Open seas and vast dry docks were Brunel’s laboratories. For 12 months he tested 20 giant, cast-iron screw propellers – to prove their superiority over traditional paddle steamers. One test involved a tug of war between a steamer and a ship driven by Brunel’s prototype screw propeller. Brunel’s ship won.

Most people would have given up. Not Thomas Edison. To find the right material for light bulb filament he developed thousands of prototypes (including human hair, cedar, horn and bamboo).

The answer? Carbonised cotton thread.

From his makeshift laboratory Charles Goodyear spent nine years developing vulcanised rubber. He tried every conceivable concoction until, quite by chance, he dropped a rubber sample on a hot stove transforming it into a hard, smooth, springy substance now used in almost every walk of life.

Richard Buckminster Fuller methodically taught himself structural engineering after failing college. Later, he undertook an exhaustive study of beehives, fishing nets and other ‘networks’, eventually creating his geodesic dome – replicated around the world ever since.