Amazing inventions

I say, are you quite sure about the "polar caps" on Mars being frozen carbon dioxide? The melting point of solid CO2 is around - 56.6 C on Earth, but remember that the ambient atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars is not the same as on Earth. Didn't I just read that the satellite orbiting Mars sent back IR spectra that determined that the Martian polar caps were frozen water?

Mars polar caps are not water ice. Water ice was found underground and just a small patch in a crater from where CO2 ice sublimated.

Anyway, my point was that we have not enough data to assert as a certain fact the warming of other planets in the same time with the Earth. What is for sure is the scale at which we affected our environment and there is no evidence of any unusual increase of solar activity.

Global warming is not a political show or a brainwashing media activity. It's a sad and alarming reality generated by greed and irresponsibility. Two centuries of industrial revolution having no vision harmed this planet over the threshold of self-healing.

Seeing here educated people who deny global warming or considering it some sort of scam is even more painful to me. No offense to anyone.

Global warming may be science but it also a belief system, quite like a religion. Global warming is a relatively new theory. People should be skeptical of it. If it is accurate, questioning it will only help prove it true.

Not too long ago, many of the doom and gloom crowd was telling us that particulate pollution was leading us into a new ice age. Great expensive efforts were made to reduce that pollution and now it seems we could use some of it. Maybe the installation of scrubbers on smoke stacks, catalytic converters, unleaded gas etc is what has triggered the recent run-up of global temperatures as the air became clearer and more solar radiation reached the Earth. It does seem somewhat coincidental that the first big wave of environmentalism occurred in the 70's and accelerated global warming seems to have started in the 80's. It won't be the first time good intentions lead to dire results.

Question your own position. Is it science or a belief system? Look at your words "... It's a sad and alarming reality generated by greed and irresponsibility. Two centuries of industrial revolution having no vision harmed this planet over the threshold of self-healing."

Before the industrial revolution, the average person had a short, hard, boring life. Why is wanting to live and have a decent life greedy and irresponsible?

Billions of people have partaken in the industrial revolution. How do you generate a common vision unless you have a totalitarian ruling elite? (and where has that worked to the betterment)

No Mister Ford, we are not going to allow you to build an affordable automobile for the masses, people will have to make due with the horse and buggy. And by the way, we are appalled at your greed and irresponsibility in trying to become a wealthy industrialist.

Having a decent life is very OK but generating and simply disposing too much waste is another thing. Greedy and irresponsible are those who prefer to use a cheap and polluting technology for let's say producing and selling electrical energy or cutting trees for making an easy and fast buck, aso. This is all about. We consume too much and live just for today not looking at tomorrow. Resources are consumed in a very unsustainable way. There is no long term strategy of sustainability and the collapse of our civilization is not too far. If you do not share this concern, you're not alone.

To answer your question, for me understanding global warming and other consequences of human arrogance is not science or belief, is just common sense.

Why boring? Without all the "entertaining" distractions we have today, I suspect that the average person in prior times spent more quality time seeking a personal understanding of and relationship to the world and the people around them.

I think the most important outcome is that we're born, surrounded by strangers and plucked out with metal tongs, and then die, surrounded by strangers and hooked up to tubes and beeping, whisting, wheezing machines.

Everything in between is taxed and/or prohibited.

Ah, an invention we trust with our lives. How about the ball joints which keep the car's front wheels aligned. When I was young I had an old car my father would let me drive on the farm. One day while driving out to check a fence that old car suddenly made a left turn and slid to a halt with the left front wheel pointing nearly ninety degrees away from the direction of the car. The memory of that broken tie rod joint causes me to closely inspect all of the front suspension components every time I have the car up to change the oil. Brakes are another system in which we place our trust and if you think about it, any brake failure will most likely cause a life threatening situation.

For all of the mechanists (strict determinists) out there, the greatest invention of all time would be "free will"...but, then, again, I guess it wouldn't technically qualify either.

Gunpowder (what about that for a controversial one?).

Contraceptives (any type / any reason )

The Floor. Especially if you are on the top of the Sears tower.

I was on the top of the Sears tower once, but technically I was standing on the roof.

Chicken tikka masala.

OK, well, as a quality-of-life invention, this is waaay toward the top. Maybe above antibiotics and refridgeration.

penicillin has to be at the top.

SPEECH

has to be at the top for without it

the rest cannot follow

think inside the square

Duct Tape! Just ask the Apollo 13 astronauts!

If we're not restricted to Engineering , RSA

I vote for the invention of WRITING. Without this, we can't efficiently communicate with one another.

MidniteFighter

I agree that writing is pretty much responsible for everything coming after.

Writing has made History!

the Condom

another water saving device

whos the 1

How about 'masking tape'?

It could fix any (well almost) inventions mentioned so far, if they are not alright!

