Survey

[ehanes7612]

What do you think is the most important invention of the 20th C?

 

[Ryan Young]

Internet.

Sent from my oneplus one

 

[abax]

Why do you want to know? Who do you work for? CIA NSA FB?????
Paranoids want to know.

 

[ehanes7612]

it's an anecdotal study to see what people will say...the roots of this came from a study done on what a Rabbi said was the most important invention of the 20th C..when I heard it ..I realized I never would have gotten it..but it makes perfect sense..so I thought to devise this survey to see if I was alone.

 

[troy]

He's gonna tunnel up underneath your house to see what yur doing lol..

 

[troy]

Mass communication, technology given the ability to identify

 

[cnycharles]

Ac generator or pennicillin

 

[BLReed]

The transistor. About sixty years ago by three men working at Bell Labs.
They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

In 1954 Texas Instruments produced the first commercial silicon transistor.

 

[Denver]

synthetic nitrogen. Without it none of the other inventions would have taken place as 50+% of the population would still be required to grow food for a much smaller population

 

[ehanes7612]

I guess I wasnt alone in my thinking

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

I'll take a different tack - the atomic bomb. The reason is simple, since it may very well define the future of our species.

 

[Ruth]

refrigerators

 

[gnathaniel]

PCR (polymerase chain reaction) has got to be pretty high up by any measure of importance...

 

[silence882]

I second the transistor.

 

[abax]

Well, WHAT, Ed??????

 

[ehanes7612]

"I was listening to a rabbi's sermon — this was maybe five or six years ago — and he began by saying that the birth control pill may have been the most important invention of the 20th century."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...ead-to-a-magical-pill-and-a-sexual-revolution

I didn't think anyone would get this..I, for one , never would have thought of it..but makes perfect sense to me...at least in the Western Hemisphere

 

[Drorchid]

It is a toss up between a ziploc bag, and velcro..

Robert

 

[naoki]

Ditto with Nat. PCR is a still amazing technology, which brought a whole new dimension to humanity (from forensic to understandings of the origin and evolution of human, disease, and biodiversity).

 

[paphioland]

The ability to understand and sequence DNA, nuclear fusion/fission, computers/code. I would strongly disagree with birthcontrol. Sort of short sighted.

 

[PaphMadMan]

DNA sequencing is a powerful technology that is still just starting to have the transformative effect it will ultimately have on biology and medicine, and other fields we probably can't even imagine yet. It is a tempting choice.

But it comes down to this. If the world's population was 12 billion or 15 billion, 20 billion?, instead of 7 billion, we might not even have most of those other technolgies that have been suggested. The struggle just to survive would have pushed aside any research that didn't apply directly to that day-to-day imperative. Safe, effective, relatively inexpensive birth control has helped limit unimaginable suffering and helped make all those other inventions possible.