What is man's greatest technological achievement?

[TheFifthElement]

Virgil thinks it's the lunar landings

my husband thinks it's either the axle or the writing implement

Shirley Valentine thinks it's the wheel

what do you think?

[kevinthediltz]

Gutenburg (spelling?) and the printing press.

[Thespian1975]

The Internet

But then I suppose lots of stuff had to come before that......

[subterranean]

What's that thing that starts the industrial revolution? Steam engine?

[Lokasenna]

Depends on how you define the terms - would 'the written word' be considered 'technological', at least insofar as it is not found in nature..?

In terms of simple magnitude, then the splitting of the atom is probably the greatest technological acchievement, but that's dependent on contemporary culture. The steam engine probably had a similar impact on Victorian mentality.

Hmm... tricky question...

[kilted exile]

Micro-chip

[Virgil]

Virgil thinks it's the lunar landings

my husband thinks it's either the axle or the writing implement

Shirley Valentine thinks it's the wheel

what do you think?

Hehe, I'm honored. :)

[The Comedian]

Greatest technological feat?

Generally speaking: the bridge -- I don't think we fully appreciate the value and complexities of a good, stable, lasting bridge.

Specifically speaking: I'll go with Virgil and cast my lot with the lunar landing

[Chris Marie]

The camera.

[Emmy Castrol]

I think it's the printing press too. I can imagine a modern world without cars, mobile phones, even the internet but I cannot imagine this world without books.

[Virgil]

Generally speaking: the bridge -- I don't think we fully appreciate the value and complexities of a good, stable, lasting bridge.


People really do underestimate how much goes into a bridge. Good thought. And incredibly usefull.

[andave_ya]

Gutenburg (spelling?) and the printing press.

:thumbs_up: - that's what made civilisation possible. Especially considering that if it weren't for the printing press Bibles wouldn't be accessible and we'd still be stuck in the Middle Ages.

[*Classic*Charm*]

Can I say the development of plastic and leave it at that? :D

[JBI]

language
or perhaps the plow

[illuminatus]

Hmmm... I'm gonna go ahead and agree with Thespian1975 and say the internet. Absolutely revolutionary.

[Nightshade]

:thumbs_up: - that's what made civilisation possible. Especially considering that if it weren't for the printing press Bibles wouldn't be accessible and we'd still be stuck in the Middle Ages.

ACtually there were alot ofbibles around before the printing press, and the gutenberg printiing press wasn't excactly the first printing press, it just speeded up the process as before that they had to carve each page out indivdually as a whole- so that it took ages.
It still took the better part of a year to get things done even with the gutenberg press. :D

[jon1jt]

The back scratcher and flyswatter, definitely.

[higley]

The hair scrunchie. It made the '90s possible.

[librarius_qui]

Virgil thinks it's the lunar landings

my husband thinks it's either the axle or the writing implement

Shirley Valentine thinks it's the wheel

what do you think?

Well ... one has to admit that EVERYTHING began with the wheel! ...

After the wheel, the microchip.~

[Joreads]

Electricity (not sure if that counts) but without it we would all be in the dark.

[Zee.]

The axe.

[Virgil]

By greatest I don't mean the most important. Surely technology is a continuum and everything builds on predecessors. My reference to greatness refers to the grandness in the scale of the achievement.

[TheFifthElement]

By greatest I don't mean the most important. Surely technology is a continuum and everything builds on predecessors. My reference to greatness refers to the grandness in the scale of the achievement.

In which case the lunar landing is eclipsed :p by the achievements of Magellan and Drake who first circumnavigated the globe.

Bread is a pretty fascinating achievement to me.

[Virgil]

In which case the lunar landing is eclipsed :p by the achievements of Magellan and Drake who first circumnavigated the globe.

Possibly so. This is opinion after all. :)

[TheFifthElement]

Antibiotics and innoculations are pretty cool too.

[librarius_qui]

Electricity (not sure if that counts) but without it we would all be in the dark.

