portent said:
Not quite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity
If that doesn't count as discovery, then I don't know what does. Benjamin Franklin was a pioneer in discovering practical applications along with some of his earlier contemporaries.
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what do you think the top 5 inventions are?
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Not quite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity
If that doesn't count as discovery, then I don't know what does. Benjamin Franklin was a pioneer in discovering practical applications along with some of his earlier contemporaries.
So many things that revolutionized our modern world, but I'd choose:
electricity
autos and air travel
television
telephone
plumbing
Key honoroary mention to two items in the health and medical field: penicillin and contraception.
Computers and the internet likely rank awfully high with the younger generation (I love 'em, too), but the others seem to have more fundamental status to life as most people in the older demographic might acknowledge. Nevertheless, an interesting question.
electricity
autos and air travel
television
telephone
plumbing
Key honoroary mention to two items in the health and medical field: penicillin and contraception.
Computers and the internet likely rank awfully high with the younger generation (I love 'em, too), but the others seem to have more fundamental status to life as most people in the older demographic might acknowledge. Nevertheless, an interesting question.
future invention
dr dean edell, abc news radio (and others), mentions that a weight loss pill without any bad side effects would grant the inventor a nobel
...and it would rank as the best medical discovery...ever...and i tend to agree having seen a lot of misery working in a hospital
the big and nearly unbeatable killers are heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes and all of them are tied in with obesity, overeating, and high cholesterol in one form or another...and they are often preventable diseases which often rely a lot on our frail human willpower and therefore those diseases beat us most of the time
the bacterial and viral diseases get beat one after another because our modern technology allows us to do so, and because we are not fighting our human, and self destructive bad habits in our eating and lack of exercise
basically, obesity is the last major hurdle in modern medicine and a safe and easy way to fight it is not here yet
dr dean edell, abc news radio (and others), mentions that a weight loss pill without any bad side effects would grant the inventor a nobel
...and it would rank as the best medical discovery...ever...and i tend to agree having seen a lot of misery working in a hospital
the big and nearly unbeatable killers are heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes and all of them are tied in with obesity, overeating, and high cholesterol in one form or another...and they are often preventable diseases which often rely a lot on our frail human willpower and therefore those diseases beat us most of the time
the bacterial and viral diseases get beat one after another because our modern technology allows us to do so, and because we are not fighting our human, and self destructive bad habits in our eating and lack of exercise
basically, obesity is the last major hurdle in modern medicine and a safe and easy way to fight it is not here yet
great irony
one thing i think is ironic is that the first major human invention, and perhaps the most important one so far (agriculture), is tied in with our biggest problem today (imho) of obesity
in our first 100,000 years or so, as hunter-gatherers, we never ate enough to cause any obesity related problems, but now that agriculture has given us a plentiful and relatively inexpensive food source, the human race (including up and coming countries like mexico, china, and india) are increasingly going to be fighting the battle of the bulge...and the diseases which come with it
the body count from stuffing our faces is totally unprecedented and will be worse as time goes on...omg, now i am depressed and i feel like a big mac
one thing i think is ironic is that the first major human invention, and perhaps the most important one so far (agriculture), is tied in with our biggest problem today (imho) of obesity
in our first 100,000 years or so, as hunter-gatherers, we never ate enough to cause any obesity related problems, but now that agriculture has given us a plentiful and relatively inexpensive food source, the human race (including up and coming countries like mexico, china, and india) are increasingly going to be fighting the battle of the bulge...and the diseases which come with it
the body count from stuffing our faces is totally unprecedented and will be worse as time goes on...omg, now i am depressed and i feel like a big mac
skunk said:
As long as you're happy being five feet tall, wearing deerskins, and living to be 45 if you're lucky.
(I do agree with the link between the model of agrarian culture and some of our problems today, though, FWIW).
You have to define what you mean by electricity; "static" charges or controlled transmission. Static discharge was known and used for the past 2600 years or so (Greek, Persian), and reintroduced to western science about 150 years before Franklin by Gilbert (English).portent said:
Franklin (American) made some valuable observations and established the principle that electricity was the transfer of a charge from one object to another. But didn't 'discover' it by any stretch.
