What is the most important invention of the last 2,000 years.?

Answer 1

The Internet.
Without that, we wouldn't be able to
have this discussion on Yahoo!

Answer 2

Gutenberg's mechanical movable printing press. It was the revelations from this machine that inspired so much information that the common man like you and I have been enriched in more that a thousand ways. Without it advancement in knowledge since the 1450s would have been very slow and cumbersome.
The printing press of Gutenberg out ranks anything I can think of in today's world. It is responsible for revolutions. Revolutions in the sciences, arts, histories, maths,physics,
and a whole host of other innovations that we now hold dear and for granted these days. It's true that more than likely someone else would have eventually invented the machine if Gutenberg hadn't but the fact is that it was Gutenberg and he is responsible for a glut of human knowledge let loose on all of mankind.A torrential flood of information that led to more knowledge that grew into a massive onslaught that overwhelms even the genius of the world this machine is responsible for it.
We are literate in many things by this machine and we have the mechanical movable printing press to thank for that.
Splitting the atom and putting sputnik in orbit doesn't even beat that.

Answer 3

Literacy.

Now if I can just type this without mistakes, I'll be proud.

The world is as wide as the knowledge of it we have, and the world 2000 years ago was as big as a horizon, past that it was rumors and tall tales. When people figured out reading and writing as a whole, the ability to inform anyone of anything that was already discovered put all the world in reach, for they then could find out which direction and what distance things were in.

Literacy allows anyone to learn and know whatever some other culture, race, philosophy, age, or history is or was. It allows technology to be disseminated abroad to all those who won't have to struggle to obtain the results one researcher had to endure. It was about 1200 different filamemts before Edisons lab got it right, now, who else wants to do all that? Not gonna happen. Not when all the work of exploring, researching, trial and error, has occured by others that we can just get the end result of.

The russian shuttle looked alot like the American one, for example. What is learned and passed on made for the rest of the world to be smaller and faster to get to, both literally and figuratively. Humans are able to achieve all that has been accomplished by following the results of those perfected inventions, and not have to waste the time again. Hence the rapid exponential speed of technology's advancing from horse carts to mach 7 in just 100 years. From mostly iliterate to mostly literate in just the same 100 years.

Electricity was invented in the DC way by Edison who found that it was fine for his lab, damn the rest of the world. Tesla found that the distribution was never going to work that way and formed AC. There's a great story there you should read (Wiki Tesla...). So by the way being started by Edison, and the method refined by Tesla, all the electricity we have available is due to the transferance of information by literacy, and the evolution of ideas, inventions, and technology as we know it is the result.

The Amish get along all right, I suppose (well they aren't going to read this anyway) without technology or electricity, but he world as they know it intrudes all the time and stomps on their toes by way of the younger ones falling victim to drugs and alcohol, and the temptation of the modern worlds easier and more entertaining lifestyle. Expect them not to exist in the end of this century in any meaningful way. Just like the "Friends" and the "Quakers", "Shakers", and other technology deprived religions that have disappeared in the last 100 years.

Answer 4

I'm sure you'll get many valid answers here, and I offer an opinion as well. "Technology" in the strict sense is less than 100 years old. In that time since it has outgrown us, as a species in our abilities to control much of it. Exponential might be a word I'd use to describe it.

It may not be the most "Important" but I suspect historically speaking "PLASTIC" will be in the top 3 at least of the most used, valid "inventions/discoveries", EVER.

Steven Wolf
BTW, with regard to the WWW, I happen to be using it obviously, but without "plastic" I'd be struggling with other valid components laying scattered on my desk. I guess that could relate to the "delivery systems" that allow us access through phone land lines, cable, etc.

Answer 5

The wheel.
It's so versatile.
It's the basis to so many things.
If you think about it there are many things that spin which is fundamentally a wheel.
Think of the mechanisms in a traditional clock.

That's my input.

(Grin) Maybe the wheel was invented before 2,000 years ago... I'm not certain now. :-) (feel a little dumb, sorry)

Answer 6

Sanitation - not a nice subject, but imagine where we would all be without it... Thank the romans for starting us off (technically thats BC) but also thank a Brit called Harrington for inventing the "water closet" which meant that the contents of the toilet didn't have to be removed manually.

Answer 7

Birth control

Answer 8

English!

Answer 9

The Greeks are inventive, domestically they have invented Spinach Pie, Feta Greek cheese in oil and spices @$7.ninety 9 for a pint jar. The feta cheese is likewise a Greek invention, as is Baklava. Giro is a Greek nutrition recent in in community eating places. interior the nutrition section they seem very inventive. i for my section discover the Greek nutrition to caloric and heavy, overly candy. whether that does nonetheless bypass away them as inventive

Answer 10

I'm not sure of the time frame - but the wheel is absolutely one of the most important inventions of all time.

Answer 11

important to what? i really dont belive in true "importants"
im a hardcore nihilist, which means nothing is "important",
we will all die, the human race , everyone.

as a race, nothing is gonna save us from extinction, the only thing
we can do extend that time by relitivly small periods, the absolute
best we could POSSABLY do is survive until the next collapsing
of the universe, and then its not even a mathimatical chance we
can escape, so im not willing to call anything "important"