Murdoch (1754–1839)[22]
    The Stirling heat engine: Rev. Robert Stirling (1790–1878)[23]
    Carbon brushes for dynamos: George Forbes (1849–1936)[24]
    The Clerk cycle gas engine: Sir Dugald Clerk (1854–1932)[25]
    The wave-powered electricity generator: by South African Engineer Stephen Salter in 1977[26]
    The Pelamis Wave Energy Converter ("red sea snake" wave energy device): Richard Yemm, 1998[27]

Shipbuilding innovations

    Europe's first passenger steamboat: Henry Bell (1767–1830)[28]
    The first iron–hulled steamship: Sir William Fairbairn (1789–1874)[29]
    The first practical screw propeller: Robert Wilson (1803–1882)[citation needed]
    Marine engine innovations: James Howden (1832–1913)[30]
    John Elder & Charles Randolph (Marine Compound expansion engine)[30]

Military innovations

    Lieutenant-General Sir David Henderson two areas:
        Field intelligence. Argued for the establishment of the Intelligence Corps. Wrote Field Intelligence: Its Principles and Practice (1904) and Reconnaissance (1907) on the tactical intelligence of modern warfare during World War I.[31]
    Special forces: Founded by Sir David Stirling, the SAS was created in World War II in the North Africa campaign to go behind enemy lines to destroy and disrupt the enemy. Since then it as been regarded as the most famous and influential special forces that has inspired other countries to form their own special forces too.

Heavy industry innovations

    Coal mining extraction in the sea on an artificial island by Sir George Bruce of Carnock (1575). Regarded as one of the industrial wonders of the late medieval period.[32]
    Making cast steel from wrought iron: David Mushet (1772–1847)[33]
    Wrought iron sash bars for glass houses: John C. Loudon (1783–1865)[34]
    The hot blast oven: James Beaumont Neilson (1792–1865)[35]
    The steam hammer: James Nasmyth (1808–1890)[36]
    Wire rope: Robert Stirling Newall (1812–1889)[37]
    Steam engine improvements: William Mcnaught (1831–1881)[38]
    The Fairlie, a narrow gauge, double-bogie railway engine: Robert Francis Fairlie (1831–1885)[39]
    Cordite - Sir James Dewar, Sir Frederick Abel (1889)[40]

Agricultural innovations

    Threshing machine improvements: James Meikle (c.1690-c.1780) & Andrew Meikle (1719–1811)[41]
    Hollow pipe drainage: Sir Hew Dalrymple, Lord Drummore (1700–1753)[42]
    The Scotch plough: James Anderson of Hermiston (1739–1808)[43]
    Deanstonisation soil-drainage system: James Smith (1789–1850)[44]
    The mechanical reaping machine: Rev. Patrick Bell (1799–1869)[45]
    The Fresno scraper: James Porteous (1848–1922)[46]
    The Tuley tree shelter: Graham Tuley in 1979[47]

Communication innovations

    Print stereotyping: William Ged (1690–1749)[48]
    The British Broadcasting Corporation BBC: John Reith, 1st Baron Reith (1922) its founder, first general manager and Director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation[49]
    Roller printing: Thomas Bell (patented 1783)[50]
    The adhesive postage stamp and the postmark: James Chalmers (1782–1853)[51]
    Universal Standard Time: Sir Sandford Fleming (1827–1915)[52]
    Light signalling between ships: Admiral Philip H. Colomb (1831–1899)[53]
    The telephone: Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922)[4]
    The teleprinter: Frederick G. Creed (1871–1957)[54]
    The first working television, and colour television; John Logie Baird (1888–1946)[5][6]
    Radar:A significant contributor to Radar Robert Watson-Watt (1892–1973)Alongside Englishman Henry Tizard among others[8]
    The underlying principles of Radio - James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)[55]
    The automated teller machine and Personal Identification Number system - James Goodfellow (born 1937)[56]
    The Waverley pen nib innovations thereof: Duncan Cameron (1850) The popular "Waverley" was unique in design with a narrow waist and an upturned tip designed to made the ink flow more smoothly on the paper.[57]

