Innovations have always been the major catalysts behind humankind’s success. Some of these breakthroughs brought about immediate change, while others laid the groundwork for important developments down the road. Printing Press, Electric Light, Transistors, Penicillin, and Steam Engine (to name a few) are probably among pioneering inventions. Could you please tell me your opinion about the most recent innovations which may have big influence in near future?
Dear All,
I think history has been changed mainly by destructive innovations like gunpowder, dynamite, machine gun, atomic bomb. Many civic inventions are consequences of military research e.g. the American and Soviet space programs were initiated by the research of Wernher von Braun in Hitler’s Germany.
The most important peaceful invention was that of Gutenberg which gave opportunity to distribute the human spirit and culture even scientific knowledge and the idea of freedom!
The most recent is one about the Nobel prize in Physics! “The LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.....In the future, lighting will be cheaper and more efficient since LEDs will eliminate dangerous high voltage wiring and will not require conduits or electricians. As a result, lighting also will become more mobile and flexible."
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/08/could-a-nobel-prize-winning-innovation-have-almost-been-overlooked-by-silicon-valley/
http://www.khoslaventures.com/vinod-khosla-lightfair-2013-keynote
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/11-innovations-that-changed-history
As a chemist, I think that one of the best inventions in human history was making general anesthetics which have facilitated surgery. I'll just give one example: leg amputation. One of the old known reasons for this surgery is gangrene. In old times, the doctor used to make the patient drink too much alcohol & then carry out the surgical operation ; later on the patient was given drugs such as morphine to facilitate this surgery. Obviously, these two approaches were harmful, rendering the patient to become a laughing stock, and the pains were not relieved. A warring emperor was accompanied by a professional in swords sport & when some soldiers needed leg amputation, the order was to do it in one fast hit otherwise the leg of the professional will be amputated ! This terrible human agony was gone when general anesthetics started to be used beginning with diethyl ether, choloroform, cyclopropane, halothan, and combinations of the last one with other chemicals.
Many medical doctors prefer injections in curing patients but many persons (especially the children) are scared of the syringe. Research is going on to inject patients with a medicine without the metallic needle that causes pain. Any success in medical research is of prime importance to humanity as a whole.
Thank you dear Dr. Ljubomir and Dr. Nizar. Your answers were indeed good examples of potential to be regarded as pioneering inventions. May I add Internet and mobile hand sets as new rivals, too?
The convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science will reshape markets, societies and lifestyles. Wide-reaching opportunities exist – across domains as diverse as human health, education, communications, energy production and distribution, urban development, material development, human performance improvement, food security and work productivity. Implanting nanotechnology micro-devices, for example, could revolutionize health care by facilitating constant monitoring.
Technological shifts and innovation, National Planning Commission, Department The Presidency of South Africa
Penicillin heralded the dawn of the antibiotic age. Before its introduction there was no effective treatment for infections such as pneumonia, gonorrhea or rheumatic fever. Hospitals were full of people with blood poisoning contracted from a cut or a scratch, and doctors could do little for them but wait and hope.
Antibiotics are compounds produced by bacteria and fungi which are capable of killing, or inhibiting, competing microbial species. This phenomenon has long been known; it may explain why the ancient Egyptians had the practice of applying a poultice of moldy bread to infected wounds. But it was not until 1928 that penicillin, the first true antibiotic, was discovered by Alexander Fleming, Professor of Bacteriology at St. Mary's Hospital in London.
For more information on the subject, you may look at the following link:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html
Dear All,
I think history has been changed mainly by destructive innovations like gunpowder, dynamite, machine gun, atomic bomb. Many civic inventions are consequences of military research e.g. the American and Soviet space programs were initiated by the research of Wernher von Braun in Hitler’s Germany.
The most important peaceful invention was that of Gutenberg which gave opportunity to distribute the human spirit and culture even scientific knowledge and the idea of freedom!
My list of recent innovations, including related to those issues that bother developing countries and environment, is as follows: The Internet; laptop; Convergence of ICT; penicillin; MRI; Nuclear power; nanotechnology; and the LED lamp.
