The x-ray is a worthy winner. Now a staple in hospitals and medical centres, x-ray machines revolutionised how doctors detected disease and illness and gave us an insight into the human (and animal) body as never before.

Thanks to Wilhelm Conrad Rntgen's discovery in 1895, for the first time we could see bones and other structures inside the living body - instead of relying on symptoms, samples or surgery.

All of the inventions are on display at the Science Museum, along with countless other developments from history in their incredible collection.