Publishing firsts

    The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–81)[58]
    The first English textbook on surgery(1597)[59]
    The first modern pharmacopaedia, William Cullen (1776). The book became 'Europe's principal text on the classification and treatment of disease'. His ideas survive in the terms nervous energy and neuroses (a word that Cullen coined).[60]
    The first postcards and picture postcards in the UK[61]
    The first eBook from a UK administration (March 2012). Scottish Government publishes 'Your Scotland, Your Referendum'.[62][citation needed]
    The educational foundation of Ophthalmology: Stewart Duke-Elder in his ground breaking work including ‘Textbook of Ophthalmology and fifteen volumes of System of Ophthalmology’[63]

Culture and the Arts

    Scottish National Portrait Gallery, designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson (1889): the world's first purpose-built portrait gallery.[64]

Fictional characters

    Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
    Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie, born in Kirriemuir, Angus
    Long John Silver and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
    John Bull: by John Arbuthnot although seen as a national personification of the United Kingdom in general, and England in particular,[65] the character of John Bull was invented by Arbuthnot in 1712[66]

Scientific innovations

    Logarithms: John Napier (1550–1617)[67]
    Modern Economics founded by Adam Smith (1776) 'The father of modern economics'[68] with the publication of The Wealth of Nations.[69][70]
    Modern Sociology: Adam Ferguson (1767) ‘The Father of Modern Sociology’ with his work An Essay on the History of Civil Society[71]
    Hypnotism: James Braid (1795–1860) the Father of Hypnotherapy[72]
    Tropical medicine: Sir Patrick Manson known as the father of Tropical Medicine[73]
    Modern Geology: James Hutton ‘The Founder of Modern Geology’[74][75][76]
    The theory of Uniformitarianism: James Hutton (1788): a fundamental principle of Geology the features of the geologic time takes millions of years.[77]
    The theory of electromagnetism: James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)[78]
    The discovery of the Composition of Saturn's Rings James Clerk Maxwell (1859): determined the rings of Saturn were composed of numerous small particles, all independently orbiting the planet. At the time it was generally thought the rings were solid. The Maxwell Ringlet and Maxwell Gap were named in his honor.[79]
    The Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution by James Clerk Maxwell (1860): the basis of the kinetic theory of gases, that speeds of molecules in a gas will change at different temperatures. The original theory first hypothesised by Maxwell and confirmed later in conjunction with Ludwig Boltzmann.[80]
    Popularising the decimal point: John Napier (1550–1617)[81]
    The first theory of the Higgs boson by Anglo-Scot[82] Peter Higgs particle-physics theorist at the University of Edinburgh (1964)[83]
    The Gregorian telescope: James Gregory (1638–1675)[84]
    The discovery of Proxima Centauri, the closest known star to the Sun, by Robert Innes (1861–1933)[85]
    One of the earliest measurements of distance to the Alpha Centauri star system, the closest such system outside of the Solar System, by Thomas Henderson (1798–1844)[86]
    The discovery of Centaurus A, a well–known starburst galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus, by James Dunlop (1793–1848)[87]
    The discovery of the Horsehead Nebula in the constellation of Orion, by Williamina Fleming (1857–1911)[88]
    The world's first oil refinery and a process of extracting paraffin from coal laying the foundations for the modern oil industry: James Young (1811–1883)[89]
    The identification of the minerals yttrialite, thorogummite, aguilarite and nivenite: by William Niven (1889)[90]
    The concept of latent heat: Joseph Black (1728–1799)[91]
    Discovering the properties of Carbon dioxide: Joseph Black (1728–1799)
    The concept of Heat capacity: Joseph Black (1728–1799)
    The pyroscope, atmometer and aethrioscope scientific instruments: Sir John Leslie (1766–1832)[92]
    Identifying the nucleus in living cells: Robert Brown (1773–1858)[93]
    Incandescent light bulb: James Bowman Lindsay (1799-1862)[94]
    Colloid chemistry: Thomas Graham (1805–1869)[95]
    The kelvin SI unit of temperature: William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907)[96]
    Devising the diagramatic system of representing chemical bonds: Alexander Crum Brown (1838–1922)[97]
    Criminal fingerprinting: Henry Faulds (1843–1930)[98]
    The noble gases: Sir William Ramsay (1852–1916)[99]
    The cloud chamber recording of atoms: Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869–1959)[100][101]
    The discovery of the Wave of Translation, leading to the modern general theory of solitons by John Scott Russell (1808-1882)[102]
    Statistical graphics: William Playfair founder of the first statistical line charts, bar charts, and pie charts in (1786) and (1801) known as a scientific ‘milestone’ in statistical graphs and data visualization[103][104]
    The Arithmetic mean density of the Earth: Nevil Maskelyne conducted the Schiehallion experiment conducted at the Scottish mountain of Schiehallion, Perthshire 1774[105]
    The first isolation of methylated sugars, trimethyl and tetramethyl glucose: James Irvine[106][107]
    Discovery of the Japp–Klingemann reaction: to synthesize hydrazones from β-keto-acids (or β-keto-esters) and aryl diazonium salts 1887[108]
    Pioneering work on nutrition and poverty: John Boyd Orr (1880–1971)[109]
    Ferrocene synthetic substances: Peter Ludwig Pauson in 1955[110]
    The first cloned mammal (Dolly the Sheep): Was conducted in The Roslin Institute research centre in 1996[111]
    The seismometer innovations thereof: James David Forbes[112]
    Metaflex fabric innovations thereof: University of St. Andrews (2010) application of the first manufacturing fabrics that manipulate light in bending it around a subject. Before this such light manipulating atoms were fixed on flat hard surfaces. The team at St Andrews are the first to develop the concept to fabric.[113]
    Tractor beam innovations thereof: St. Andrews University (2013) the world's first to succeed in creating a functioning Tractor beam that pulls objects on a microscopic level[114][115]
    Macaulayite: Dr. Jeff Wilson of the Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen.[116]
    Dscovery of Catacol whitebeam by Scottish Natural Heritage and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (1990s): a rare tree endemic and unique to the Isle of Arran in south west Scotland. The trees were confirmed as a distinct species by DNA testing.[117]

