Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder So these two 6-7 year old boys are riding their Razor scooters up and down our street when one of them asks the other: "Hey, what do you think the greatest invention was?" "Umm, candy and TV." "You can only pick one." "Television then>" "I pick the refrigerator." Off they went, scooting away. I was more than a little impressed. Most days, these kids are pretending to be super heroes when not insulting each other. Also, I thought about it, and I was hard pressed to think of something greater than television, especially when put in the context of when it was invented. There are certainly other as great, but greater?
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder So these two 6-7 year old boys are riding their Razor scooters up and down our street when one of them asks the other: "Hey, what do you think the greatest invention was?" "Umm, candy and TV." "You can only pick one." "Television then>" "I pick the refrigerator." Off they went, scooting away. I was more than a little impressed. Most days, these kids are pretending to be super heroes when not insulting each other. Also, I thought about it, and I was hard pressed to think of something greater than television, especially when put in the context of when it was invented. There are certainly others as great, but greater?
Originally Posted By ecdc Cool kids! It's hard to identify the greatest invention. Things have moved exponentially the last 100 years or so that have radically changed the way humans live, at least relative to the previous 10,000-12,000 years since moving from hunter-gatherer to agrarian cultures. TV radically changed how we communicate. The automobile has radically changed how we live. While we've had very little time to truly feel the effects, I tend to think vaccines could qualify as the greatest invention. Today the thought of twenty percent of a population being decimated is unthinkable.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder My wife and I are both home sick today. She just came up with one- the toilet.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Gotta go with the basics here. Greatest invention ever? The wheel. It allowed for villagers to trade and barter with neighboring villagers, hence the beginning of commerce. Without the means to transport basic goods and materials over long distances, we would have stagnated as a species and never broadened our horizons. Definitely the wheel.
Originally Posted By HongKongFoooy but mules and waterbufalos don't need to pull a wheeled load. elephants have hauled trees and other cargos for ages and donkeys could carry loads on their backs. and in snow regions sleighs and skees do ok. I vote for boats as the most important invention
Originally Posted By Dabob2 If farming counts as an invention, then farming. It's what allowed humans to stay in one place, rather than forever following the food, and thus made civilization itself possible. If it has to be a thing, there's the wheel, TV, the telephone, the steam engine, the car, the microscope (allowing us to see previously invisible things, including pathogens), the harnessing of electricity, the atomic bomb (potentially ending life itself on the planet), and of course, candy. Hard to pick.
Originally Posted By gadzuux I'm going with electricity. That caught on fast and we never looked back. Computers would be a close second, but couldn't have happened without electric current happening first. Which is true of just about everything from modern plumbing to light after sundown.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Was electricity merely discovered and/or harnessed rather than invented? That's a question that comes up when you google something like this.
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 <<Gotta go with the basics here. Greatest invention ever? The wheel. It allowed for villagers to trade and barter with neighboring villagers, hence the beginning of commerce. Without the means to transport basic goods and materials over long distances, we would have stagnated as a species and never broadened our horizons. Definitely the wheel>> Looks like someone watched Donald and the Wheel.
Originally Posted By markymouse It isn't the greatest invention ever, but perhaps the most awesome act of invention, or at least one that leaves me dumb founded has to be acorn mash, historically a central food to many native California tribes. But here's the deal. If you eat an acorn, you die. If you grind it up and eat the acorn pulp, you die. If you cook the acorn and eat it, you die. If you grind it up and cook the acorn pulp, you die. But if you grind it up, cook the acorn pulp, poor off the water, and then cook it again in new water, you don't die. Who the heck came up with that? Who thought, "This little killer has wiped out half my family, but let me just try one more idea. What if I pour off the water and add new water? Honey, come over here and try this." Now that is one gung ho inventor. Thomas Edison and Edward Jenner've got nothin' on that inventor.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 "Was electricity merely discovered and/or harnessed rather than invented? That's a question that comes up when you google something like this." I would say it was discovered and harnessed. Both it, and fire, exist in nature, so we can't really "invent" them. Light bulbs are an invention though, although using electricity. It sure is tough to pick "greatest invention ever"...often one leads to another. I would say the internet, but then many things had to come first. Or I could just go with "pizza". ;-)