Dear Debi, Thank you. A very nice comment and with a rich list of innovations, indeed. You forget "The Plow"! I would like to mention the advancements made in agriculture and farming. For instance, "The plow" is one of the greatest inventions of all time. Without it we would still be running over hill and dale several hours a day trying to eat, instead of being able to sit around and invent those you mentioned .
What innovations will change the course of human history? Assuming that natural selection would contribute to innovation, could widespread human-based empathy be added in this list?
The invention of the wheel came most probably in the second half of the 4th millennium BC and the wagon on 4 wheels & 2 axles appeared at about 3350 BC. The trouble with the old wheels (whether they were wooden or metallic) was the high possibility of accidents on rough roads & the loud noise which came upon moving the wagon or the chariot "the one pulled by horses". In the late 19th century ,a brilliant Scottish veterinary doctor "John Dunlop", who lived in Belfast, was constantly concerned about the accidents his son had riding his tricycle (with its metallic wheels). Determined to make the tricycle ride more smoothly, Dunlop brought rubber tubes, filled them with compressed air, and fitted them on the wheels of the tricycle. Afterwards, the son found himself "riding on air !". At the start of the 20th century, tires of cars (made from vulcanized natural rubber) were used & then there was the American-German production of synthetic rubbers by 2 different procedures. Now all vehicles (from the bicycle to the airplane) rely upon tires that bear most of the weight on compressed air. As far as the tires are concerned, they move smoothly & there is almost no noise coming from their motion.
Maybe we should include "Language", too. It makes our knowledge combine together in a collective way, thus making mankind stronger than just man.
Indeed great inventions have marked a number of key turning points in human history, transforming society and our daily lives. Invention of Fire, Language, Farming, Wheel, Navigational Compass, Mechanical Clocks, Paper & Printing, Magnifying Lenses, Electric light, Dynamite, Steel, Steam Engine, Transistors, Telephone, Telegraph, Aeroplanes, Semiconductors, Penicillin (an antibiotic medicine), Pasteurization, Vaccination, Quantum Physics, Nuclear energy, DNA, Rockets, Integrated Circuit, Television, Computers, Internet, Smartphone, LEDs have substantially transformed human lives.
Dear @Yogesh thank you for your comment. You list is very good and include the most important innovations of all times. Yet, looking closer at your list It is very difficult to tell if there is one most important invention in human history, because most of the inventions today are connected to each other. In fact, many of today's inventions are the results of inspirations from what people did a long time ago.
innovative adaptation increasing the standard of living
Example - A truck Driver's need
Scania Commercial Vehicles India (SCVI), the wholly-owned subsidiary of global heavyweight Scania, formally inaugurated itsScania-pic-2 truck assembly facility at Narasapura near Bangalore. The facility is Scania’s first-ever industrial establishment in the whole of Asia, reflecting the company’s long-term commitment to the Indian market.
Pressurized Toilet System from Vetus
Vetus Maxwell India has worked closely with DC Design on the fresh water and waste water system for the Scania Metrolink coach for Scania-VetusSVLL and has supplied all the components for the pressurized toilet system on the vehicle. Vetus toilets are preferred over chemical or conventional toilets as they are very convenient to install, consume less water, odorless in function and easy to maintain.
http://www.motorindiaonline.in/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Scania-Vetus.jpg
We should draw a line between invention and innovation here. Not all inventions become innovations, but all innovations include some component of invention.
As we are getting more diverse comments, it reminds me of the parable of the "blind men and an elephant" , which is about a group of blind men who encounter an elephant and touch it to figure out what it is. Each blind man felt a different part of an elephant (trunk, leg, ear, etc.). In this story,the first touches its trunk and says that the elephant is a tree. Another touches its side and says that the elephant is a rough wall. Another feels its tail and says that the elephant is a piece of rope, etc. Each comes into contact with a different part of the elephant and is convinced that their own explanation is correct.
During the last century, many women have invaded the field of innovation and revolutionized the style of life.
Who would have thought in a washing machine or a dishwasher if not a woman?
The changes undergone by the underwear have more to do with practicality than with seduction, but the result does not change.