Auto Brakes --- Stopping you car depends on the integrity of very small o-rings inside the master cylinder and the caliper (disc brakes) or slave cylinders (drum brakes).

I have a few, one is a physical while the others are a conceptual sort of thing and I am surprised nobody else has mentioned them yet.

1. Transistor The development of the bipolar transistor is what really kicked modern electronics off. Could you imagine trying to get to where we have today and without the transistor and its subsequent cousins.
2. Internet While this is a physical thing it is also a conceptual and sociopolitical invention.
3. Numbers While they aren't a physical invention we would have never gotten past the stone age without some sort of numerology.
4. Calculus Again a conceptual thing but something that is critical to getting past a certain limited point in engineering. Without the development of calculus the industrial revolution would never have taken place. We would have also never been able to leave earth and fly to the moon without calculus.
5. Electronic Computer The computer predates the transistor it could have never become as powerful and common as it is today without semiconductors. It is still a separate invention and much of modern engineering could not have happened without them.

How about the flushing toilet

Let´s go basic. How about hot water?

You cant get much Crapper than the flushing toilet!!

Can you list another invention that we trust so much with our lives ?

I guess with Aussie spiders , a traditional dunny would scare the crap out of me . I remember having an outhouse with newspaper on a nail (just like in Steptoe ) and even the sight of it was scary.

I'll jump in deep here.

Military.

Tactics. i.e. The Romans way of warfare. With it they also invented. The salary (paid in salt). Regulated logistics (Not of the land - you have to feed 50000 people). Military hierarchy. Strategy. Weapons. Triage. You name it it was probably first invented by the military before it got to civilian use.

Do you know that in 1858. a grammar school dropout, invented earmuffs at the age of 15 (1873). While testing a new pair of ice skates, he grew frustrated at trying to protect his ears from the bitter cold. After wrapping his head in a scarf, which was too bulky and itchy, he made two ear-shaped loops from wire and asked his grandmother to sew fur on them. He patented an improved model with a steel band which held them in place and with Greenwood's Champion Ear Protectors, he established Greenwood's Ear Protector Factory. He made a fortune supplying Ear Protectors to U.S. soldiers during World War I. He went on to patent more many other inventions. In 1977, Maine's legislature declared December 21 "Chester Greenwood Day" to honor a native son and his contribution to cold weather protection.

Farmington Maine is now the Earmuff Capital of the World. There is a parade that celebrates Chester's birthday the first Saturday in December, with local police cruisers in the parade decorated as giant earmuffs.

I think the Romans also started "global warming" - by removing the forests of what is now the south Sahara.

Speaking of tyres. My old man tells of when his father bought his first car in about 1925 (a Dodge) how the tyres used to blow out at random times, usually when the thing was parked in the shed. It was parked a fair bit as this was the beast that ran through the back wall of the barn because it was too dumb or stubborn to understand the word "WHOA".

bronze, iron, etc. (Metallurgy as a whole)

How about ME! I think Im pretty wonderful, in fact I myself can confirm it, its just that there are to many other me's vying for attention these days.

Like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Matrix_smithmany_600.gif

Water treatment, for drinking on one hand and for waste waters on the other.

I just saw a program on TV about transport and its development and was intrigued to find that skis pre date the wheel. If you think about it, it makes sense because sleds and the like came before the wheel so it only logical that skis were around as they are really the same principal as a sled.

So I guess we need to include skis since they have been around longer than anything else.

Something else that is probably more important than anything is a library. It goes with writing and before the two were well developed and in use the sum total of human knowledge was limited to what a person could learn and then teach in a single life time.

The advent of the written word and the library means that each generation pretty much knows everything that everybody that came before them knew. The library is important because you need to be able to find the information. Writing everything down is absolutely useless if nobody can find what you have written when they need it.

The importance of the written word and library can clearly be seen in societies that never developed written language. The lack of a written language severely limited the advancements and sum total of knowledge and most never got much past the stone age and subsistence living.

I never thought about the library. You got a point there. The written word is no doubt the most important invention since the discovery of fire. James

Hey guys, how can you call yourself engineers and forget about

Without beer the all engineering would come to a complete standstill. They wouldn't have even been able to build the pyramids.

Without beer the all engineering would come to a complete standstill. They wouldn't have even been able to build the pyramids.

Gets my vote , though I wonder if pyramids were supposed to have walls leaning at an angle . Fermentation , a great example of man copying nature . I saw some film once of Elephants getting soused on rotting fruit - If they'd got hands who knows....

Gets my vote too...If only it didn't get all "stuck" in my mid-section...

I'd vote for electricity.

I remember a story once that, on the anniversary of Edison's invention of the light bulb, someone suggested that the whole world shut every electrical thing off for one minute. I hear they turned off the guy who made the suggestion instead!

My choice for the most amazing invention is the GPS system.

