• Question: what do you think the most important invention is and why?

    Asked by qwwertyyuful to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Alastair Sloan

      Alastair Sloan answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Great question. I would say it is the microchip. It has influenced so many things in everyday life, from computers to microwaves, TVs and alarm clocks that without it we would not be able to do half of what we can today

    • Photo: Keith Brain

      Keith Brain answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Plumbing. With proper plumbing comes proper sanitation, health improves, and living standards rise. That’s why when countries fail, the engineers and plumbers are some of the most important people to get in early.

    • Photo: Emma Carter

      Emma Carter answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Oh that’s a tough one – there are so many. Perhaps the means of harnessing and using electricity – or the transistor because that has enabled the development of IT

    • Photo: Hywel Vaughan

      Hywel Vaughan answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      That’s a really difficult one, and the longer and longer I look at this question the harder it is to answer!
      The one that comes straight to mind is the pencil – wonderfully simple, yet it has allowed us to draw easier, make notes, write poetry, and almost all great scientific projects (I can almost guarantee) have involved using a pencil at some point. :p

    • Photo: Vicki Stevenson

      Vicki Stevenson answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi
      I think the development of electricity from a curiousity to a functional part of our lives. It took contributions from a lot of excellent inventors, and without electricity our lives would be so different…

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