Sports innovations
Main article: Sport in Scotland

Scots have been instrumental in the invention and early development of several sports:

    Australian rules football Scots were prominent with many innovations in the early evolution of the game, including the establishment of the Essendon Football Club by the McCracken family from Ayrshire[118][119][120][121][122]
    several modern athletics events, i.e. shot put[123] and the hammer throw,[123] derive from Highland Games and earlier 12th century Scotland[123]
    Curling[124]
    Gaelic handball The modern game of handball is first recorded in Scotland in 1427, when King James I an ardent handball player had his men block up a cellar window in his palace courtyard that was interfering with his game.[125]
    Cycling, invention of the pedal-cycle[126]
    Golf (see Golf in Scotland)
    Ice Hockey, invented by the Scots regiments in Atlantic Canada by playing Shinty on frozen lakes.
    Shinty The history of Shinty as a non-standardised sport pre-dates Scotland the Nation. The rules were standardised in the 19th century by Archibald Chisholm[127]
    Rugby sevens: Ned Haig and David Sanderson (1883)[128]
    The Dugout was invented by Aberdeen FC Coach Donald Colmanin the 1920s

Medical innovations

    Pioneering the use of surgical anaesthesia with Chloroform: Sir James Young Simpson (1811–1870)[129]
    The hypodermic syringe: Alexander Wood (1817–1884)[130]
    Transplant rejection: Professor Thomas Gibson (1940s) the first medical doctor to understand the relationship between donor graft tissue and host tissue rejection and tissue transplantation by his work on aviation burns victims during World War II.[131]
    The ultrasound scanner: Ian Donald (1910–1987)[132]
    The MRI body scanner: John Mallard and James Huchinson from (1974–1980)[133]
    Discovery of hypnotism (November 1841): James Braid (1795–1860)[134]
    Identifying the mosquito as the carrier of malaria: Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932)[135]
    Identifying the cause of brucellosis: Sir David Bruce (1855–1931)[136]
    Discovering the vaccine for typhoid fever: Sir William B. Leishman (1865–1926)[137]
    Discovery of Staphylococcus: Sir Alexander Ogston (1880)[138]
    Discovering the Human papillomavirus vaccine Ian Frazer (2006): the second cancer preventing vaccine, and the world's first vaccine designed to prevent a cancer[139]
    Discovering insulin: John J R Macleod (1876–1935) with others[9] The discovery led him to be awarded the 1923 Nobel prize in Medicine.[140]
    Penicillin: Sir Alexander Fleming (1881–1955)[7]
    General anaesthetic - Pioneered by Scotsman James Young Simpson and Englishman John Snow[141]
    The establishment of standardized Ophthalmology University College London: Stewart Duke-Elder a pioneering Ophthalmologist[63]
    The first hospital Radiation therapy unit John Macintyre (1902): to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of injuries and illness at Glasgow Royal Infirmary[142]
    Pioneering of X-ray cinematography by John Macintyre (1896): the first moving real time X-ray image and the first KUB X-ray diagnostic image of a kidney stone in situ[142][143][144]
    The Haldane effect a property of hemoglobin first described by John Scott Haldane (1907)[145]
