This was the topic of discussion between an historian, a mathematician and a mystic.
The historian said, “writing. The ability to put words on paper to be communicated to people who never even met the ‘speaker’, is the single greatest achievement of mankind.”
The mathematician said, “no, numbers. The ability to express and develop truly abstract concepts, which in turn leads to Incredible real applications. Numbers are the single greatest invention of mankind.”
The mystic said, “the Thermos flask.”
“The Thermos flask?”
“The Thermos flask. It keeps hot drinks hot in the winter, and cold drinks cold in the summer. But think - that little flask - how does it know?”
Not the just important invention, but definitely the best invention: plumbing.
Y’all try going a week without running water and wiping with leaves or newspaper and you’ll quickly see that while other things are definitely important, plumbing is the best to have
This one is massive. That along with the haber process which allowed for the creation of synthetic fertilizers, is said to be responsible for population growth, and reduction of hunger.
Yep, I was talking to my grandpa about what invention his parents thought was the most significant in their lifetime, and they had said the radio. They had lived through both world wars which had brought about many many inventions and that was the one they thought was most significant.
Up to that time news was incredibly slow and you couldn’t put what was going on on the other side of the country without a massive delay, let alone the world.
Hear me out:
Before the invention of the bicycle, the vast majority of the population had no means of personal transport other than their feet, and anything further away than the nearest market might as well have been in China, cause neither a farmer nor a worker with a family can just take more than a day off.
This meant that almost no one ever travelled further than 30km from their home.
With the bicycle, the world that most of humanity got to experience became 20x bigger.
People met other people further away, experienced new ideas, could travel outside of the immediate influence of their landlord or master, could marry someone who isn’t a cousin…
No other invention ever before opened up the world of the average person quite like this one.
The bicycle created demand to build a dense network of smooth roads even in the countryside, brought workers to factories, and gave women more freedom. It was one of the main factors that pushed the industrial revolution.
This is really insightful. I’d thought about how trivial travel is in our modern era but this really puts into perspective how isolating it was back then.
Rome didn’t have bikes, and yet they built thousands of miles of roads. (they were meant for horses and wagons, but still millions of people used them).
Add comment