What do you consider the most important invention of all time?

[MyWarmOchreHare]

Have been pondering this and wondered what others thought. I know many stand on the shoulders of others, but what do people think?

The internet? Radio or TV? Cars, planes, steam engines? The flushing toilet? Clocks or watches? Wheels? Washing machines? Ships? Paper? Mobile phones? I keep coming back to the wrist watch.

Electricity was technically discovered, not invented.

If we’re going for discoveries as well as inventions, can I nominate “how to start and maintain a fire” as the most important discovery?

semiconductors/microchips.

I didn’t know that. I thought it was invented.

Whilst fire is a discovery, the tools for harnessing it were surely invented?

But yes, both crucial.

The printing press allowed for more people to become literate and the spread of knowledge, which then allowed others to learn and expand on that knowledge.

Farming. Civilisation took off after the advent of agriculture. Food was made available all throughout the year to enable humans to survive and become the dominant species on earth.

Printing press made it possible for books to be made more available to the general population and allowed news to be spread.

Nylon tights.
(This is a joke. The manager of a hotel we stayed in when I was about eight said this, in the 1960s. My serious child self was quite troubled by it and pondered long and hard before arriving at aeroplanes, which I was obsessed with at the time.)

Probably writing.

Once you can write you can record ideas that other people can learn and build on.

Anything that facilitiates communication of information in this way, so writing, followed by the printing press, followed by the internet.

I think in retrospect the internet will be looked on as a huge change to our lives, but it is probably a bit too early for most people to understand this yet.

Wheels, agriculture, mathematics and money are also pretty important foundation inventions.

This probably wouldn't make it into the top thousand of important inventions but socially speaking, especially for women, I've always thought that the washing machine has to have some kind special mention.

It's kind of similar to agriculture.

It allows specialisation, takes away a mundane task and allows people to focus their energies on more potentially lucrative things.

I remember as a kid it used to take the whole day to do washing with the twin tub. In a sense you had to have one person at home all the time, because it was the only way all the work could get done.

Now that time can be used for something more productive or creative.

Penicillin
modern sanitation
printing press

Agreed. I always think about how lucky we are to just have to press a button.

Candles.
batteries
gears

The steam engine, a major contributor to the rapid industrial revolution.

On the discovery side...
How to produce salt.
How to smoke food.
Wine and beer production.

Penicillin

Candles is a good one!

I remember reading in a Bill Bryson book, "At Home, A Short History Of Private Life" about the surprisingly intricate social dynamics of laundry.

The humble S bend allowed internal plumbing.

Like many things it's obvious when you know, I guess initially people realised if you put logs under a heavy load you could roll it over rough or boggy ground and figured it out from there. But then you also needed axles able to carry the weight and bearings to let the wheels turn, etc.

I really think I’d have been leading the wheel development charge. Alas, someone got there first.

The wheel.
Cooking meat.

Bluetooth hearing aids... Wilf hears so much more now... He messaged me at 1am this morning to tell me he could hear the thunder!!

Water purification, vaccines and antibiotics

Language

Antibiotics
pain relief
contraception

anything to do with medical care really. Life’s hard enough without being in constant pain and dropping dead at a moments notice