March 23, 2011
What’s the Most Important Invention?
Way back in 1999, members of a brain trust called The Edge debated a fascinating question: What is the most important invention in the past 2,000 years? Some of the answers (much like the design of the archived discussion site) are dated now. Aspects of computer programming and artificial intelligence that seemed urgent and immortal at the time, such as public key cryptosystems or universal Turing machines, don’t hold up so well. But I find myself returning to this question again and again—it’s a great geeky conversation starter—and thinking about the merits of the various nominees and trying to come up with new ones. There was quite a range: calculus, the printing press, the steam engine, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (yes, some of the discussants were just showing off), reading glasses, the contraceptive pill.
My favorite new nominee for a world-changing invention comes from Hans Rosling, the rock star of TED Talks. He’s a global health expert at the Karolinska Institute who uses data to dispute myths about the developing world. I think he makes a compelling case that the washing machine has been a force for human advancement and will be even more of one, if not not for the next 2,000 years, at least for the foreseeable global future.
I still think it’s hard to beat the birth control pill. But what do you think is the most important invention of the past 2011 years?
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I would nominate the Internet. Not only is it bringing the concepts of free minds and free markets to all the people of the world, it has almost completely removed x-rated theaters and bookstores from our cities and towns.
I’ve got to nominate public works like sewers and sanitation. Think of the lives saved from E coli, cholera, mosquitos and other nasty sicknesses caused by concentrations of people living together. Refridgeration should probably be up there too!
Light bulb – without which graduate students and post-docs would be unable to work 24-7 shifts to produce the data used for the innovations and our creature comforts
i think electricity should be right top
I definitely think the birth control pill is the most definitive invention of the past 2000 years. It has freed one half of the human race from the inevitability of childbearing by necessity. Children must be wanted and cherished.
A close second is the comprehension of the causes of disease, if you can call that an invention: i.e. inoculation against smallpox, diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and we are even getting close to a vaccine against AIDS.