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Posted

 

Semiconductors and gunpowder are too high. Vaccination and the steam engine are too low - far too low. Vaccination has prevented far more illness and death than penicillin, and the steam engine was the machine to draw on chemical rather than animal or wind power to do work - every engine since has improved efficiency, often drastically, but along the same basic principle of "burn something and get work out of it." Plus, steam engines were the first mechanical device that scaled up efficiently, allowing the Industrial Revolution.

 

And putting the PC above the lever is just stupid. And the telegraph (which first allowed timely long-distance communication) over the telephone (which was the telegraph, with voice added)? Automobiles (which require steel) before steel? Cement at #37? And sanitation was invented in the mid-19th century? (It wasn't; Rome had a quite sophisticated public sanitation system about 2,000 years ago).

 

That's a really stupid list, actually. Written by an idiot with an annoyingly modernist bias.

Posted (edited)

They did anything but #47'd it. As Kelly said, it seemed pretty retarded.

 

The nail? What about when simple plugs were used? I have a tool box tote that doesn't have one nail in it. Who knows how old it is - I would bet well over 80 years - probably more. It's actually began to dry rot. Why not the hammer?

 

What about the Fax machine? Well, of course not - but email. Email? That should be on the list. Same with the postal service.

 

What about the knife? The simple knife. I guess that it was possibly invented before the wheel, I mean they had to cut the wheel somehow, right?

Edited by jboyst62
Posted

A Few I thought of while enjoying multiple adult beverages mostly on inventions within the past 100 years or so

 

Self contained rifle cartridge or rifled barrels

 

GPS (for all the military applications) in addition to directing idiots to "turn left now" directly into a lake.

 

Porn (although there is ancient porn back in the time of the wheel, and the printing press could be used to mass produce)

 

The space shuttle

 

 

Motion camera (dont remember if it made the list) (obviously for porn)

 

X-ray

 

Radar / doppler radar.( military, weather, air travel)

 

 

 

 

Posted

What has killed more humans since the dawn of humans? Many times more than all wars ever fought and those that were killed?

 

The mosquito.

 

What protects people from malaria death, especially while they are sleeping?

 

The window screen.

 

Pretty simple but effective device. Why not put that on the list?

Posted (edited)

The laser - - if research experiments using them to try to create controlled nuclear fusion ever succeed, you can bet the laser will be on this type of list soon after.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-24429621

 

Harnessing fusion - the process that powers the Sun - could provide an unlimited and cheap source of energy.

But to be viable, fusion power plants would have to produce more energy than they consume, which has proven elusive.

Now, a breakthrough by scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) could boost hopes of scaling up fusion.

 

NIF, based at Livermore in California, uses 192 beams from the world's most powerful laser to heat and compress a small pellet of hydrogen fuel to the point where nuclear fusion reactions take place.

 

The BBC understands that during an experiment in late September, the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel - the first time this had been achieved at any fusion facility in the world.

Edited by ICanSleepWhenI'mDead
Posted

A Few I thought of while enjoying multiple adult beverages mostly on inventions within the past 100 years or so

 

Self contained rifle cartridge or rifled barrels

 

Both are a lot more than 100 years old

 

Self contained cartridges were an idea tossed around for like centuries but started to be common before the Civil War

Rifling has been around almost as long as Europeans have been using gunpowder. But again it wasn't put into common use until about the Revolutionary War

 

Agree they are very important inventions in the course of human history

Posted (edited)

domesticating dogs.

 

Long before the wheel

 

But yeah, definitely one of mankind's greatest achievements :)

 

Maybe that's why we invented the wheel. So we could eventually invent the car and our best friend could stick his head out the window :P

Edited by /dev/null
Posted (edited)

The greatest invention isn't even on that list: Scientific Method.

 

I'd put Democracy somewhere on there too.

Edited by MDH
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