Does anyone agree with me that the greatest invention in human history...

[Gramm838]

is a hot water bottle...?

Of course this may be an age-related viewpoint, but I'm sticking to it.

 

[chrispenycate]

It can't be - I don't own one. Still, I don't own a flint hand axe, which might well be. Perhaps I should try knapping one; I haven't done that in fifty years.

I don't know what is the single most significant invention of all time - probably not the printing press that I'd vote for, but the spinning wheel or the infernal combustion engine. However, I am certain it's not the mobile phone.

 

[alchemist]

One of the greatest ratios of usefulness to simplicity must be the toilet plunger.

 

[J Riff]

The paper clip wins easily when it comes to profit margin.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Writing ...
Knowledge can be passed on and accumulated.

Printing presses, then electronic transmission and display just make it quicker and cheaper to distribute to all.

Everyone here should know that.

 

[JunkMonkey]

The greatest invention in Human history - the one that has had the greatest impact on civilisation and done more to prolong human health and happiness has to be the flushing toilet and mains sewerage.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

That's what's wrong in Ireland.
We have 440,000 septic tanks. We need more of this Mains Sewerage, as you can feed fibre up it and thus cheaply distribute Broadband to the home. Instead we have bog bands.

 

[Parson]

If you are talking about the most important innovation it would have to be writing. If you limit the idea to invention, I'd go with the wheel, or more precisely the the wheel on an axle.

(I'd call writing an innovation because homo sapiens were using representative symbols far longer than anything which we would call actual writing.)

 

[willwallace]

My vote is for language. Long before writing, language allowed knowledge to be passed down from generation to generation.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm with Parson on writing. It wasn't invented; it evolved. The same thing with language.

Maybe something as humble and unassuming as ink is the greatest invention. Chiseling words in stone takes too long, and wax tablets don't last. Clay is heavy. Papyrus, parchment, and paper are far more practical, but paint is expensive, so ink is the medium that makes writing accessible to so many. What good would the printing press be without it? I think that my vote goes to ink.

 

[farntfar]

As an example of a concept, the hot water bottle has to be pretty good.

So fire and tools certainly, but the leisure to think after a good sleep was what gave us all the rest. (writing, language, the wheel, bogbands etc.)

 

[Gramm838]

The greatest invention in Human history - the one that has had the greatest impact on civilisation and done more to prolong human health and happiness has to be the flushing toilet and mains sewerage.

I suspect, statistically, there a more people in the world without a flushing toilet, than there are with one...

 

[Moonbat]

Surely cheese is the gratest invention

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

Surely cheese is the gratest invention

Prepare for a thorough drubbing.

If by "greatest", you mean "most significant" and not necessarily "best", then the invention of agriculture has to be up there, closely followed by steam power. These are the things that most changed human society in the least time. Whether we're better off...

But from a personal POV, Ima going with writing.

 

[dask]

Sf, especially Gernsback's stf. Then maybe the electric motor.

 

[Phyrebrat]

incidentally, would you say dance evolved rather than was invented? If writing is a form of communication that evolved I assume dance would be the same, although not all dance started as ritualistic.

And for a double house-point, can you complete this;

The printing press is to writing as _________ is to dance



pH

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I was going to say agriculture, but it occurred to me that it was one of those things that evolved rather than being invented.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Beer. Some say that agriculture was developed in order to support beer making.

 

[mosaix]

The inventor of the electric blanket should have got a Nobel prize.

 

[Boneman]

Marmite - they took a waste product that was created from brewing beer, (which is pretty cool) and recycled it, making into the savoury delight that's been around since 1902. The best source of Vitamin B12 for vegetarians!