According to this source, the following are the greatest inventions in history: the wheel, money, the television, the Model T Ford, the internet, the modern computer, the steam engine, the telephone, the printing press, and the jet airplane. Inventions can be defined in several ways, including "labor-saving devices." For my part, every time I make use of the automatic washing machine, I can't help but think how highly I regard this particular invention. My memories of laundry days, Saturdays, spent toiling at the wringer washer are not fond ones!
FEATURED QUESTION: What do you regard as the greatest invention, the one that you'd miss most if you no longer had that invention at your disposal?
I read a good argument for the sewing machine, that it quietly revolutionized society and home life.
ReplyDeleteThe handgun, revolver, made men truly equal in practice.
Ed,
DeleteEd,
My grandmother really knew how to use a sewing machine! She even drew her own patterns on butcher paper and made men's suits.
Unfortunately, my mother and I never mastered the sewing machine to that extent.
Language.
ReplyDelete...I'd miss the sound/laugh-track running through my skull.
DeleteFJ,
DeleteI've got one of those tracks running, too. It's noisy inside my head!
I'm such an auditory person.
DeleteLanguage -- like music -- is a DISCOVERY not an INVENTION.
DeleteYou could call it a DEVELOPMENT, but it' not properly an invention, because it EVOLVED naturally over many thousands of years.
:P
DeletePlato, "Cratylus"
DeleteAll names, whether primary or secondary, are intended to show the nature of things; and the secondary, as I conceive, derive their significance from the primary. But then, how do the primary names indicate anything? And let me ask another question,—If we had no faculty of speech, how should we communicate with one another? Should we not use signs, like the deaf and dumb? The elevation of our hands would mean lightness—heaviness would be expressed by letting them drop. The running of any animal would be described by a similar movement of our own frames. The body can only express anything by imitation; and the tongue or mouth can imitate as well as the rest of the body. But this imitation of the tongue or voice is not yet a name, because people may imitate sheep or goats without naming them. What, then, is a name? In the first place, a name is not a musical, or, secondly, a pictorial imitation, but an imitation of that kind which expresses the nature of a thing; and is the invention not of a musician, or of a painter, but of a namer.
And now, I think that we may consider the names about which you were asking. The way to analyze them will be by going back to the letters, or primary elements of which they are composed. First, we separate the alphabet into classes of letters, distinguishing the consonants, mutes, vowels, and semivowels; and when we have learnt them singly, we shall learn to know them in their various combinations of two or more letters; just as the painter knows how to use either a single colour, or a combination of colours. And like the painter, we may apply letters to the expression of objects, and form them into syllables; and these again into words, until the picture or figure—that is, language—is completed.
FT,
DeleteNot sure that I agree with you about language. I tend to agree with you about music -- to a point anyway.
Hmmm. Excellent question. If I narrowed the choices to inventions in my lifetime... definitely "velcro".
ReplyDeleteDaBlade,
DeleteWhy did you choose velcro?
Tongue-in-cheek. I can't really think of any one thing I couldn't live without. I do love my Bunn coffee brewer though... and this thermos, and that's all I need! :)
DeleteDaBlade,
DeleteCoffee brewers are essential appliances! I have a carafe-less Cuisnart.
"What do you regard as the greatest invention"
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure but without the concept of circular motion (the wheel) most of the inventions, mentioned above, as we know them wouldn't be possible.
The Toro Powerthrow.
ReplyDeleteThey do spread it pretty deep up there in New England! ;)
DeleteOn a more serious note: the air conditioner.
ReplyDeleteMade areas of America habitable.
Still, somebody needs to turn off that blinking red light atop the old Hancock Bldg....
DeleteSteady blue, clear view
DeleteFlashing blue, clouds due
Steady red, storms ahead
Flashing red, snow instead
The clay oven, guitars, guns
ReplyDeleteThe Wheel
ReplyDeleteMoveable Type
Central Heating
Hot and Cold Running Water.
Refrigeration
All of the above inventions mentioned are great things and some of them foundational to other inventions (the wheel and hot and cold running water, for example).
ReplyDelete"SEMINAL" is the word I was hoping others would use.
DeleteAspirin, without a doubt :-)
ReplyDeleteMusic.
The written word
Is music "invented" or something we're just wired to do.
DeleteI've always wondered.
Music is Not invented, Ducky. It is DISCOVERED.
Delete:P
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSquinkies!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aliexpress.com/item-img/12pcs-DC-SQUINKIES-Superman-The-Flash-Green-Arrow-NightWing-CHILD-FIGURE-SH/1351344495.html
JMJ
Elevators
ReplyDeleteElevators? Why?
DeleteWalk five flight of stairs and you will figure it out. wink
ReplyDeleteDigital camera and electric screwdriver, Indoor plumbing, HVAC, refrigerator, gun, atomic weapons, and sexy lingerie
ReplyDeleteI thought Obama's invented background story was pretty good.
ReplyDeleteYou made my day! Hilarious...and so true!
DeleteYou made my day! Hilarious...and so true!
DeleteMustang,
DeleteOutstanding comment!
I will go for the Atom Bomb which keep the peace between the super powers until the generation that created it was gone for the most part and the memory and fear of the devastation and destruction it could create was forgotten. In the end, that which will destroy all inventions.
ReplyDeletePlow and combine. Without those, we would still be stuck as mostly farmers and a few others.
ReplyDelete-Wildstar
Great answer, Wildstar!
DeleteThank you for joining in on this thread.