Leader: Let’s hear it for the hidden heroes

THEY may not rank with the development of television or the internal combustion engine. But some of the smallest inventions, most costing less than £1, have transformed the way we live. The London Science Museum has singled out 36 everyday items as “hidden heroes” for special celebration. They are part of everyday life for billions of people – and their inventors are barely known.

Step forward and take a bow, the humble paperclip, the teabag, sticking plasters, light bulbs, barcodes, Tupperware and Lego.

How simple and obvious these little inventions seem. Indeed, they are now so commonplace, their discovery is almost treated like a natural development, something anyone could do. But they are the result of brilliant conceptual thinking. And, once the germ of an idea had been developed, it had to be designed, packaged, promoted and distributed to a global market.

Post-It notes now appear in homesfrom Tokyo to Seattle. And the inventions of the electronic information age are taken for granted: mobile phones, iPads, Kindle readers.

What next? A telephone that sits in the corner and rings? Or a sheet of paper with news that you can read, carry with you and just fold away when it suits?