Among the most extravagant and unexpected inventions conceived by women to a real need in the community are those of the wipers, the guide to prevent the wheels from train and tram to go off the rails, the first public lamp post gas, the wheelchair, the jacket-saving people and even the pizza box.
Those who persist in thinking that women to reason with only the right side of the brain (the one where is the love lives) will be forced to think again.
The history of human societies and technology are closely linked. Although humans have used tools and technologies from the earliest phases of human evolution, our own society uniquely rests on rapid and sustained innovation and technological change that undeniably shaped human life over the ages and has brought us to the technically advanced, modern lives we lead today otherwise we would likely still be living in caves or would have gone the way of the dinosaurs down the extinction route. When one considers the human desire to achieve ‘more’ then we see that the demand for innovation is inherently linked to our insatiable demand for a better life and society. Most of the earlier innovations like fire and wheels occurred without structure, driven by natural discovery and creativity as a matter of survival. Innovations like cannons, mathematics supported the waging of war and creating social structures through architecture and art. The development of many industrial technologies, from steam power to cotton mills, electrical power, vehicles and aircraft transformed the way of production and transportation. In recent years there has been a strong trend toward centralised, expert innovation functions like computing, space travel, internet & search engines, and social media. Further, revolutionary theories like Theory of Universe, Theory of Gravitation, Einstein's Theory of Relativity and networking through World Wide Web completely changed the world.
Dear Marcel,
Human based empathy cannot be an invention but an ancient and basic but not obligatory attitude for survival.
Some may develop the best inventions or the best innovations for the more noble purposes. Unfortunately (and frequently) many others come afterwards that use improperly those outcomes or that try to destroy the original purposes.
I found an interesting link on All-Time Greatest Food Inventions and I am going to share it with you for your comments. The Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, has issued a list of what it considers to be the 20 most significant inventions in the history of food and drink. From the dawn of time to the present:
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/The-20-most-significant-food-inventions-of-all-time
Dear @Francesca. Thank you for the answer and comments. BTW I am not Marwan!
Best Regards,
Mahmoud
I really enjoyed reading the previous answers in this forum. Obviously, all or most of the technological inventions and innovations have been mentioned already. There are also other significant artefacts of human life and history that influence our lives from an early age. We do not even know the exact time and place of origin of some innovations. As professional adults, we tend to bring up serious or more contemporary examples. If we asked this question to children, they might give different answers, e.g. the invention of toys. Who designed the first toy? Or who made the first soap? Who created the first candy? In conclusion, I think we will continue to make new and humane inventions or innovations. And, even if certain innovation were originally made for warfare or resulted from war, we (humans) have been able to turn them around and use them for peaceful and beneficial reasons.
Emre
Dr. Erturk
Dear Dr. Erturk. Thank you for joining the discussion. You Certainly those innovations (toys, soap, etc.) even thermo have important role like the rest.
Bringing people back from the dead
Mobile defibrillators have transformed the survival rates of people suffering an out-of-hospital heart attack. Once the preserve of hospitals these machines have developed so much in recent years that they are now small enough, affordable enough, and simple enough to be deployed in many public places.
http://forrestbrown.co.uk/uncategorized/innovations-that-have-transformed-our-lives-since-the-90s/
Thank you for very interesting answers so far. Here I would like to write a little about Internet innovation at its role. There is an astonishing record on Internet 's (or WWW) achievement. The Internet is unprecedented in its impact on the world community of industries, institutions, and individuals. It has touched most of our lives in terms of how we communicate, how we promote our products, how we teach our children, and how we invest our time. No media adoption curve has been faster than the Internet. Some statistics and comparisons: It took almost:
74 years for 50 million people to use Telephone,
38 years for 50 million people to use radio,
16 years for 50 million people to use Personal Computer,
13 years for 50 million people to use TV
But Internet users reached the 50 million mark in just 4 years!
Dear Roland,
I agree with you! Internet is really something that have change our life's. Together with the printing ability introduced by Gutenberg, we should mention the eBooks and internet. As for nanotechnology, is just a hope in the future.
Dear Roland and Costas
Thank you for your comments and contributions on this thread. Speaking of nanotechnology and its applications is promising. At the same time a fuller picture (and hope) should be reserved for 3T and 3S as they should come into play (maybe in near future) more and more with new advances in Hi-Tech technologies.:
3T for IT, BT and NT.
