Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin and the biologists Crick and Watson are the inspiration for the Scientists' Tale collection - part of the Royal Mail's Millennium Collection marking 1,000 years of British achievements.

The discovery of DNA

The inspiration for the 19p stamp, designed by Mark Curtis, is the1953 discovery of the structure of DNA by the Cambridge biologists Francis Crick and James Watson - for which they shared the Nobel Prize.

The 26p First Class stamp, "Darwin's theory", was designed by the wildlife artist Ray Harris Ching. A bird stands next to a limestone fossil of Archaeopteryx, the first known bird, from which it evolved.

The photographer Colin Gray designed the 44p stamp, "Faraday's Electricity," dedicated to the pioneering researcher.

Darwin's theory of natural selection is highlighted

The 64p stamp is a tribute to Isaac Newton and shows a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

An exhibition of the original artwork used in the stamps, along with the other 12 "tales" which make up the Millennium Collection, has opened at the British Library in London this week.