Inventors are what push us forward as a species - some of them slave for years with dogged determination, and some of them chance upon it by sheer accident - and these inventions fundamentally change the way we live our lives. In this list we tip our hats to the inventors who, for whatever reasons, never made a killing from their inventions. We use all of them to this day and our lives are all the more convenient for it.

Mikhail Kalashnikov - AK-47

This soldier was responsible for the AK-47, at least it was named after him - Avtamat Kalashnikova.

Perhaps the most popular assault rifle, the AK-47 was invented by a Soviet Army soldier Mikhail Kalashnikov while he was in the hospital recovering from injuries he sustained in World War II. Since it was invented in 1947 more than 100 million have been manufactured and while the official manufacturer patented the design in the 90s, Kalashnikov never did - he always maintained that he had created it for the benefit of his country.

Sir Christopher Cockerell - The Hovercraft

Although he invested his life in experiments towards the hovercraft, he had to fight to receive his due.

A lot of effort went into Sir Christopher Cockerell's hovercraft. He conducted extensive experiments with a vacuum cleaner and tin cans to test his theories, and as the idea developed he was forced to sell some of his possessions to fund his work. Although Cockerell patented the design he had to fight for years to receive money that was owed to him by the National Research Development Corporation who put the hovercraft into production.