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Ideas that changed the world.

1356

Comments

  • #62
    Peregrine
    Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 26,424 Mod ✭✭✭✭Peregrine


    ClovenHoof wrote: »
    Art and Philosophy. Regardless of what TV presenters such as Bill Nye state.

    Without imagination and creativity nothing else is possible.

    Ehhh..what?



    He encourages people to learn science. He's a science presenter. That doesn't mean he dismisses art.


  • #63
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 99,624 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    harry Bailey esq wrote: »
    Sliced bread.
    Oh yes , it's the best thing since ... wait, what was that thing again ?


  • #64
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,787 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    Oh yes , it's the best thing since ... wait, what was that thing again ?
    Unsliced bread?


  • #65
    ytpe2r5bxkn0c1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ytpe2r5bxkn0c1


    If it's purely an idea that has had the greatest influence on the world then....
    "I think there's something out there in the spirit world that we need to keep on side with. Let's call it a God".

    That or shoelaces.


  • #66
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 99,624 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    UrbanSprawl wrote: »
    Hats off to whoever invented fire..
    A bright spark indeed.


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  • #67
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 99,624 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Menas wrote: »
    The wheel is a mad yoke - great invention.
    And not as old as you might think

    From 2001
    An Australian man has registered a patent for a "circular transportation facilitation device" - more commonly known as the wheel.


  • #68
    entropi
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,731 ✭✭✭✭entropi


    Electrical science, and the relationship between electricity and magnetism. Without this research and line of thinking, this world would be a very different place.


  • #69
    Riddle101
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,669 ✭✭✭Riddle101


    The telephone
    Analytical Engine
    Abacus
    Calculator


  • #70
    harry Bailey esq
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,814 ✭✭✭harry Bailey esq


    JustShon wrote: »
    The micro chip, we wouldn't be having this discussion otherwise. I wouldn't have a job either.

    Agreed. They are delicious.


  • #71
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    suicide_circus wrote: »
    Flour/Bread. The milling of flour turned an easy to grow predictable crop cereal into an easy to make, easy to digest, high carb tasty food. Pasta and noodles are basically the same thing. It's kept billions of people alive with enough energy to progress our various civilisations.

    I do have an auld stoned wonder to myself sometimes about how that even happened. At some point during history where people didn't even know you should wash your hands before cutting off someone's leg without anaesthetic, they figured out that a good thing to do with a foodsource, was grind it to powder, lob in some water and yeast, and almost but not quite incinerate it. Bit of trial, error and happy accident involved obviously I suppose, still though.


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  • #72
    harry Bailey esq
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,814 ✭✭✭harry Bailey esq


    ScumLord wrote: »
    Unsliced bread?

    Agreed. Bread has provided the human race sustenance the world over for millennia,in one form or another.


  • #73
    Gail Platts Cleavage
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8 ✭Gail Platts Cleavage


    Apps for phones.

    Whatsapp, Gmail, News sites, are only three of which I used every, single, day! I can't even recall how I wasted time beforehand.


  • #74
    maudgonner
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,455 ✭✭✭maudgonner


    suicide_circus wrote: »
    Flour/Bread. The milling of flour turned an easy to grow predictable crop cereal into an easy to make, easy to digest, high carb tasty food. Pasta and noodles are basically the same thing. It's kept billions of people alive with enough energy to progress our various civilisations.

    Semi-dwarf wheat was a pretty great idea too. An American called Norman Borlaug wanted to develop a strain of wheat that would give greater yields and be disease resistant. But every time he did, he found that the heads were too heavy for the stalk to support and it would break and die. So he crossed the high yield varieties with a Japanese dwarf wheat variety (shorter stalks wouldn't break so easily) and produced a crop that yielded double the grain.

    Mexico, where he was working, quickly became self-sufficient in grain. Then India and Pakistan and so on through the developing world (Sub-Saharan Africa was unfortunately slow to benefit because they didn't have the irrigation or transport infrastrusture needed, but that is improving). It staved off famine after famine and is credited with saving a billion lives.


  • #75
    ixoy
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 18,100 Mod ✭✭✭✭ixoy


    Adyx wrote: »
    Thus, the OP is saying the General Theory was world changing - which of course it was. And an idea doesn't have to have direct effect on the "working man on the street" for it to be world changing.
    How is it world changing though? I mean it's an impressive testament to intellect, absolutely, but in any sense how has it changed things? It verifies a theory, much as we did with the Higgs-Boson earlier. Unless you're talking about a more abstract sense of understanding the universe which is more an idea to understand the world.

    If we're talking about basic concepts, then some of the great contributors to maths for example would surely take a shot given how much those tools permeated so much afterwards.


  • #76
    Chris_Bradley
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,818 ✭✭✭Chris_Bradley


    Listening to women's views. Has been only good for this world.


