The history of inventions is rarely as simple as popular accounts would suggest. Identifying the major contributors to the inventive process, the science behind the invention, and the reasons why the invention occurred at a particular time and in a particular place, requires a knowledge of the interaction between those responsible, and an analysis of the significance of each step of the process. This can be very different for different cases. This course will study a range of inventions, including the bicycle, steam power, printing and the light bulb, in order to show that the answer to the question "Who invented the..?" is rarely straightforward, often acrimonious, and complicated by biographers and patents.