best inventions?

[willymchilybily]

simple.
what in your opinion is the best invention. and why?

me personally. i think BREAD. so versatile. its just plain brilliant. and even when its a little stale and you think. i cant make a tasty sandwidge out of that, some clever person invents:

TOAST.

and how good is toast. and bread. really is there a better invention?

[DarkSider]

Soap :D
But toilet paper comes close :lol: Romans used same sponge several times if i'm not mistaking :D

[Darryl]

Bit of an obvious and unimaginative answer, but either the internet or the wheel.

O the topic of bread, there is no more overrated invention than sliced bread. A lot of people talk about objects being "the best thing since sliced bread"...What? You have a loaf of bread, you have a knife, slice the damn thing! It's really not that great a concept.

[Bobbin]

I prefer bread that's not pre-sliced anyway. Tastes nicer.

I'd go with the internet/Computing in general.

Or maybe penicillin(even though I'm allergic :P So maybe one of it's counterparts.).

[DarkSider]

Penicillin is the greatest invention in medicine :D

[Bobbin]

Penicillin is the greatest invention in medicine :D

Unless you're allergic to it :P

[BlackWolf]

And you wouldnt propably exist without penicilline anyways bobbin so being allergig to it doesnt reduce its value.
Tho i must say matches.

[Bobbin]

And you wouldnt propably exist without penicilline anyways bobbin so being allergig to it doesnt reduce its value.
Tho i must say matches.

Even though the lighter was invented before the match?

[Charlie_B]

Bread was an important staple food for millennia and an excellent way of harnessing the nutritional value of wild grasses in an edible form. Very good shout.
Toast is just re-cooked bread. Sure, it tastes nice, but it doesn't take a genius to come up with it.
Soap kills germs and prevents illness. I would hazard to guess that basic cleanliness does more to prevent sickness than penicillin does to cure it - and prevention is better than cure anyway.
Toilet paper wastes billions of trees in its production and loads of power filtering it through sewage systems. It's an incredibly inelegant invention from an engineering point of view.
Sliced bread, as a couple of people have suggested, is pretty useless.
The wheel enabled massive advancements in trade, construction, warfare and social advancement. Another very good shout.
The Internet has revolutionised the spread of data and enabled massively greater access to information, which in turn has exponentially increased the market for trading in information. Computers have allowed for incredible increases in productivity in almost every field. Both great shouts.
Matches are more reliable than flints, but nothing revolutionary - especially as the invention of the lighter had already happened. The first matches were very poisonous too. Hardly a great invention in my opinion.

I'd suggest that writing was another cracking invention, metal forging shouldn't be overlooked, and the Spinning Jenny et al which kick-started the Industrial Revolution are easily underappreciated. However, my vote would go to Electricity.

Electricity has provided access to clean, efficient and extremely malleable power to billions of people. It underpins the Television, Radio, Computing, the Internet and pretty much every common appliance in the home today. It enabled the digital age to supersede the mechanical, giving birth to almost every important invention of the last century. We're perhaps a bit close to its invention to be truly objective, but I'd rank it #1 ahead of a similarly massive 'invention' (very few of these are really inventions, but anyway...) - fire.

[Darryl]

Isn't electricity more of a "discovery" than an "invention", though? I suppose the same could be said for the wheel, and others.

[Hobbezak]

Isn't electricity more of a "discovery" than an "invention", though? I suppose the same could be said for the wheel, and others.
Tbh, I don't see any wheels running around in the nature, or any animals rollerskating around the place. Imho, the wheel is an invention, not a discovery. :p
Yet good shout on the electricity. :)

[Darryl]

Isn't electricity more of a "discovery" than an "invention", though? I suppose the same could be said for the wheel, and others.
Tbh, I don't see any wheels running around in the nature, or any animals rollerskating around the place.

I see your point, but disagree. It's thought that the earliest form of "wheel" was just using heavy round things (such as logs) to roll around heavy objects. Actual wheels as we know them obviously aren't just hanging around in the world without humans creating them, but the first "wheels" were already there, humans just discovered that logs, boulders, and similar things could be used for this purpose, before we made more efficient purpose-built versions in more recent times.

