ledmitter_nli
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2012
- Messages
- 1,433
I'm keen to put my answer out there, but not yet. I could be wrong.
But what do you think?
But what do you think?
The Coffee machine.
:huh: Coffee coffee coffee...
The Coffee machine.
:huh: Coffee coffee coffee...
The engineer in me has to ask "how are we defining "great"?"....
In terms of influence on mankind's development, I might offer "the cutting edge", whether it's a knife, knapped flint, axe, etc.
In terms of high tech, I'll offer the transistor, since it has allowed compact, low cost communications to nearly the whole world, in addition to being an enabling technolgy that touches so much of our lives.
I believe we were thinking along the same lines by suggesting the key inventions that lifted mankind above the other species. I would suggest though, that a "cutting edge" is a tool, not a machine, whereas the wheel was the first machine invented by man that could do actual work. Interestingly, cutting tools would have been required to build the first true wheel. (Some consider the lever to be the first machine, but others consider the lever to be a tool.) I'm not sure about the transistor. I mean, yes, of course; it seems obvious from our perspective here in the 21st century. But every era had its "key" high tech invention that advanced mankind. One could argue that the steam engine was the "greatest" because it provided power and helped launched the industrial revolution....and before that, the water wheel. There are many other examples. Each great leap in technology required the previous great leap. In my view, it started with the wheel as the first machine which was preceded by the invention of tools.The engineer in me has to ask "how are we defining "great"?".... In terms of influence on mankind's development, I might offer "the cutting edge", whether it's a knife, knapped flint, axe, etc. In terms of high tech, I'll offer the transistor, since it has allowed compact, low cost communications to nearly the whole world, in addition to being an enabling technolgy that touches so much of our lives.
This certainly meets my five criteria. In fact, what else is so cheap that an average person can own millions, even billions, of other than transistors? I could argue the transistor was the greatest invention of the second half of the 20th century, while the modern bicycle was the greatest invention of the first half (yes, bicycles existed before then, but the modern "safety" bicycle is really what made the bicycle accessible to the masses, and it didn't become inexpensive enough for that to happen until the turn of the 20th century).In terms of high tech, I'll offer the transistor, since it has allowed compact, low cost communications to nearly the whole world, in addition to being an enabling technolgy that touches so much of our lives.