The ten best inventions of the last 100 years?

[Earniel]

Saw this elsewhere, thought it'd be a fun idea. What would you name as best invention of the last century and why?

Some I would definitely put on my list:
1. Vacuumcleaner - speeds up cleaning amazingly
2. hormonal birthcontrol - finally some grip on your own reproductive cycle
3. Laser - you'd be surprised how much laser technology is involved in making anything
4. The Internet - the world at your fingertips
5. Zippers - (at least I think they're not older than a century) more trustworthy for clothes and bags than most buttons
6. dishwasher - I admit, a luxury because I always hated doing the dishes (my sister always landed me with the dirtiest dishes)
7. microchips - the basis of much of our technology
8. genome sequencing - interesting to look into the building blocks of life
9. Hubble - I'm biased, I admit, but Hubble was and is an instrumental tool to understand our universe

What are yours?

[Tessar]

Oooooh!

1. Indoor plumbing, which I mainly mean TOILETS but also indoor running water.
2. Spring mattresses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love my bed.
3. Pain medication. The few times I have hurt myself, it would've been horrific without the pain meds.
4. The internet.
5. Smart phones. I love my smart phone.
6. Airplane travel!! I loved my trips to DC for the opera workshops, and some day I hope to travel to Ireland, New York, etc.
7. Microphones. They're awesome. What would life be without some crazy, huge live concerts?
8. Automatic transmission. I think I would hate having to shift gears.
9. Video games!!!!!!!
10. Dungeons and Dragons, which also spawned other cool roleplaying systems.

[The Gaffer]

I presume you mean the 20th century?

Powered flight - obvious reasons I would think
Penicillin - saved more lives than any other technology (probably)
Clinical research methods - reducing bias in medical knowledge right across the board
Wireless telecomms - reaches the parts other infrastructure cannot reach
Washing machine - ahead of the dishwasher and vaccuum cleaner, as I think it results in greater labour saving

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Tessar

10. Dungeons and Dragons, which also spawned other cool roleplaying systems.

Could be 1,500 years old (Romans had a d20):

http://gizmodo.com/5016562/the-ancie...sold-for-17925

[Tessar]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Could be 1,500 years old (Romans had a d20):

http://gizmodo.com/5016562/the-ancie...sold-for-17925

Shut. Your. Face.


AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

I presume you mean the 20th century?

Yeah, the 21st is a bit short yet. Maybe I should just change the title to say 'last hundred years.'

Penicillin - saved more lives than any other technology (probably)

Likely enough. I often forget how recent (recent on the scale of human technology) antibiotics are.

Originally Posted by Tessar

Indoor plumbing, which I mainly mean TOILETS but also indoor running water.

Oh god yes, I can't believe I forgot this.

[The Gaffer]

Bah! The Romans had all those things.

However, Tessar is right, clean water saves even more lives than penicillin, and the impact on quality of life is massive.

[Lotesse]

But toilets (modern ones, anyway, which still use the same exact design as the first) were designed a little over 200 years ago, in England. Not talking about the Romans; they didn't have individual flushable toilets as are still used today.

By the way, this is SUCH a cool thread.

[littleadanel]

I really honestly don't have a clue what made me peek back here, Entmoot I mean - but for the 3rd try I even remembered my password, so here I am

And yep, this is a cool thread Not sure when they were invented, but I'd add contact lenses... it's not on the same level as penicillin or clean water, but I'm really really glad to have them.

p.s. nice to see you, Lotesse! and the Gaffer too, here as well.

[Lotesse]

This is one of those "top ten" lists which call for a lot of thought when compiling, hmmm, let's see:

1. Motion picture film, especially with sound and color. Movies!

2. Modern Medicine & Surgery, in particular: Figuring out blood-group typing & blood transfusion techniques, the X-Ray/CAT/MRI and Ultrasound machines, disposable syringes, antibiotics & sulfa drugs, organ transplanting/limb re-attachment/the artificial heart, vaccines, chemotherapy...

3. Latex condoms & spermicide, & The Pill while we're at it.

4. Disposable cotton tampons.

5. Plastic.

6. Automobiles!

7. The radio.

8. Satellites. And Space Stations & the space shuttle.

9. that Hubble telescope

10. the Personal, or Home, COMPUTER. The mouse was a great idea, too.

[Rían]

Our Moot males probably won't want to click on the link, but this

Originally Posted by Lotesse

4. Disposable cotton tampons.

reminded me of a hilarious and fascinating site I stumbled across the other day that discussed euphemisms from countries all around the world for, er, things like Lotesse's list item #4 ...

euphemisms for things relating to, er, women's issues

My favorite was "mouse mummies" (sorry guys, I can't spoiler it out because Lotesse can't read spoiler stuff now for some reason). It also included man code for when the men in our lives have to help us get supplies

[Earniel]

*looks left, looks right*

And once again, RÃ*an has cleared a thread!

Fascinating, though. Just the sheer number of euphemisms alone.

[Rían]

I know, I know - I tried to warn the guys to ignore the post, but maybe it was just too much. But like you said - just the sheer volume of terms is amazing!

OK, guys, we can continue on now. Or maybe I should start talking about my delivery stories?

As far as inventions - wireless stuff is pretty cool!

[Nerdanel]

In no particular order:

- space travel
- full genome sequencing
- hormonal and non-hormonal (copper IUD, for example) contraception
- satellites
- antibiotics
- PCR (polymerase chain reaction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pcr)
- WWW
- laser technology
- fridge/freezer for home use
- i don't know if you can call it an invention, but the world-wide, successful effort to eradicate smallpox

I think that's ten...

[GrayMouser]

I remember reading an essay by Paul Krugman on this.

Taking 2005 as a starting date, he said go back 50 years and look at daily life (in the United States).

Almost everyone has indoor plumbing, most people live in towns or cities.
Almost everyone has electricity which means electric lights; most people have washing machines (or access to them), refrigerators, gas, oil or electric heating (a/c was not widespread).

For entertainment there was the radio, record players, television- 1955 was the year half of American households had TVs- and movies if you wanted to go out. Almost everyone had a telephone, if only a party line.

Transportation: cars were widespread, trucks could carry goods almost everywhere; international air travel had started, though was still very expensive.

Anti-biotics had been discovered and become common.

Now, go back 50 years to 1905. Very few people had electricity, half the population was rural, often without running water or indoor plumbing; a horse-drawn cart brought a block of ice to your house.

No phones, radios, TVs, or even movies; most cooking was done on coal- or wood-fired stoves; laundry was still done by hand.

Transportation away from the railheads was still by foot or horse.

The point is that the first 50 years of the century brought far more changes (in the most advanced economies) than the next 50years after that.

Computers are obviously important, but have there been any other inventions that have changed ordinary life that much?

[Tessar]

I would say that the LEVEL of all of the things you've mentioned have increased drastically. That's like comparing a needle to a sewing machine in my opinion.

Forget 50 years ago... 30 years ago the iPad I'm typing on right now was the stuff of science fiction. Party lines vs. smart phones is an entire world apart. Compare our flat screen tv's to the boxes of 50 years ago.


I can agree that the average quality of life probably improved by greater magnitudes between 1905 and 1955, but then to say that technology hasn't improved as much between 1955 and 2005 vs 1905 and 1955 isn't something I think I could agree with.