What about harnessing and using electricity? Given that Alessandro Volta (Italian) built the first battery and described the transmission of electricity between two terminals of differing potential in 1800 and Michael Faraday (English) the first dynamo (generator) around 1831, considerably after Franklin, I would give them the vote.
Nikolai Tesla (Serbian) invented alternating current, and in the USA, Westinghouse Co. owned the patents and Thomas Edison famously waged a bitter battle against the adoption of AC in favor of DC (which his company could make the lion's share of money on). Edison lost.
edit... ah dang it all. BV is much faster than I am...
But I remain fascinated with the myth that Americans and American Industry created the bulk of technological progress in the world.
ELECTRICITY AIN'T AN INVENTION! That's like saying we invented wood. Sure maybe we discovered that it could be useful, and we discovered how to use it, or invented ways to use it, but both wood and electricity were there long before we started building picket fences and pop up toasters.
okay, here's my list:
-BICYCLE! so sweet. much sweeter than cars, though cars are pretty sweet too. I guess you'd have to give props to all the inventions that made way for bicycles, like wheels, bearings, chain drives, gel seats...
-windows... could you imagine either having no natural light in your house or having big ass holes in the walls during the winter?! sh**, that would suck.
-radio transmission, as in, sending any kind of signals through the air, that's a pretty big deal
-the Wah-Wah pedal, wow chicka wow wow
-Montreal bagels... everybody talks about NY bagels or Toronto bagels without realizing that all bagels outside of montreal are essentially the same thing. Sure some are better than others, but they're all pretty much fat bread with a whole. If ever you visit montreal, look for St Viateur Bagel, REAL Bagel, or Fairmount Bagel, and get 'em fresh. There's a smaller one called DAD's Bagels and they're open 24 hours and also have homemade indian food. Anyways, Montreal Bagels! They're a whole other species, and i live off of them.
okay, here's my list:
-BICYCLE! so sweet. much sweeter than cars, though cars are pretty sweet too. I guess you'd have to give props to all the inventions that made way for bicycles, like wheels, bearings, chain drives, gel seats...
-windows... could you imagine either having no natural light in your house or having big ass holes in the walls during the winter?! sh**, that would suck.
-radio transmission, as in, sending any kind of signals through the air, that's a pretty big deal
-the Wah-Wah pedal, wow chicka wow wow
-Montreal bagels... everybody talks about NY bagels or Toronto bagels without realizing that all bagels outside of montreal are essentially the same thing. Sure some are better than others, but they're all pretty much fat bread with a whole. If ever you visit montreal, look for St Viateur Bagel, REAL Bagel, or Fairmount Bagel, and get 'em fresh. There's a smaller one called DAD's Bagels and they're open 24 hours and also have homemade indian food. Anyways, Montreal Bagels! They're a whole other species, and i live off of them.
By your definition, that isn't an invention either. Quasars, Pulsars, and radioactive minerals show prior art.jeffy.dee-lux said:
jeffy.dee-lux said:
muahaha, i bet y'all were thinking i was talking about a different windows...
Jaffa Cake said:Nanotechnology is going to be huge.
Haha! Get it. Nanotechnology is going to be Huge?
Lets see. Top 5 for me would be
Chemotherapy (My little brother has leukimia, this stuff works wonders
)Light (Don't know what I'd do without it, I love light!)
Art (Who doesn't like art? Was art invented?)
Computers (I wouldn't be typing my top 5 inventions list right now if I didn't have one)
Music (Music's pretty cool)
skunk said:
haha, alright, you got me... how bout the invention of the things that can transmit and receive radio signals?
flyfish29 said:
That's an interesting place to put ice cream. Personally, I prefer mine frozen.
My top 5 unmentioned inventions would be:
1. Hockey
2. Cellphone
3. Airplane
4. Condom
5. iPod
jeffy.dee-lux said:
This is conjuring up all kinds of interesting and largely undesired imagery in my mind.
Thank you. I hadn't noticed.mkrishnan said:This is conjuring up all kinds of interesting and largely undesired imagery in my mind.
I think the original poster is confused; big ass holes in the walls refers more to the lack of indoor plumbing than the lack of windowglass....mkrishnan said:This is conjuring up all kinds of interesting and largely undesired imagery in my mind.