C'mon! What about fire!

(Not a human invention, though ... We "stole it from the gods", say the Greeks of old :rolleyes: )

Anyway, no, we wouldn't be in the dark. But we woudn't be talking either, because there would be no internet.

So, in a way, I agree with you: electricity and other discoveries of physics allowed us to reach the microchip.

I mentioned the microchip because it's something very visible. Like the wheel. And, before the microchip, EVERYTHING had wheels so as to work out (every kind of machine). After the microchip, only mechanical things still (and will always) need wheels.

(...)


:crash:
L#

[Virgil]

Antibiotics and innoculations are pretty cool too.

Oh yes. I agree. All the people who complain about the modern world frankly are so silly. Science and technology have made life so much better, healthier, and longer.

[TheFifthElement]

Oh yes. I agree. All the people who complain about the modern world frankly are so silly. Science and technology have made life so much better, healthier, and longer.

Well, I wouldn't say it was silly though I'd imagine that certain aspects of life are easier than they once were. It is hard to envisage it though - we can only really know what it is like to live now, with the challenges we have now. And perhaps a key aspect of the human condition is the need to strive against adversity of one kind or another. Yes, medicines make it easier to be healthier now, the availability of food means that, if you live in the wealthy areas of the world anyway, you never need to go hungry. So instead we have obesity and illnesses or health problems caused by excessive eating. We have to go make an effort to exercise because, for most people, everyday life is too sedentary. We have people who spend their whole lives on a diet - existing on control and restraint. We live longer but we have cancer, heart disease, Parkinsons, dementia, illnesses in which the body works against itself, illnesses which would have been less prevalent when people didn't live so long.

We have more leisure time and so we have boredom and apathy. Depression. We have to go to greater and greater lengths to entertain ourselves: more TV, more magazines, more internet sites, more travel, more evenings down the pub drinking to obscure ourselves. Life is longer, but less connected. Or is it? It is hard to know how connected it ever was - maybe because we live longer it is just easier to see that, despite the enormous number of people on the planet, we're alone.

Science and technology have certainly extended human life, and made certain aspects of it easier to overcome. But science and technology don't put the heart into the human experience and that, I think anyway, is the only thing which would make one time period 'better' than another. As it is I think it is probably no better or worse. And it is still as good or as bad as we make it.

[Virgil]

And it is still as good or as bad as we make it.

Well now we have that option. You know it wasn't all that long ago (a few hundred years, a snap in time) that people had to work 18 hours a day seven days a week farming and if the weather didn't turn against you and ruin your crops or if your health didn't hold up for you to work you got to eat the bare necessities. I don't think they had much of a choice in how good or bad to make it. There are still people in this world who don't have that much of a choice.

[TheFifthElement]

Oh I think it's always been a choice Virgil. You can choose to let life grind you down or not. It isn't all about the material.

[SleepyWitch]

C'mon! What about fire!

I'm with libri.
did you know that when humans ate raw food, their bowels were longer and used up a lot more energy? Only when they discovered how to use fire and cook, could that energy be used by the brain instead of the bowels, because cooked food is easier to digest. None of the subsequent inventions would have been possible if we'd stayed that dumb.

[Scheherazade]

I'm with libri.
did you know that when humans ate raw food, their bowels were longer and used up a lot more energy? Only when they discovered how to use fire and cook, could that energy be used by the brain instead of the bowels, because cooked food is easier to digest. None of the subsequent inventions would have been possible if we'd stayed that dumb.But does that count as a technological achievement? Fire was not invented.

As for technological achievement, I think discovering ways of binding things together is very crucial in all the developments... So screw and nails? Bolds and nuts? Glue?

[prendrelemick]

String.

[Zee.]

Fire doesn't count..

[TheFifthElement]

I'd say fire counts, or rather the ability to produce fire on demand.

Cooking, I'd say, is also a technological achievement.

[Virgil]

But does that count as a technological achievement? Fire was not invented.