I believe that the most amazing ones are those "basic" inventions, from which the rest evolved from: sled> round log> wheel > tire / glass> lenses> microscope> bacteriology> antibiotics / ... etc.

I agree with you. It seems, the simpler the invention, the more profound its influence. Thanks for you input. James

Probably not too amazing but let's not for get the basics related to most if not all inventions, at least mechanical inventions. Incline Plane, Screw, Lever, Wedge, Pulley, and of course, Wheel and axle.

I love those inventions I believe are a product of "Lateral Thinking" ie: paper is ment to write on it... but the edge of a sheet can cut / someone invented the "pull strip" that opens billions of packages a day worldwide.

There is a weed called burr (aka: catch weed) that get's stuck to almost everything; and can be really annoying / someone took a closer look on it and invented the "VELCRO" tape

Hi r&ddoc,

Many of our greatest inventions have been inspired by nature. Not many people realize that nature invented the wheel millions of years before we even existed.

There are several species of insects that curl themselves up into a loop that acts as a wheel. They use the technique as an escape mechanism and roll down any slope at considerable speed. When they come to a halt they simply straighten out again and crawl away unharmed.

Hi Masu , There's a nice description of bacterial flagellum in the popular-science book Does Anything Eat Wasps . I'd think these things have a fair claim to being the first living 'wheel' if a bit of latitude is allowed - though animals are perhaps more fun to watch . Having said that , I think Darwin precludes either being intelligent design.

I was just wandering about clothing as a candidate - without it human populations would not have been able to survive/migrate/evolve (?). Kris

What about the circle. The first theoretical science was astronomy, and astronomy was grounded in circles for a thousand years. Greek astronomy had one goal, "saving the appearances"; that is, finding some combination of circular movements that exactly described the motions of celestial bodies.

The circle itself is not an invention . It's description is.

The language can be obscure in this type of reasoning . eg - strain is a fact , but stress is a concept .

circles are a good candidate, everything in the universe can ultimately be resolved down to circles or cycles, it is the only means I can imagine infinity.

Challenge! tell me what cannot be resolved down to circles?

I'd challenge you to show that somebody invented the circle

Here is an interesting thread on circles. Circles do not exist

Not sure if circles are really an invention. Maybe, the wheel, which is truly a series of equal length levers with a common fulcrum at one end, then enclosed with a material at the other end creating the circumference of the (circle).

Wheels are not an invention #125

Mathematical sophistry can 'prove' many things about circles , but not the issue of discovery vs invention

Yes -- that was my not so strong point in my last post

My maths is a bit low brow but isn't a circle made up of a multitude of straight lined segments or chords? Wouldn't a sphere be your candidate instead if the circle.

A sphere is basicly just a 3 dimentional circle anyway isnt it?

How about electrical wire insulation that becomes photoemissive when current flows through it and changes colour as to the polarity over the range of 3mA to kA's. This has not been invented yet but the next best thing has and its called INDI-LINK.

Its can be used invasively or non invasively in AC or DC applications from 3mA up to whatever limit you want, but importatly it makes current something you can eyeball.

Just imagine no need of testmeters, no invasion of circuits, no explosion risk in hazardous areas, save wire, multiply functionality of simple circuits by a factor of 4 Times normal. What-You-See-is-What-You've-Got.

I need a manufacturer who wants to profit from this Patented Medal winning device.

Dont forget that it is current that is the best measurand of a circuits condition and current can go one of two ways while its magnitude can be easily controlled to affect remote loads.

No website established yet but call on +44(0)1446 741180 if stimulated.

Interesting! Very interesting!

Hi Texlex,

Do you need more info on my INDI-LINK device? I should have mentioned that it will find application in just about any electrical circuit regardless of line voltage as it operates in the current-mode almost exclusively and over a huge range. Lifetime in excess of 100,000 hrs, just fit and forget, makes faults & conditions obvious in intrinsically-safe circuits or power circuits. Rapid fix, trap even intermittent faults.

No batteries or external power it just needs placing into a circuit wher3e it will produce information and therefore knowledge via the medium of light waves.

This will be a godsend to the petro/chem business with proper support that it deserves.

I think greatest invention is human beings itself. the difference between a live body and dead is the presence of air and absence of it ( breath !!!!)

Biosphere I

my choice being a computer guy , a computer offcourse , it does the work like i do, it thinks , it memorises ,manupulates , communicates with you people so efficiently , it is affected by virus like me ,it entertains, it is one of the best concepted device man has ever created which literally revolutionised the world , this one device may be responsible to bring world closer socialy economicaly, it is also responsible for further enhancement of other already invented devices , this sweet devices will control electricity which on the other side powers it , you teach it ,it will learn with gleaches we call it bug like we do with errors . this devices can be coupled to any other manmade devices , they can merge easily , is`ant it amaiziing to think world wthout computers

The Synchro-link

It's a whole fleet of trucks in one.
For more information: http://Synchro-link.com