What Are The Top Five Inventions?

omin

What are the top five inventions of all time? Put ten or more if you like.

Here is my top five list.

1. The Clock
2. Indo-Arab Counting System
3. Energy storage
4. Universal Education
5. The Atomic Bomb

Evo

The lightbulb

electricity is not an invention, but the ability to harness it

combustion engines

the phonograph

radio

television

the internet

batteries

transistors, I remember when radios and tvs had tubes that needed to warm up first.

arildno

Where's the wheel, damn it??

Evo

Good one.

Evo

toilet paper

check

1. Vaccination
2. The Wheel
3. The Clock
4. Plastics
5. The Transistor

arildno

Even better!

pace

Condom, or p-pills. Can't believe why noone has said Contraceptives yet. It's basicly the thing that's going to keep this world in numbers and thus in balance.

Artman

Method of starting fires
Wheel
Lever
mathematics (including numbers, concept of zero and negative numbers)
Algebra
Calculus
Gas powered Automobile
Airplane
Digital Computer

BobG

1. Written language - Numbers were most likely the first written language. Legends can be passed on orally and a little variation by the storyteller is as likely to add quality to the story as to detract from it. A little variation in recounting business deals gets people mighty unhappy.

2. Printing press - Communication allows one to build on the ideas of others. Example, after Rene Descartes invented the Cartesian coordinate system, both Newton and Leibniz quickly invented Calculus independently of each other.

3. Radio - Same reason as above.

4. Computers & Internet - Same reason as above, except even more so. The rapid spread of information probably prevents anyone being seen as the equivalent of Newton or Einstein, since almost no one develops new ideas alone from start to finish, anymore.

5. Railroads - The first rapid transportation accelerated the industrial age. Transportation was so important that railroads drove the development of the first standardized time zones.

OH, and slide rules, of course. Well, at least Napier's method of logarithms was pretty important, which is the principle that slide rules are based on.

Gokul43201

Math-Science
Engineering
Art & Language
Money & Trade
Law

Ha ha, I cheated !

kcballer21

Public sanitation systems,

Haven't any of you seen 'Donnie Darko'?

jimmy p

1./ Sliced Bread
2./ TV
3./ Xbox
4./ George Foreman's Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine... so good he puts his NAME on it!
5./ Fire

Ivan Seeking

I bought one of those for Tsu and she looked at me like I had given her a set of wrenches; until she used it once. They really are pretty handy, especially for little spraymaster skunks it turns out...oh wait...I mean chickens.

Some may recall that a large group of experts from many fields of study voted that the printing press is the most significant invention of the last 1000 years. This made most other advancements possible.

I will pick five based on the next 100 years.

Gene splicing
Quantum computers
Space elevator
LASER and directed energy weapons
Internet II

Entropy

1. Toliet Paper
2. Pancakes
3. The Spork (spoon and fork as one!)
4. Family Guy
5. Preparation-H

Averagesupernova

Hmmmmmm. Not one of you has mentioned synthetic rubber. Can you imagine our transportation system as well as MANY other things without synthetic rubber?

Crumbles

Whisky and Wine!! How can we forget these!!!