As for technological achievement, I think discovering ways of binding things together is very crucial in all the developments... So screw and nails? Bolds and nuts? Glue?

The fire doesn't count but the process counts. Processes of doing things is a technological innovation. For instance, the assemly line is a process and it revolutionized industry. How to turn iron into steel is a process. If what Sleepy says is true, the process of cooking food before digestion is possibly a revolutionary process.

Those fastners are very important too Scher. There is an endless list and one realizes how interconnected technology is.

[1n50mn14]

The button.
No, I'm just joshing. I'd have to go really far back to what (either directly or indirectly) started the chain reaction to get us where we are now, and agree with fire, or the ability to make fire when and where necessary.

[Scheherazade]

I'd say fire counts, or rather the ability to produce fire on demand.

Cooking, I'd say, is also a technological achievement. I'd agree with the ability to produce fire on demand would be an achievement.

As for cooking being an achievement... Depends very much on what has been cooked, how and by whom, no? ;)

[SleepyWitch]

The fire doesn't count but the process counts. Processes of doing things is a technological innovation. For instance, the assemly line is a process and it revolutionized industry. How to turn iron into steel is a process. If what Sleepy says is true, the process of cooking food before digestion is possibly a revolutionary process.

Those fastners are very important too Scher. There is an endless list and one realizes how interconnected technology is.

I'm not sure it's true. It was one of my Geography professors who explained this in a lecture, but it sounded a bit like speculation to me, seeing as it's something that happened hundres of thousands of years ago. Most of what he told us sounded like a reconstruction or speculative interpretation of factual evidence.

[TheFifthElement]

As for cooking being an achievement... Depends very much on what has been cooked, how and by whom, no? ;)
:lol: absolutely! Which leads to another great question: can it be called cooking if you just heat it up? Or better still: at what point does it stop being 'cooking' and start being 'destruction'?!!

[Virgil]

I'm not sure it's true. It was one of my Geography professors who explained this in a lecture, but it sounded a bit like speculation to me, seeing as it's something that happened hundres of thousands of years ago. Most of what he told us sounded like a reconstruction or speculative interpretation of factual evidence.

To be honest Sleepy it does sound far fetched to me too. If anything cooking takes nutrients out of the food.

[kilted exile]

at what point does it stop being 'cooking' and start being 'destruction'?!!

Just about when I turn on the oven

[The Comedian]

All this talk about cooking is making me think about this as the greatest technology of all time: Bread.

[Scheherazade]

start being 'destruction'?!!wmd?

:D

[Silas Thorne]

The plough

[higley]

All this talk about cooking is making me think about this as the greatest technology of all time: Bread.

Sliced bread.

[Silas Thorne]

would've thought you'd need a knife first. ;)

[higley]

True! This discussion is illuminating. I er, am not contributing at all really am I.

How about language and writing?

[Zee.]

I don't consider language, technology.

I've been thinking about it and have decided that the answer to this question revolves around our DNA.
Dinosaurs, solving murders, understanding illnesses and genetic traits, tracing our ancestors.. etc

DNA testing and all the genetic what nots - without a doubt.

[prendrelemick]

Without string we are nothing;)

[Lynne Fees]

I am reading Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. One chapter seemed really boring - it was about architecture and how the printing press would take away architecture's status as the most important way a culture expressed itself. He pointed out how writing was way too easy and way too easily destroyed. I thought, "ho hum." :yawnb:
I pretty much forced myself to read the entire chapter, as my late father always advised. "If you start a book, finish it. Someone took the time to write it, and something about it obviously interested you, so see if through."
As I read it, I realized that what Hugo was saying amounts to an eternal truth about progress. Look at us now, talking about "way too easy" and "way too easily destroyed." People are even "twittering" now - little breaths of thought which fly into cyberspace only to be deleted a few seconds later. If only Hugo could see us now.

[MissScarlett]

I would go for the lunar landings as well.