The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel (NOVEMBER 2013)

theatlantic.com ^ | NOVEMBER 2013 | James Fallows

[nascarnation]

I just installed a new Eljer crapper today.
Despite the govt mandated 1.6 gals/flush it seems to work pretty well.
Fine Mexican craftsmanship.

[FatherofFive]

They missed the innovation that has and will change the world more than any of the listed ones.

That was # 20. A real disaster for humanity.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks for that info about “The Count of Monte Cristo”! I remembered somewhere that there was a financial collapse from the Semaphore system. I thought it might have been simple arbitrage from the speed of the information transmission, but I totally forgot about that plot in the book!

I’m not sure I read the unabridged Penguin version — I have an old hardcover copy I bought decades ago. It is a great tale!

[Borges]

Well not the compass, paper, or gunpowder...

[Persevero]

True re birth control pill.

However those of us who resist it (I don’t oppose all contraception but believe that to be abortifacient and also bad for women hormonally) should thrive.

[Bonemaker]

[ModelBreaker]

“That was # 20. A real disaster for humanity.”

Sorry, I missed it when I was scanning the list.

[Candor7]

I protest, they omitted Cialis and Viagra.

[nicollo]

If you ever doubt living in today’s world, remind yourself that toilet paper advertisers in the late 1800s promoted their TP as having “no splinters”.

Nevertheless, Thomas Crapper is high among the greatest inventors in history.

[Da Coyote]

The Atlantic?
May as well get my quantum physics articles there too.
Not.

[AlbertWang]

J M Browning. 1911. Government Model.

[Axenolith]

This is the first of these I’ve seen that actually had cement on it!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Here are a few absolutely critical missing inventions:

• Interchangeable parts by Samuel Colt. Predecessor of the assembly line.
• Banking. They do have paper money on the list, but I'd include the broader banking.
• Double Entry Bookkeeping / Accounting. 1494 by Luca Pacioli, who is widely known today as the “Father of Accounting”
• Metallurgy. The list has industrial steel making on it, but I'd broaden this to the millennia-long effort to extract and refine ores to make metals. There was no single inventor.
• Marine ChronometerThis was the critical complement to the sextant (#23). The sextant alone gave you your location's latitude, but not your longitude. Before the Marine Chronometer, longitude was estimated by dead reckoning, often with disastrous results.

[whitney69]

This is, of course, impossible to do. Every invention, or recognition, is based not upon want but perceived need.

And if you put such a diverse crowd of “experts” into a room, scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, historians of technology, and others to assess the innovations, who is going to agree? Besides, the number one process in the invention of most products is accident. Same with the poll if anything matches.

Another wasted poll of worthless information from a company that has supported liberal causes and funded liberals for many years.

wy69

[Swordmaker]

Paper in the second century? Say what? Have they not heard of papyrus? Papyrus was in use since the 14th century BC.