  • #77
    Eugene Norman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,191 ✭✭✭Eugene Norman


    ClovenHoof wrote: »
    Art and Philosophy. Regardless of what TV presenters such as Bill Nye state.

    Without imagination and creativity nothing else is possible.

    Art is important. Philosophy is mostly bunk. Imagination and creativity aren't exclusive to either.


  • #78
    Eugene Norman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,191 ✭✭✭Eugene Norman


    Your Face wrote: »
    Potential revolution in communications.

    Right. So we are going to manipulate massive gravitational changes to broadcast the X-factor?


  • #79
    keeponhurling
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,271 ✭✭✭keeponhurling


    The person with the idea to have sex with a monkey, and created HIV


  • #80
    bodhrandude
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,324 ✭✭✭✭bodhrandude


    That I wouldn't make to the 4,000 post. :pac:

    If you want to get into it, you got to get out of it. (Hawkwind 1982)



  • #81
    cml387
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 9,427 ✭✭✭cml387


    Lolcats.

    OK also the telegraph, and antibiotics.


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  • #82
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    maudgonner wrote: »
    Semi-dwarf wheat was a pretty great idea too. An American called Norman Borlaug wanted to develop a strain of wheat that would give greater yields and be disease resistant. But every time he did, he found that the heads were too heavy for the stalk to support and it would break and die. So he crossed the high yield varieties with a Japanese dwarf wheat variety (shorter stalks wouldn't break so easily) and produced a crop that yielded double the grain.

    Mexico, where he was working, quickly became self-sufficient in grain. Then India and Pakistan and so on through the developing world (Sub-Saharan Africa was unfortunately slow to benefit because they didn't have the irrigation or transport infrastrusture needed, but that is improving). It staved off famine after famine and is credited with saving a billion lives.

    Why haven't I heard of this man?


  • #83
    maudgonner
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,455 ✭✭✭maudgonner


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Why haven't I heard of this man?

    I heard about him on The West Wing :)

    He won the Nobel Prize for his work.


  • #84
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    maudgonner wrote: »
    I heard about him on The West Wing :)

    He won the Nobel Prize for his work.

    Thanks for enlightening those of us who didn't know!

    I'm going to have to up my game in this thread.


  • #85
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    gramar wrote: »
    The existence of gravitational waves has been confirmed. How as of now has that changed the world?

    Because we now have something to build on.


  • #86
    Adyx
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,997 ✭✭✭Adyx


    ixoy wrote: »
    How is it world changing though? I mean it's an impressive testament to intellect, absolutely, but in any sense how has it changed things? It verifies a theory, much as we did with the Higgs-Boson earlier. Unless you're talking about a more abstract sense of understanding the universe which is more an idea to understand the world.

    If we're talking about basic concepts, then some of the great contributors to maths for example would surely take a shot given how much those tools permeated so much afterwards.
    Again, I'm saying (and I'm assuming the OP was too) that it's the General Theory of Relativity that was world changing, not the (very important) proof of gravitational waves.

    GTR was without a doubt world changing, even before verification. It threw classical physics out the window and gave us new explanations for gravity, forms the basis for the most widely accepted model of an expanding universe, spacetime, blackholes ... It's like a holy grail.

    As for contributors to maths, the OP didn't ask for the greatest idea to change the world - it's not a competition so definitely there's room for some of them here. Even simple ones like pi = C/d which is definitely world changing and as much as I hate calculus, there's no denying its effect on the world.


  • #87
    steddyeddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,565 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    IMHO it's not as much the discovery that there is gravitational waves that changed the world (as of yet) but the elucidation of the mechanism by which we measure gravitational waves.


  • #88
    Billy86
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,495 ✭✭✭✭Billy86


    Gunpowder. Apparently Europeans had never seen it until Genghis Khan rocked up outside some castle walls with it (which he had acquired from China, who themselves would have crushed Europe at that time if they wanted, and who Genghis had already conquered, because Genghis was the biggest m'f'ing badass of all time), and while the Europeans awaited a traditional seige/wait... he just launched this sh*t in the air!

    That would be like a giant ship coming out of the sky and shooting lasers down on us... only if that happened a few hundred years ago, before we had any concept of ships or lasers whatsoever. What I would give to be a fly on the wall inside those castle defenses when that happened! It would have the rank as one of the biggest 'WTF!?' moments in all of human history.


  • #89
    diomed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,744 ✭✭✭diomed


    Programming languages.


  • #90
    Billy86
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,495 ✭✭✭✭Billy86


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    And not as old as you might think

    From 2001
    An Australian man has registered a patent for a "circular transportation facilitation device" - more commonly known as the wheel.
    Shame they didn't have a picture of the guy, given aboriginals never got around to inventing said wheel. :p


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  • #91
    Elemonator
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,270 ✭✭✭Elemonator


    Plastic.


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