These are Information Technology (IT) like Internet, Biotechnology IBT) and Nanotechnology (NT), as mentioned by you.
3S: means integration of RS, GIS and GPS technologies.
Thanks to the integrated use of Global Positioning System (GPS), Remote Sensing, (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), more and more research problems in resource management, environmental modeling, etc. can be tackled with increasing ease.
Dear Mahmoud, i agree that plough and wheel are extremely important innovations But your question asks for only about recent innovations; so I focused on the recent ones only.
Dear @Debi Thank you for your comments. The question "What innovations have changed the course of human history? " was (is) general without mentioning "recent" in mind. You are right, But some friends pointed out Nanotechnology so I tried to summarize these new developments as 3N and 3S.
Weapons have changed the history. Examples are many in all world.
innovation prpos up every where, but how it is levered upon is the challenge. Different models or theories that help people think about the various dimensions of a requirement in stimulating innovation towards growth.
A practical example on INTEL.
Clayton M. Christensen (2010), How Will You Measure Your Life, The MAGAZINE
Dear @Francesca. You had a good point. Generally speaking, inventors don't have malicious intention when they invent something. For instance, Albert Einstein did not directly participate in the invention of the atomic bomb. But he was instrumental in facilitating its development.
Focus on innovations that create and expand economic opportunities for poor people at the bottom of the social and economic pyramids, who have no access to clean water, reliable energy; and good health and nutrition. Innovation is thus, a crucial driver of rising prosperity and improved national competitiveness
http://www.asianscientist.com/2014/02/topnews/india-grassroots-innovations-scientists-2014/
There is another aspect that we should mention. In the 20th century, we have seen, tons of new knowledge, that only a small amount a ordinary human can understand. For example in mathematics there might be some millions of new theorems every year!
This mass of knowledge is mostly incomprehensible. We hope that Informatics together with bio-neuro sciences will invent a way of unifying this knowledge, in a conceptual understandable way, such that we provide to us new "molecules" of thinking!
Dear Costas You are absolutely right. We should thank the inventor of "computer" who made all these possible.
‘Poop pill’ promises to fight gut infection
Inside the experimental capsule are human faeces — strained, centrifuged and frozen. Taking them for just two days can cure a dangerous bacterial infection that has defied antibiotics and kills 14,000 Americans each year
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/poop-pill-promises-to-fight-gut-infection/article6494799.ece
Mahmoud I guess communication is a big driver. See how internet has revolutionalized the entire concept of knowledge dissimination and sharing information, network, communication has become damn cheap. I guess this is the most revolutionary things of recent times "connectivity" via internet.
Dear Saif. Very true, indeed. Telecommunications industry continues to grow steadily on a global scale. IT based chiefly on advances in micro-electronics and computer science is of particular importance. Coupled with rapidly advancing means of communication, it can help improve the productivity, energy and resource efficiency, and organizational structure of industry.
There is saying "necessity is the mother of invention."To summarize the answers so far, here I list 50 of the most technological advances since the Wheel:
1. The printing press, 1430s
2. Electricity, late 19th century
3. Penicillin, 1928
4. Semiconductor electronics, mid-20th century
5. Optical lenses, 13th century
6. Paper, second century
7. The internal combustion engine, late 19th century
8. Vaccination, 1796
9. The Internet, 1960s
10. The steam engine, 1712
11. Nitrogen fixation, 1918
12. Sanitation systems, mid-19th century
13. Refrigeration, 1850s
14. Gunpowder, 10th century
15. The airplane, 1903
16. The personal computer, 1970s
17. The compass, 12th century
18. The automobile, late 19th century
19. Industrial steelmaking, 1850s
20. The pill, 1960
21. Nuclear fission, 1939
22. The green revolution, mid-20th century
23. The sextant, 1757
24. The telephone, 1876
25. Alphabetization, first millennium b.c.
26. The telegraph, 1837
27. The mechanized clock, 15th century
28. Radio, 1906
29. Photography, early 19th century
30. The moldboard plow, 18th century
31. Archimedes’ screw, third century b.c.
32. The cotton gin, 1793
33. Pasteurization, 1863
34. The Gregorian calendar, 1582
35. Oil refining, mid-19th century
36. The steam turbine, 1884
37. Cement, first millennium b.c.
38. Scientific plant breeding, 1920s
39. Oil drilling, 1859
40. The sailboat, fourth millennium b.c.
41. Rocketry, 1926
42. Paper money, 11th century
43. The abacus, third millennium b.c.
44. Air-conditioning, 1902
45. Television, early 20th century
46. Anesthesia, 1846
47. The nail, second millennium b.c.
48. The lever, third millennium b.c.
49. The assembly line, 1913
50. The combine harvester, 1930s
For more detail Please see the following link, where you can even select your own top 5 innovations, and see how the readers' choices stack up against the experts'
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/innovations-list/309536/
Dear @Mahmoud, the following lists also deserve to be mentioned under your thread: The 20 Most Significant Inventions in the History of Food and Drink and 50 Social Innovations That Changed the World!
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/the-20-most-significant-inventions-in-the-history-of-food-and-drink/262410/
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/50-social-innovations-that-changed-the-world/282274/
Human centered design (HCD)
HCD requires gaining a deep understanding of the end-user by learning about their needs, hopes, and challenges. It is a continual process of learning from the end-user, ideating solutions, prototyping rapidly, reflecting back to the user for feedback, and then repeating until a good solution is found.
http://esarot4d.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/human-centered-design-for-social-innovation-class-1/
thanks Mahmoud for this interesting list. But I will still consider internet espically the mobile internet. It has bridges the distances and really it is a small well connected world. The downside is we have started living in a virtual world now.
Dear Saif, According to experts opinion in the Atlantic (below link) the vote for the top 5 breakthroughs since the Wheel invention, are:
Atlantic Experts' Picks:
And my selection was:
Whereas All Readers' Picked:
Even though we both think the Internet should be in the top 5 but experts think not. This is because Internet is a new comer and needs some time to go higher in the list. However, Internet is among the 50 choices of Atlantic's experts. See my previous answer on this thread.
P.S.: General public (All Readers' ) list seems rather odd!
http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/breakthroughs/top-five/
about electronic We can say: transistor because large change electronic field happen
Dear Hossein, Thank you for your comment. You are absolutely right about transistor and more generally semiconductor electronics. This transistor invention revolutionized the electronics industry for ever and gave birth to 3 big eras of the 20th century: the space age, the computer age and the IT age.
Moore’s law about the rate of technological progress in transistors
In 1965, Gordon Moore, the co-founder and chairman of Intel, made an observation that the number of transistors on a memory chip doubled every 18 months. This observation came to be known as Moore’s law. The observation he made is used to gauge the rate of technological progress. The following figure shows Moore’s law for Intel processors since 1971. The graph shows that the Moore’s law has held true over the past 40 years!
This ‘law’ will not hold true forever since the tiniest transistor can theoretically be no smaller than an atom. This is because the current technology behind transistors requires the presence of electrons and the nucleus to drive a current (“Future of Transistors”). However, a one-atom transistor is not a far-fetched idea. Research is currently being conducted at IBM using a cascading molecule theory (“Cascading Molecules”). Although still in its research phases it gives an insight to the level at which researchers are working and what maybe expected in the future.
Dear Francesca. Thank you for the feedback. You are right, "Robots" can have more roles and change the situations more in near future. They are being used in industry such as assembly lines massively. Yet we should not be worried about losing job. After all humans are needed to invent them in the first place.
Human-Centered Design Toolkit
For years, businesses have used human-centered design to develop innovative solutions. Why not apply the same approach to overcome challenges in the nonprofit world?
This project, funded by International Development Enterprise (IDE) as part of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, sought to provide NGOs and social enterprises with the tools to do just that. IDEO, in collaboration with nonprofit groups ICRW and Heifer International, developed the HCD Toolkit to help international staff and volunteers understand a community’s needs in new ways, find innovative solutions to meet those needs, and deliver solutions with financial sustainability in mind.
http://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/
Dear Krishnan I could not follow your answer. How HCD changed the course of human history?
