Greatest Invention Ever?

[#juan]

Seriously,

I tend to agree with Dexter that one invention is difficult to pin down.. Fire was not so much an invention, as it was a discovery. Early man carried smoldering enbers around with him to "start" the next fire ages before he was able to use flint or whatever to start a fire from scratch as it were. Cooked meat lasted longer before spoiling than raw meat, and helped to stretch the time between hunts. A whole raft of tools, initially made of stone helped man to cut and scrape, and pound, and generally made life easier. Various catapults, bows, were important inventions and made it possible to kill game from a greater distance, and also served as either a defensive, or offensive weapons. One invention that almost never gets mentioned is rope of some kind, whether made of fibres or rawhide was very useful. This list is running longer than the time I have available so I'll ley someone else take it from here.

 

[Tonington]

I was thinking something like language, but I'm not sure we can call that an invention either. On thinking a little longer, I have to vote for electricity production. I don't think it matters that an invention piggy backs from another invention to necessarily make it great or not, only that the new idea is revolutionary and mind blowing to those who could not have concieved it.

 

[#juan]

Tonington

I guess your hero would be Faraday....mine too. Here is an interesting site:

http://tinyurl.com/yd6uoq

 

[Colpy]

I was going to argue that fire was not an invention, but Dexter beat me to it........

IMHO, what has saved more lives than any other invention is sanitation............clean water, waste carried away, soap, and people actually washing, especially their hands.

One could argue, I suppose, that sanitation is not really an invention......but soap certainly is.

As for other ones, the printing press comes to mind..........making knowledge much more accessible to the masses........

Gunpowder and firearms took power from the military aristocracy and their trained men-at-arms, and put it in the hands of the people.

Interesting thread folks.

 

[#juan]

British Paleontologists unearthed a cache of prehistoric weapons in a cave near Ipswitch. One of the weapons was believed to be an early Browning high power:wave:

 

[L Gilbert]

I think "greatest" is a vague term. Fire isn't an invention. If one thinks in numbers of people affected, I would think the pc or the wheel would be the greatest. If one thinks in terms of medicine, I would have to say its a tossup between quinine and insulin. Very vague term. For me, however, I'm in line with Bear; cooked food and in particular smoked food is the best invention.

 

[RomSpaceKnight]

Fire, cooking, and flint/stone/bone hand tools. In the earliest times these are what set us above the other animals on the plains of Africa. The cultivation of crops is darn important too.

 

[ottawabill]

sliced bread.....

if we didn't have sliced bread we would not have a bench mark to compare other inventions....hehehehe

 

[RomSpaceKnight]

Sliced white bread may have to go down as one of the worst inventions in history. Refined white flour is devoid of almost all the nutrients found in whole grains. At one point only the rich and nobility siffered degenerative diseases. The poor could not afford white bread, white sugar and white rice. Now it is reversed. The poor, in NA, live on "refined" sugars and grains.

 

[Niflmir]

I think that written word is probably the most necessary invention that we use and constantly overlook on an hourly basis.

 

[ottawabill]

Sliced white bread may have to go down as one of the worst inventions in history. Refined white flour is devoid of almost all the nutrients found in whole grains. At one point only the rich and nobility siffered degenerative diseases. The poor could not afford white bread, white sugar and white rice. Now it is reversed. The poor, in NA, live on "refined" sugars and grains.

Geez, some people don't need much to start their rant do they??

 

[Kreskin]

How about the flushable toilet. Perhaps not on the 'A' list but things would be pretty crappy without it.

 

[Sassylassie]

Bill I love white bread, but alas it's not PC anymore to eat food that contains zero nutrients hell even the family Doctor freaks if you say you eat white bread. Lie like I do, say you eat whole wheat or that nasty mulit-grain bread (it's more like ground up bird seed nasty-nasty stuff)

I'd say electricity, auto mobile, air craft, insulin, computer chip, chemo and radiation, the internet, there are so many things to pick from.

 

[ottawabill]

I only said sliced bread...not white bread!! hahaha

oh and do you know it's Thomas Crapper that invented the toilet??

Thats where the expression comes from

 

[Kreskin]

I only said sliced bread...not white bread!! hahaha

oh and do you know it's Thomas Crapper that invented the toilet??

Thats where the expression comes from

I didn't know that. The quality of information I pick up around here is uncanny..er..sometimes canny.

 

[ottawabill]

opps I had always thought that was fact about Mr. Crapper...but I looked it up....he may have invented the toilet but thewre is no proof, however he was a plumber, inventor and seems to have atleast invented a valve for the toilet...

Just trying to keep myself honest here

 

[DurkaDurka]

Disposable razors were an amazing invention in my opinion. No straight razor for me thanks.

 

[RomSpaceKnight]

Geez, some people don't need much to start their rant do they??

I wasn't ranting then! I was just commenting on sliced white bread then! Now I am ranting! What's the matter are so insecure that you jump all over people who in any way shape or form disagree or even comment on your posts? Idiot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Colpy]

British Paleontologists unearthed a cache of prehistoric weapons in a cave near Ipswitch. One of the weapons was believed to be an early Browning high power:wave:

Great taste in weapons, those early Britons.


Of course, before the Hi Power, the Welsh long bow was the greatest missile weapon of all. Able to be fired several times a minute, capable of penetrating both sides of a suit of armour at 200 metres (to say nothing of the man in it) the Welsh long bow was a superior weapon to anything invented up until the Minie ball and repeating rifles of the 1860s.

The problem with such weapons was that they could only be effectively wielded by professionals.......it took so much time and practice to become and remain proficient with them. I was interested to read recently that archeologists on old battlegrounds can tell the skeletons of long bow archers from other remains by the over developed arm bones, and even a twist in the spine towards the draw arm..........that is how much practise it took. Only the elite, or professional men-at-arms hired by the elites had the time to spare from scraping out a living to excel at such weapons. The same is true of edged weapons, although to a lesser extent.

So, a Lord with a few men-at-arms were very capable of putting down any rebellion consisting of much larger numbers of men using farm implements as weapons.........

The long bow fell to the firearm simply because you can teach a man to shoot in an afternoon..........not well, but as well as the capabilities of the firearms of the day would permit. Bring him back a year later, and he can still do it.........and when the industrial revolution put such arms within the reach of a large number of common men.........democracy wasn't long in coming

.:read2:

 

[ottawabill]

I wasn't ranting then! I was just commenting on sliced white bread then! Now I am ranting! What's the matter are so insecure that you jump all over people who in any way shape or form disagree or even comment on your posts? Idiot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

boy some nice person too!!!