    Oxygen Therapy John Scott Haldane (1922): with the publication of ‘The Theraputic Administration of Oxygen Therapy’ beginning the modern era of Oxygen therapy[146]
    Ambulight PDT: light-emitting sticking plaster used in photodynamic therapy (PDT) for treating non-melanoma skin cancer. Developed by Ambicare Dundee's Ninewells Hospital and St Andrews University. (2010)[147]
    Discovering an effective tuberculosis treatment: Sir John Crofton in the 1950s[148]
    Primary creator of the artificial kidney (Professor Kenneth Lowe - Later Queen's physician in Scotland)[149]
    Developing the first beta-blocker drugs: Sir James W. Black in 1964[150] The discovery revolutionized the medical management of angina[151] and is considered to be one of the most important contributions to clinical medicine and pharmacology of the 20th century.[152] In 1988 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
    Developing modern asthma therapy based both on bronchodilation (salbutamol) and anti-inflammatory steroids (beclomethasone dipropionate) : Sir David Jack in 1972
    Glasgow coma scale: Graham Teasdale and Bryan J. Jennett (1974)[153]
    Glasgow Outcome Scale Bryan J. Jennett & Sir Michael Bond (1975): is a scale so that patients with brain injuries, such as cerebral traumas[154]
    Glasgow Anxiety Scale J.Mindham and C.A Espie (2003)[155]
    Glasgow Depression Scale Fiona Cuthill (2003): the first accurate self-report scale to measure the levels of depression in people with learning disabilities[156]
    EKG [Electrocardiography]: Alexander Muirhead (1911)[157]
    The first Decompression tables John Scott Haldane (1908): to calculate the safe return of deep-sea divers to surface atmospheric pressure[158]
    Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS): Strathclyde University (2014) A laser and nanoparticle test to detect Meningitis or multiple pathogenic agents at the same time.[159]

Household innovations

    The television: John Logie Baird (1923)
    The refrigerator: William Cullen (1748)[160]
    The first electric bread toaster: Alan MacMasters (1893)
    The flush toilet: Alexander Cumming (1775)[161]
    The vacuum flask: Sir James Dewar (1847–1932)[162]
    The first distiller to triple distill Irish whiskey:[163]John Jameson (Whisky distiller)
    The piano footpedal: John Broadwood (1732–1812)[164]
    The first automated can-filling machine John West (1809–1888)[165]
    The waterproof macintosh: Charles Macintosh (1766–1843)[166]
    The kaleidoscope: Sir David Brewster (1781–1868)[167]
    Keiller's marmalade Janet Keiller (1797) - The first recipe of rind suspended marmalade or Dundee marmalade produced in Dundee.
    The modern lawnmower: Alexander Shanks (1801–1845)[168]
    The Lucifer friction match: Sir Isaac Holden (1807–1897)[169]
    The self filling pen: Robert Thomson (1822–1873)[170]
    Cotton-reel thread: J & J Clark of Paisley[171]
    Lime cordial: Lauchlan Rose in 1867
    Bovril beef extract: John Lawson Johnston in 1874[172]
    The electric clock: Alexander Bain (1840)[173]
    Chemical Telegraph (Automatic Telegraphy) Alexander Bain (1846) In England Bain's telegraph was used on the wires of the Electric Telegraph Company to a limited extent, and in 1850 it was used in America.[174]

