Which invention would of the 20th Century would you say is the most significant invention?

Question

Which invention other than the Internet and Computers would of the 20th Century would you say is the most significant invention that help to revolutionize the world in the 20th Century?

Answer 1

Television. Although it's been labeled a waste of time and bad influence it has also contributed to global influence than any other other invention.

There are probably 100's of thousands of people in the world who can recognize Mr. Bean and share a slapstick humor.

Bay watch can be seen in virtual grass huts with electrical power source specifically for the viewing.

People can see events that otherwise would require verbal description or limited viewing of photos and news reels.

Do you think 911 would have had the same impact if the whole world had not been live witness to the second impact and collapse of the towers?

Answer 2

So many ways to interpret this question. Something that affected the world at large was the creation of an atomic device. So, that could be one. Even though the Cold War was "fought" by the Superpowers, it affected everyone on this planet in some way.
I wouldn't say the telephone cause Bell got his patent on that in the 1800s or the 19th century.

Answer 3

Murphy's Law The Atom or Nuclear Bomb. The transistor. The Printed Circuit Board The Blitzkrieg. The WWW or The Internet. All of the above in view that we're a warlike individuals and we want our grownup toys of Mass Destruction.

Answer 4

Wikipedia lists these as the most influential inventions in the 20th century: antibiotics, oral contraceptives, plastics, transistors, and the Internet.

along with another I think it's the word: "undo"

The forerunner of "undo" technologiy was white out (for those of you too young to remember, white out allowed you make corrections to typewritten pages after the fact and was a big deal in offices prior to the desktop publishing revolution.) It was the first of a group of inventions whose collective purpose is to change things, to alter the past, to allow one to take something back and do it over again. It led to powerful ideas in computers like the backspace key on the keyboard, the Undo feature in desktop applications, transactions that can be rolled back, and backup/restore. Of course, I could go back further in time and focus on earlier devices like the eraser (1770) , or the fact that it's been a woman's prerogative to change her mind for eons, but I think white out marks a point where we took an idea and ran with it wholesale.

It's hard to imagine composing text or writing code without modern editing facilities like backspace, undo, cut and paste. Imagine that everything you wrote had to be just right the first time you put it to paper. Yet that's how it used to be by and large.

Society has strongly embraced the notion of "second chance" in numerous ways. Judges and juries frequently hesitate to penalize offenders, searching for a reason to give someone a second chance. The sky-high divorce rate indicates how the insitution of marriage, once viewed as permanent, can now be easily undone. While credit bureaus carefully track your credit history, they only do so for 7 years back so that you can mend your behavior. Many sales contracts have a cooling off period in which you can change your mind. Like most significant inventions, white out and its progeny have given us plenty of good and bad consequences to reflect on.

P.S. I used undo heavily in composing this article, and can't fathom what it would be like to live without it.

Answer 5

Well, it is related to internet and computers, but isn't the same thing. In my opinion it would be the transistor, without which we wouldnt have a whole host of other things (including computers, internet, modern communications, supply chains, higher yields per acre in food production, anything with an integrated circuit.) Before the transistor was made practical, we used vacuum tubes!

"The transistor is considered by many to be one of the greatest inventions in modern history, ranking in importance with the printing press, car and Electric/Electronic communication. It is the key active component in practically all modern electronics. Its importance in today's society rests on its ability to be mass produced using a highly automated process (fabrication) that achieves vanishingly low per-transistor costs."

Answer 6

There would be quite a few but the one invention that comes to mind is the drinking straw for hygiene.

Answer 7

Telephone. This invention led to more communication and allowed (or at least sped up some way) the development of the web. Ideas were able to be shared faster.

[Soap was around before 1900]

Answer 8

The jet engine
Radio
Alternating current
The assembly line
Take your pick

Answer 9

The Thermos. It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold. How does it know the difference?

Answer 10

Oral contraceptives. Absolutely socially revolutionary.