Greatest invention

Fellas I was really wondering which would be the greatest invention of all time
that changed the world as nothing else could do. Tell me about your option
well my choice is the invention of electric generator or dynamo by Micheal Faraday
because without it this modern civilization woudn't exist.

Please tell which is your choice?

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I would think that the written word would be one of those inventions that changed everything. Befor the written word the only way to convey something was just remembering it and talking about it. The written word helped everyone keep the knowledge they learned and pass it on to others so they too could learn what was understood befor them.If you couldn't read just think of where you would be at today! Thank your teachers for teaching you how to read and write.

 

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According to Bronowski the greatest advance to civilization is when the first man plabted a seed. This set the foundations for civilization, and ended our nomadic life.

 

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Possibly the spear. It gave early man the safety and steady supply of food we needed in order to think of anything else. It is hard to think of writing or planting seeds when you are afraid something is going to jump out and eat you.

 

i would say the invention of a scientific methodology of observation and recording data to extract conclusions, sure this requires education and the ablity to write, but without science what would we have?

 

It's the thermos, of course.

It keeps hot things hot, and cold things cold.
How does it know which is which?!?

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The correct answer is the toilet, because with out it we would all be in deep shit.

 

Personally, I think that I am the greatest invention.

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Honestly, though, both "the seed" and "written word" seem to qualify. I'm leaning a bit more towards written word, because even with seeds and farms, we couldn't evolve much without communication of our discoveries. Or at least, not as quickly.

 

The discovery of life in universe.......in the future.

 

Greatest social invention: language itself. Speech, needless to "say," is a vastly more efficient method of passing on information than genetic inheritence.

Greatest academic invention: the printing press, which revolutionised literacy and the dissemination of knowledge.

Greatest military invention: gunpowder, I suppose (also the basis of rocketry).

Greatest mechanical invention: the internal combustion engine, without which virtually all modern transport and commerce would be impossible.

Greatest electronic invention: either transistors or integrated circuits. (Imagine an Internet based on valve-driven technology!)

 

Agriculture, most likely. It allowed us to move beyond being hunters and gatherers. Unfortunately, agriculture has allowed for a giant population which will ultimately be our doom, as we strip the world of it's resources.

 

i dunno, all of your ideas are valid, but i have to go with the dry erase board [and dry erase marker by association]. it is the only medium through which i can adequately convey my ideas.

 

The three greatest acheivements of the human race:
1. Fire
2. The wheel
3. The skirt

 

I'd have to agree, except for the last one. Fire allows us to smoke (in those public places that still allows it, sniffle) and the wheel helped produce my happy little Cabrio (named Cordelia). The skirt, though, eventually resulted in the creation of pantyhose, and this I simply *cannot endorse*. They're not terribly comfortable, you destroy a pair by simply wearing them, and they're ridiculously expensive for spun plastic.

I vote for the printing press. It's progency include this little laptop I'm using right now (its name is Glorificus...did I mention before I'm a total Buffy-junkie?).

Worst inventions? The fax machine and email. This is completely personal though, because those two abominations have only served to make my life a living hell. How I long for the days of practicing law via handwritten briefs, slow research through volumes of reporters, even-slower-than snail mail to communicate.... What should have served to simplify a "profession" has only resulted in billable hours requirements that may very well qualify as human rights violations under international law.

(Note: the above paragraph contains sarcasm, and is not intended to be taken literally by the viewer --- it seems a number of posters are sarcasm-deficient, so I've decided these disclaimers are necessary.)

But I digress. Printing press. Yeah. Printing press. Or maybe Pop Tarts: tasty, and yet fortified with 8 vitamins and minerals.

 

all the greatest ones have been already mentioned still one very important would be a condom,
it started the sexual revolution

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I'm sure technology and society, if not pop culture, would be fairly similar today if there had never been a sexual revolution.

 

IMHO:
I think I have to concur with 'written' language as opposed to spoken. H.Sapiens haven't cornered the market on audible/visual languages.

However, in terms of manufacturing an object or system, where there wasn't something there before - what about a the plane or wedge. The basis of cutting, scraping, poking (spear, arrow e.g.), and force multiplier. This allowed for truely efficient hunting and fine control over the immediate physical environment.

It can be argued that this helped accelerate brain development, codification of language, not being relegated to what you could catch, adding more protein to the diet assisted in actual physical transformation in more muscle mass, and alter brain chemistry.

but that's just me, I could be wrong.

 

Very deep thinking there, rte148. But did humans actually "invent" the plane or wedge? One could say our forebears simply found the shape randomly broken out of flint or slate, perhaps by freeze-fracture. Upon realising its usefulness, they then learned how to make more such implements.

 

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. How anyone would conceive of an idea that sound could travel distances along wires has always been mind blowing to me. Now look what that simple invention has produced - everything is connected by wires. This of course is my own humble opinion.

Cheers
Teri

 

Gotta go with Silverback excepting the mention of clothes.