The Greatest gamble

Description: Christopher Brasher assesses the gambles taken in supporting new inventions and introduces some of the men involved. Includes the trials of the Dr Barnes Wallis swing wing aircraft, and Professor F. C. Williams of Manchester University relives the moment when he saw the way of solving the problems of electronic memory. Other contributors includes Christopher Cockerell who discusses hovercraft, Geoffrey Stockdale on the take-apart ship and Donald Firth on the revolution in cars and machine tools.