In the lectures from which the preceding five chapters have been transcribed, I outlined the emergence of technologies from simple beginnings, sometimes through a process of chance and luck, to the situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century, where highly complex equipment and techniques are accessible to all. I went on to ask how such advances can be sustained and what the dangers are to which we must be alert. Each of the lectures was followed by a discussion, part of which was broadcast, and during these discussions, and in subsequent correspondence, several general themes emerged. These were so interesting that they prompted me in this final section to elaborate on some of the points that I made during the lectures in the light of the comments made by listeners.

The first of these topics generated much debate, and although it was originally a fairly minor point it reveals what I believe to be an important gap in public understanding. Earlier in the year the public had voted for the ‘safety bicycle’ as Great Britain's most valuable invention, and I referred to this as an illustration of what I thought to be a general lack of appreciation of the range and sophistication of modern technology. It is not that I underestimate the technical and sociological importance of John Starley's 1885 invention. This was not, of course, the first bicycle but it was the first to be taken up as an everyday means of transportation.