An Example of Commercial Human Centered Design.
e-cycle - The product is targeted at the young working-class who love to reach their office from their nearby home in an eco-friendly way. The e-cycles are powered with 6 speed gears and maximum riding speed of 25 km/hour. It comes with alloy wheels and the maximum battery charge time is about 5-6 hours.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-business/hero-electric-launches-ecycles/article6546349.ece
Very useful vehicle dear @Krishnan. I think that discussion have left the right direction, as the question was about the innovations that have changed the course of human history! That is why @Mahmoud asked :" How HCD changed the course of human history"?
Thank you dear @Krishnan for your answers and dear @Ljubomir for putting the discussion back on track. Did you know dreams have been responsible for some major creative and scientific discoveries in the course of human history? Yes they were! I found a site which explains how they did, and presents 10 dreams of some of the world's most prominent scientists, writers, musicians, mathematicians and inventors whose moments of dream insight went down on record. that changed human history.
For example it tells a story about Niels Bohr who discovered "The Structure of The Atom". One night he went to sleep and began dreaming about atoms. He saw the nucleus of the atom, with electrons spinning around it, much as planets spin around their sun. Immediately on awakening, Bohr felt the vision was accurate. But as a scientist he knew the importance of validating his idea before announcing it to the world. He returned to his lab and searched for evidence to support his theory. It held true - and Bohr's vision of atomic structure turned out to be one of the greatest breakthroughs of his day. Bohr was later awarded a Nobel Prize for Physics as a result of this leap in creative thinking while asleep.
To learn about the story of the other 9 dreams (Albert Einstein, The Speed of Light; Frederick Banting: Advances in Medicine; ...) follow the link. I found them very interesting.
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/10-dreams-that-changed-the-course-of-human-history.html
This inventions have not changed the course of human history, but who knows.
IEEE Computer Society Predicts Top 9 Technology Trends for 2016!
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ieee-computer-society-predicts-top-9-technology-trends-for-2016-300193210.html
Space flight is the invention that has changed humanity profoundly.
Levers have been helpful and important throughout history. However, how invented this device, is uncertain. The earliest mention about levers date back to 260 BC by Archimedes, who asserted “Give me a place to stand with lever, and I shall move the earth.” Levers were used by Egyptians to lift large rocks for building pyramids. Even today, several lifting machines are based on the principles of lever.
Numbers have power!
Mathematician Ian Stewart's recent book "In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World" takes a close look at some of the most important equations of all time. Without the equations on this list, we wouldn't have GPS, computers, passenger jets, or countless inventions in between.
Link to the book:
http://www.businessinsider.com/17-equations-that-changed-the-world-2013-1
Video - Mechanisms of Cultural Change: Invention, Diffusion & Innovation
http://study.com/academy/lesson/mechanisms-of-cultural-change-invention-diffusion-innovation.html
Dear
I think that invention of rezo by elkhawarizmi - muslim scientist of middle age- was one of the most important innovations. Without zero no informatics and no technology.
Regards
Please find a Table of the Encyclopædia Britannica's list for The Greatest Inventions of All Times.
http://www.edinformatics.com/inventions_inventors/
Dear Mahmoud Omid,
But in the beginning it was just as significant:
re-building fire
Hand Axe
bronze
..........
each step determines the next
Dear @Josef Punčochář . Thank you. My question was about: What innovations have changed the course of human history? So I guess Printing Press, Electric Light, Transistors, Penicillin and Steam Engine maybe regarded as probably the most significant discoveries (important developments) and among pioneering inventions.
In my opinion Internet, on-line medical screening, diagnosis, remote consultationes, robots for surgeries, etc.
Mendeleev's Periodic Table
The Periodic Table is based on the 1869 Periodic Law proposed by Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev. He had noticed that, when arranged by atomic weight, the chemical elements lined up to form groups with similar properties. He was able to use this to predict the existence of undiscovered elements and note errors in atomic weights. In 1913, Henry Moseley of England confirmed that the table could be made more accurate by arranging the elements by atomic number, which is the number of protons in an atom of the element.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_periodic_table
Be arware and < thinking - through > exposed troubled lives in harshly environmental conditions, harvesting and mantan fire / food for stability
Electricity. indeed, almost all innovations that follow the electricity are connected to electricity.
