Besides the wheel and fire, what would you consider to be the best discovery or invention on earth?

Question

To the person who wrote:
"Fire isn't an invention, we simply learned to 'control' and utilize it."... Please read the question fully and make sure you understand what is written before answering.

Answer 1

Well, I thought about this and first thought it should be written language, or farming. The scientific method also seemed to be of vital importance, but, I think this question is looking for something even more fundamental. With that train of thought I would have to say the most important discovery for the human race would have to be communication. Without written, verbal, pictographs, or some other kind of communication we would never have risen above the rest of the animal kingdom to the place we are today.

Answer 2

Well, by popular poll, the invention most people wouldn't live without is the toothbrush.

In terms of improvements to the length of life, of the 30 years of life expectancy gained in the 1900s, 25 of those are down to improvements in public health measures, such as getting a clean water supply, and solid and liquid waste disposal.

In terms of impact on the way we live our lives, it would be a close call between transportation and communication technologies.

Refrigeration has also had a massive impact, allowing markets to work.

In terms of ancient discoveries, agriculture would have to have had the biggest impact, far greater than the wheel or fire.

Answer 3

Fire isn't an invention, we simply learned to 'control' and utilize it.


Great inventions?
Plastic...
Imagine the room you're in without plastic. Keyboard, mouse, phones, water bottles, television, etc... Are all made of plastic or having parts made of plastic. Many synthetic fibers are plastic. It is the most versatile invention ever. They can be hard as steel, or soft as clay.
Most of the things people listed here won't exist without the invention of plastic.
Face it -- the modern world will be ancient again without it!

Answer 4

Fire isn't an invention, it's a discovery. So I'd have to say the wheel was the greater invention.

Answer 5

Writing, invented by the Sumerians and other ancient civilizations, followed by paper, invented in China in the 2nd century, and then the printing press.

Never ending money and nobody working? What exactly are you planning to buy? We would run out of food and everything else pretty quickly if nobody worked!

Answer 6

The understanding that we CAN discover and invent things to better our current state of existance. Everything flows from understanding, or at the very least- recognition- that what we're faced with can somehow be improved upon.

Answer 7

The toilet. Before the toilet it was polite for a man to walk on the side closer to buildings when walking on the side walk with a lady so if someone were to throw poop out their window (as they did back before the toilet was invented), it would hit the man in his head and not the lady. In large buildings; even palaces, people would just poop in the stairwell and there would be people who went around and cleaned it up. Even when someone figured out how to construct a toilet, it took another 500 years for someone to figure out you have to make it with a bend in the pipe so that water pools in the bend to prevent smell from coming back up. So I am very happy to have my toilet, thank you.

Answer 8

Duct Tape

Answer 9

1)The spear. 2) The printing press. 3) The locomotive. 4) The computer/internet.

Answer 10

I tink that words written on something.And sharing thoughts and ideas on a piece ov paper is the greatest invention.