Weapons innovations

    The carronade cannon: Robert Melville (1723–1809)[175]
    The Ferguson rifle: Patrick Ferguson in 1770 or 1776[176]
    The Lee bolt system as used in the Lee–Metford and Lee–Enfield series rifles: James Paris Lee[177]
    The Ghillie suit[178]
    The percussion cap: invented by Scottish Presbyterian clergyman Alexander Forsyth[179]

Miscellaneous innovations

    Boys' Brigade[180]
    Bank of England devised by William Paterson
    Bank of France devised by John Law
    The industrialisation and modernisation of Japan by Thomas Blake Glover[181]
    Kirin Brewing Company founded by Thomas Blake Glover[181]
    Colour photography: the first known permanent colour photograph was taken by James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)[182]
    Safetray invented by Alison Grieve
    Buick Motor Company by David Dunbar Buick[183]
    New York Herald newspaper by James Gordon Bennett, Sr.[183]
    Pinkerton National Detective Agency by Allan Pinkerton[183]
    Forbes magazine by B. C. Forbes[183]
    The Calendar[184]
    The establishment of modern Indian educational institutions: Alexander Duff the establishment of mass Hindu education thereof[185]
    The establishment of a standardized botanical institute: Isaac Bayley Balfour major reform, development of botanical science, the concept of garden infrastructure therein improving scientific facilities[186]
    London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine: founded by Sir Patrick Manson in 1899[73]

If the Scots hadn't invented all of the above what would life be like today?

Yeah where would we be without:-

The piano footpedal: John Broadwood (1732–1812)[164]

or

Bovril beef extract: John Lawson Johnston in 1874[172]

Doesn't matter who invented it or designed it, most of the hard graft building it would have been by the Irish. Across the UK and the USA.

Britain - the home of the industrial revolution.

^^^ can`t make sense of any of any of that cob....s.

sorry that did make me laugh.

Tesla was asocial and prone to exclude himself with his work...very wise.

the nature and causes of the wealth of nations .adam smith born kirkcaldy 1723  old scots

The Faroe Islands... if it wasn't for their unstinting devotion to duty the world would be overrun by whales...

... and we would all be speaking whale and listening to whale music... no more Shakespeare or Beethoven



..which I am sure would be far more eloquent than some of the drivel posted on here.

James Clerk Maxwell, born Edinburgh 1831.

   
Albert Einstein said: "The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field."
Einstein also said: "Since Maxwell's time, physical reality has been thought of as represented by continuous fields, and not capable of any mechanical interpretation.  This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton"

Ivan Tolstoy, in his biography of Maxwell, wrote: “Maxwell's importance in the history of scientific thought is comparable to Einstein’s (whom he inspired) and to Newton’s (whose influence he curtailed)”

lfc1971
04 Aug 15 09:17
Joined: 06 Nov 11
| Topic/replies: 5,067 | Blogger: lfc1971's blog
What the US achieved in only 1 or 2 hundred years was almost like a miracle.
The greatest country in the history of the world and may never happen again.


It's a pity the model republic decayed so quickly. Built on slavery, ethnic cleansing and genocide, the USA has, in the last century alone, usurped umpteen democratically elected governments in S America and beyond and supported some of the most brutal and odious fascist regimes on the face of the earth, in order to "protect American interests". In the "greatest country in the history of the world", police can shoot and kill black people with apparent impunity, and mass gun killings are hardly newsworthy any more.

Oh, and if they're so clever, why don't they have a National Health Service?

Is this the sign of a civilised society?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33059012

Alias

I am afraid the Scots were a largely barbaric nation until civilized (up to a point) by the British Empire. These were the views in the works of Dutch, French and German authors.

Nicolaus Gundling thought that the strange appearance and cannibalism of the Scottish people made them akin to the savages of Madagascar.Even as late as the mid 18th Century German authors likened the Scottish to the tribes of the South Seas.

If you want to compare ethnic cleansing look at the fate of the original Scots, the Picts who were conquered by the first invaders on their shores the Irish Celts.

The modern world is such an appalling place I'm not sure any nation would be rushing to claim credit for 'shaping' it.

Oh do shut up.