Printing machine was also a great invention that helps spread out knowledge.
Lever and electricity is among the best ever innovation which change the course of human history
Maybe the greatest contemporary innovation is "The Mobile Phone"
It was invented in 1973 by Martin Cooper of Motorola. The first mobile phone weighed two pounds and cost more than $4,000. Today, more than 6 billion people use cell phones.
The innovation challenge
A capacity for innovation enables farmers, businesses, communities and societies to cope with change and prosper by effectively responding to problems and new opportunities. Agricultural research and the technologies developed had adapted and enabled a dramatic increase in overall global food production over the last 50 years.
https://www.kit.nl/sed/wp-content/uploads/publications/54b7d397a31e6_Dynamics%20of%20Rural%20Innovation%20reduced.pdf
In my opinion the greatest innovation so far in the human history is the sustainable working model of democracy. Taken root in the ancient Greece, it survived the wrath of tyrants and religious fundamentalism, and in last century, it took its shape in Europe in its current form. This system, contrary to other political systems, spread across the world as the popular political model , which made science a global affair more than ever.
Invention of the technique for creating steel using molten pig-iron in the 1850s exploded into one of the biggest industries on the planet and was used in the creation of everything from bridges and railroads to skyscrapers and engines and rapidly changed the life of people across the world and greatly influenced the economy.
Iranian inventions: Alcohol was invented by Zakariya al-Razi, known in the West as Rhazes,he was born in 865 AD in the ancient city of Rey, Near Tehran ,Iran.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Iranian_inventions
The universe is stranger than any kind of fiction we could imagine
Far from our galaxy, in the vast darkness of space, two massive black holes merged into a single, larger hole. And now researchers say they have detected rumblings from that cataclysmic collision as ripples in the very fabric of space-time itself. The discovery comes a century after Albert Einstein first predicted such ripples should exist.
http://innovationtrail.org/post/major-discovery-backs-einsteins-prediction
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE: Fermented grain, fruit juice and honey have been used to make alcohol (ethyl alcohol or ethanol) for thousands of years. The Babylonians worshiped a wine goddess as early as 2700 B.C. In Greece, the art of wine making reached the Hellenic peninsula by about 2000 BC, the first alcoholic beverage to obtain widespread popularity in what is now Greece was mead, a fermented beverage made from honey and water. However, by 1700 BC, wine making had become commonplace.
SMOKING ... smoking Cannabis was common in the Middle East before the arrival of tobacco, and is known to have existed before 5000 BC.
Plow, also spelled plough (1837)
Plow is the most important agricultural implement since the beginning of history, used to turn and break up soil, to bury crop residues, and to help control weeds. John Deere was the inventor of the steel plow in 1837. According to "John Deere's Company," a book by Wayne G. Broehl, Jr., the material Deere used wasn't the only unusual thing about the plows. The moldboard was also shaped differently than others of the day. "It is essentially a parallelogram, curved in a concave fashion. Deere must have given a great deal of thought to the shape, to the special curve of his moldboard, for its exact contours would determine just how well the soil would be turned over after the share had made the cut."
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) was born c. 965 in Basra. he have a big role in physics, mathmatics and other sciences.
"Alhazen made significant contributions to optics, number theory, geometry, astronomy and natural philosophy. Alhazen's work on optics is credited with contributing a new emphasis on experiment."
to see more please, follow this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhazen
Cotton gin (1793)
Agriculture should factor heavy in the 50 greatest inventions since the wheel.
Cotton gin brought on the advent of King Cotton and transformed the South. Eli Whitney’s invention was a benchmark leap for agriculture and global economics.
A reasonable list should be agriculture-heavy, and in its “50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel” The Atlantic has 8 selections (30. Plow, 32. Cotton gin, ...) that are directly related to agriculture.
http://westernfarmpress.com/blog/wh...t-agriculture-breakthroughs-history
Dear @Aleš Kralj, Thank you for your answer. You summarized best inventions in the past and gave good examples for invention to come (in future). I think Internet and cell phones will have more impacts too.
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