[Charlie_B]

Isn't electricity more of a "discovery" than an "invention", though? I suppose the same could be said for the wheel, and others.

Which is exactly why I said that most of them aren't really inventions :P
Despite the fact that electrons exist 'naturally', for the purposes of this discussion harnessing electricity for human use is as valid an invention as the Dyson vacuum cleaner, in my opinion.

[Darryl]

Isn't electricity more of a "discovery" than an "invention", though? I suppose the same could be said for the wheel, and others.

Which is exactly why I said that most of them aren't really inventions :P

Oops.

Despite the fact that electrons exist 'naturally', for the purposes of this discussion harnessing electricity for human use is as valid an invention as the Dyson vacuum cleaner, in my opinion.

I suppose so; even though it's really only a discovery of the actual electrons, the actual means of enabling us to benefit from the natural phenomenon was an invention.

Oh, and I suggest the cup!

[MattM]

Agriculture :)

No need to be nomadic herders any more- plant your seeds and may your peoples flourish!

[Bobbin]

Oh, and I suggest the cup!

Ah the cup.

The most important thing you can ever take with you if you go anywhere... Specially when you go camping alot like i do.

You can make almost anything from stuff you find lying around fields/woods... But without a decent cup, you're gonna have a pretty damned hard time..

It's always the first thing to go in my box (I have a box full of all my camping gear.. Cups tents etc rather than a bag) whenever i go camping.

[Charlie_B]

I'd rather have a bowl than a cup. You can drink tea out of a bowl with ease, but it's more difficult to eat cereal out of a cup. I don't go camping, but as a student I have experimented extensively with this when everything else was dirty :P

[Bobbin]

Bowl.. Cup, both the same really.. Devices for holding liquid :P

[Ranzou]

http://students.ou.edu/R/Basil.G.Rayan-1/Picture4.jpg

[Hippie]

Without electricity, there wouldn't be half the stuff you are talking about :P

[atsanjose]

the weel or fire :P

[Bobbin]

Bacon Sarnies.

OR Milk.. Whoever thought to squeese them things underneath the cow is a god.

[charlie_boy]

Internet
The Lightbulb
Wheel, Its not really an Invention though tbh
Rocket/ Space Flight

[Alvestein]

robot

[Chewie]

i see a lot of people think the internet, but really the good things about the internet generally have alternatives, its not much more than a convenience item.

The best inventions have to either the wheel or fire as atsan said. both revolutionary.

[Hobbezak]

Language seems to be largely underestimated. If it weren't for language as a way to efficiently communicate, all the things you people sum up wouldn't be spread around. So for me, language is one of the key inventions in human development.

[atsanjose]

Language seems to be largely underestimated. If it weren't for language as a way to efficiently communicate, all the things you people sum up wouldn't be spread around. So for me, language is one of the key inventions in human development.

you can call language hardly an invention. I mean it took hundreds of thousends if not millions of years to develop :P

better to call it evolution instead of an invention

[Hobbezak]

Language seems to be largely underestimated. If it weren't for language as a way to efficiently communicate, all the things you people sum up wouldn't be spread around. So for me, language is one of the key inventions in human development.

you can call language hardly an invention. I mean it took hundreds of thousends if not millions of years to develop :P

better to call it evolution instead of an invention

a. It started at some point tho.
b. Fire and electricity weren't invented by the humans, therefore shouldn't be inventions either. :p

[willymchilybily]

lol i read wheel or fire as a wheel of fire.....was just about to go thats not a very good one

robot
is this meaning any robot...or the dance the robot

also i think bacon sandwidges falls under bread. bacon was always there. bread was the key element. (well and butter)


so yeah i like butter as far as inventions go...pretty good one.

[Dark_Angel]

Darryl, I looove your sig <3

As for best invention. Hmm. Well for me its probably the games console. Many wasted hours ftw.

