Invention with largest impact on mankind.....

[wolfracesonic]

Ok some old guff to bump up my thread count/get the week rolling: What invention do you think has had the greatest impact on mankind? Just to make it harder I'm not allowing the wheel or fire. I'm going to put forward one of these........



....without the help of which nothing much gets built. Over to you.

[oddball1973]

[RizzoTheRat]

On a more serious note, Language. The ability to communicate complex ideas has had a massive impact on our civilisation, allowing us learn beyond just our own experience, and has eventually culminated with the ability to argue with people we've never met on the other side of the world.

[otherman]

[Fas1975]

The gun.

Man has always had weapons, but the inventor of the gun, evolving into self loaders, semi and fully automatic weapons changed the landscape irrecoverably

[daddy cool]

wolfracesonic said:

What invention do you think has had the greatest impact on mankind?

[toasty]

Religion - As soon as some bright spark realised he could control the masses by making them hope/fear for the afterlife the world changed forever.

[V8FGO]

Probably written language.

However, I would nominate the humble IC

[SlidingSideways]

[Whitean3]

If not religion, then electricity

[WestyCarl]

Without these they'd be very little machinery or transportation.

[Einion Yrth]

Agriculture must be in with a shout.

[Zoon]

[Zoon]

WestyCarl said:

Without these they'd be very little machinery or transportation.

True, although they still built the pyramids without them, which is amazing in itself.

[FW18]

I'd go for the jet engine, just because it managed to shrink the world and make so much accessible to us all.

[Zoon]

FW18 said:

I'd go for the jet engine, just because it managed to shrink the world and make so much accessible to us all.

Which contains lots of screws

[gavsdavs]

Penicillin. (not quite an invention)

Edited by gavsdavs on Monday 25th January 09:19

[CRB14]

If we're talking proper inventions such as material things or devices I'd have to go with either Alan Turing's Baby or quite simply - the internet (although obviously the internet wouldn't exist without the Baby).

Religion and languages aren't inventions for me - not if you read the dictionary definition anyway.

[drivin_me_nuts]

The sharp pointed weapon as well as the needle. Without the ability to cut and also piece things trogether to make bigger items, as well as sew us together when we tear and leak.

[zollburgers]

SlidingSideways said:

You really think golf has the largest impact on mankind?