The Greatest Invention Ever!

reply to post by farben


Same as my previous reply, how did we invent thinking without being able to do it first. Thinking and creativity has always been a given for human intelligence, he have just had to go step by step so far.

So how did we invent thinking or an idea before we could do it? It's like saying we created a lighter before we discovered fire.....

Man's ability to harness and control fire.

This was key moment in human evolution separating us from the animals. It allowed humans to cook, have light after the sun sets, keep warm, defend themselves against predators, as an offensive weapon and in time signaling over long distances. I don't know of any invention that addresses so many of the basic needs of modern man.

Sometimes in this "advanced" civilization we take for granted something so simple and vital to human existence as the ability to create and control fire.

The wheel is second, without a doubt.

Im going with electricity. Ace

WAR!!! What is it good for? Alot actually.

Originally posted by abe froman
The stick. Used to fuel the fire, used to hold your food over the fire, used as an axle to the wheel,and a weapon against your enemies. all hail the mighty stick.

And FIRE itself!

Somehow I feel, if the wheel hadn't been invented before the airplane, we could be flying in hovercrafts. We need to harness the energy of crystals and learn more about magnetics.

reply to post by tyranny22


....Sorry to burst your soap bubble here, but as the wise man Solomon said "There is nothing new under the sun". Everything is not so much an invention but should be more properly termed a discovery. The trail has been blazed before us.....we're just not being told about it! Case in point: NASA= Never A Straight Answer!

Humanity as a whole is in this boat together and the sooner we open up and realize this, the better off we will be!

A couple of big ones:

The knife/spear point (originally made of flint), made it possible for early man to hunt and butcher meat, and it's these skills that made it possible for our brains to grow from those of Australopithecus to that of modern man. A high protein diet is thought to have been a key factor in our development into the more intelligent beings we are today, because our brains use so much energy that we probably couldn't have supported such big brains without meat in our diet. Since humans aren't terribly strong and we don't have claws or sharp teeth, we didn't have good natural abilities for taking down prey. We needed a tool, and the knife made us as powerful in the hunt as any creature out there.

Civilization began because of the invention of farming. Before there was farming, which greatly increased the amount of food produced vs. time worked to produce it, you could not have had most of the other inventions nor art that are the basis for a developing civilization. You need time and people devoted specifically to these other tasks to really become a true civilization. If everyone spent all their days hunting for food, you'd have a subsistence level society, and human culture would barely progress. But farming allows for specialization in society, so farm workers produce food, sell it to others like craftsmen, scholars, artists, etc. - people who otherwise don't produce food but do things that better life for everyone in other ways

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel

Written language is my choice, too.

Without written language, the other inventions could be forgotten when the original users die out, or the inventions could remain a "local" technology -- i.e., technology that does not easily spread to the rest of civilization.

The ability to write down knowledge for your descendants to be able to access is an immeasurable benefit to a civilization. Without a written language, much of the knowledge discovered by one generation may need to be "re-discovered" by another generation. It would be like a later civilization needing to start almost from scratch each time.

I realize spoken language could help pass down knowledge to the next generation, but that is much much less efficient than a written language. Verbal language can only pass information between adjacent generations. A written language could pass on information to many ensuing generations.

Many of those other inventions mentioned are important, but without written language, some of those inventions would have been forgotten after a couple of generations, or perhaps not spread to the rest of civilization.

Concrete - saved the worlds forests, gave us our roads, bridges, homes...Gives new meaning to - get stoned.

Ball bearings. Without them transportation technology would still be at the oxcart and sailboat level.

I honestly think the greatest achievment in human history is the ability to communicate. On INSANE levels.... Seriously think about it, I move my mouth a certain way a sound comes out and you can understand me? Effin BLOWs my dang mind...

Originally posted by Havick007
reply to post by IllusionofReality

 

Thats is kind of one of those riddles like ehat came first the chicken or the egg...

I mean, what came first the idea or the idea to create an idea???

The egg came first. Birds (chickens) came from dinosaurs and dinosaurs laid eggs..... But of course you have to first believe the theory of evovlution

the abovetopsecret.com website

Originally posted by Havick007
reply to post by farben

 

Same as my previous reply, how did we invent thinking without being able to do it first. Thinking and creativity has always been a given for human intelligence, he have just had to go step by step so far.

So how did we invent thinking or an idea before we could do it? It's like saying we created a lighter before we discovered fire.....

It is not a so dreadful problem as chicken-egg riddle.
It is possible to invent inventions without thinking - by stealing, plagiarizing, imitating etc., or just "by accident". That is how thinking might be invented (I guess)

taking subject more seriously and restricting choice by modern times inventions I would suggest a haber-bosch reaction www.idsia.ch...

Most important discoveries = Fire & Electricity.

Most influential invention (Which got mans foot off ground.) = The wheel

Most important invention of our era = The computer

Most important discoveries of our era = Quantum Physics, and the Human genome.

These are my opinions. There are obviously more important inventions out there but the top 2 i listed led to mans rise as an intelligent species.

Originally posted by farben
It is not a so dreadful problem as chicken-egg riddle...

Except the "chicken-egg riddle" has a definite answer (at least in evoltion) -- The Egg.

Here's why:

If you believe in evolution to a degree, then it stands to reason that there was once a "proto-chicken" that existed, in a time before the creature we call chickens (lets call them "real" chickens) existed. This proto-chicken was the immediate anscestor to today's real chicken -- but was "not quite" a real chicken.

Then one day, two of these proto-chickens mated, and through evolutionary processes, had an offspring that had some slight mutations that would make it the first real chicken.

Of course, before this first real chicken was born, it would have developed inside of an egg, but its parents who mated to create that egg would not have been "real" chickens, but rather proto-chickens.

So the egg came first.

gona go with internet/phone.

Can't figure out exactly which ones more important but its primarily to do with communication. Communication has brought us more progress then anything else.

It might seem strange to you all, but I honeslty think the finger nail clipper is the best invention. Just a few carefully designed pieces of metal fashioned in such a way that it folds to become almost half it's useable size. Now what really makes this an interesting invention is that it performs one of the simples and most inane tasks in our day to day world, and the device itself is fairly simple in conception, but the principals of physics at play to make it work the way it does is impressive to me (combining the sheering principals of a wire cutter with the leverage principals of a mechanical crimper). It has a level of efficiancy (design wise) that I have found lacking in most other inventions. If ever I design something, I try to keep that condensed and simple efficiancy in mind.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel

Originally posted by tyranny22
reply to post by Romantic_Rebel

 

Good choice. I knew it'd come up eventually.

Written language.

Without it, there would be no history ... and no future.

Can you imagine drawing a large picture instead of writing a few words down?

Well they say a Picture is worth a thousand words! So I would imagine that would be easier? LOL just some humor, but true saying none the less.