[Gooner-fan-deano]

http://students.ou.edu/R/Basil.G.Rayan-1/Picture4.jpg

Lol somehow I think not

[atsanjose]

lol i read wheel or fire as a wheel of fire.....was just about to go thats not a very good one

robot
is this meaning any robot...or the dance the robot

also i think bacon sandwidges falls under bread. bacon was always there. bread was the key element. (well and butter)


so yeah i like butter as far as inventions go...pretty good one.


Probbebly Robotics :)

[Charlie_B]

i see a lot of people think the internet, but really the good things about the internet generally have alternatives, its not much more than a convenience item.

You can cook an egg without fire by driving to a really hot country and cracking it on the pavement.
The existance of alternatives doesn't mean an invention is necessarily useless. The Internet has improved communications and access to information by a phenomonal degree.

[CLem]

Best invention imo is money, without it trading will be a nightmare. Very clever how a single piece of paper can get you different sort of goods and services.

[yoyo]

I am going with"

The Plow

[atsanjose]

i see a lot of people think the internet, but really the good things about the internet generally have alternatives, its not much more than a convenience item.

You can cook an egg without fire by driving to a really hot country and cracking it on the pavement.
The existance of alternatives doesn't mean an invention is necessarily useless. The Internet has improved communications and access to information by a phenomonal degree.

+
without the internet charlie_b wouldnt exist

[Loz]

comdoms ...

what would happend if we dident have thos things

all die of aids and other nasty stuff so..

comdoms FTW

[Chewie]

condom :P you've clearly never used one :)

OJ love you really

[Jimbo2189]

Super noodles, whitout a shodow of a doubt. or prehaps kebabs, cheesy chips and the pint

[Cyrus]

Best invention imo is money, without it trading will be a nightmare. Very clever how a single piece of paper can get you different sort of goods and services.

you mean currency, before actually money people used to use ingenius things like iirc, some war or other they used playing cards for buying things with :D and the like.

not picking faults with what you said just having an information trip ;P

[Cyrus]

there are so many revolutionary inventions and discovery's its hard to put your finger on any one of them some good ones

engine
wheel
energy (being able to use it)
fire
medicine
contraception
space
light bulb
cloning
computer system
tinterweb
flight
boats (water disposition etc.)

thats just a few, you get the idea, the things human life has discovered and invented is just immense

[pinpower]

has gotta be in the internet...as alot of new inventions wouldnt have occured (for alot longer) without it purely because of the communicational advances!

scientists in different countries can share information instantly etc etc

also it allows less economically developed countries to try and gain a share in trade/development etc...(as a country the other side of the world can transfer funds, order good/services etc)...

[Buzzy]

Havent read the thread so I dunno if anyone else said this but greatest invention is Language


Nothing else comes close

[Hobbezak]

has gotta be in the internet...as alot of new inventions wouldnt have occured (for alot longer) without it purely because of the communicational advances!

scientists in different countries can share information instantly etc etc

also it allows less economically developed countries to try and gain a share in trade/development etc...(as a country the other side of the world can transfer funds, order good/services etc)...

Scientists have been communicating since long before the internet was invented... Even during times of political problems, they have communicated with scientists from the other side (for example Nils Bohr (Denmark) had been communicating with Albert Einstein (Germany), even when Bohr fled from Denmark to Norway/Sweden). Now they can do it "instantly", but the fax/telephone(/telegram) did that too, so I really don't see the amazing influence the internet has on scientifical improvements. :/

[Dark_Angel]

http://gizmodo.com/347964/pen+top-utens ... d-its-peak (http://gizmodo.com/347964/pen+top-utensils-shut-down-humanity-its-reached-its-peak)

I like the first commenter's response.

[CLem]

Best invention imo is money, without it trading will be a nightmare. Very clever how a single piece of paper can get you different sort of goods and services.

you mean currency, before actually money people used to use ingenius things like iirc, some war or other they used playing cards for buying things with :D and the like.

not picking faults with what you said just having an information trip ;P

nope not currency, the strict definition of money is a token or other object that functions as a medium of exchange. It can be in any form, but it gives a "standarised" form for us to negotiate and trade.