Top 10 scientific inventions/discoveries

[Brian Ellis]

The proposed list at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/8091753.stm is:

Steam engine
V2 rocket engine
Electric telegraph
Stephenson's Rocket
X-ray machine
Model T Ford
Penicillin
Pilot ACE Computer
DNA double helix
Apollo 10 capsule


Would you agree? I suggest that the electric generator/motor should be in the list because many of the others would not have been possible without them.

[cjolley]

Wright Flyer

[KRSESQ]

Relativity.

Kevin

[cjolley]

Relativity.

Kevin

I was going to mention that too. But even though Brian said scientific, the article seemed to be about actual "things."

[KRSESQ]

In that case, movable type.

Kevin

[TransformX]

Thermodynamics

[Brian Ellis]

Here's a thought: time. This is a man-made notion because regulated time is based on variables. Neither the day nor the year is constant because they vary according to nearby (relatively speaking) celestial objects. Howeve,r man has tamed it into a near-constant, initially crudely with candle and clepsydra, then wooden clocks in the middle ages (+/- 1 min/day), then with Galileo's pendulum (+/- 1 sec/day) and onto piezoelectric oscillators (10^-3 sec/day) and onto today's best atomic clocks (10^-10 sec/day). This fictional notion of constant time is the variable that man has mastered best: length, mass etc. cannot come anywhere near in precision as time.

[cjolley]

Very good point Brian.
Though it came about rather gradually. So it's no particular invention.

[TransformX]

Here's a thought: time. This is a man-made notion because regulated time is based on variables. Neither the day nor the year is constant because they vary according to nearby (relatively speaking) celestial objects. Howeve,r man has tamed it into a near-constant, initially crudely with candle and clepsydra, then wooden clocks in the middle ages (+/- 1 min/day), then with Galileo's pendulum (+/- 1 sec/day) and onto piezoelectric oscillators (10^-3 sec/day) and onto today's best atomic clocks (10^-10 sec/day). This fictional notion of constant time is the variable that man has mastered best: length, mass etc. cannot come anywhere near in precision as time.

1 major problem, time was a religious discovery before it was handed over to science.

[cjolley]

1 major problem, time was a religious discovery before it was handed over to science.

I'd be interested to hear who, what, when, where.
Though, like Brian said, it's more of an invention than a discovery.

[Brian Ellis]

1 major problem, time was a religious discovery before it was handed over to science.

Sorry, what has time to do with religion? Was time worshipped as a god? If so, I've never heard of it. Time may have been used by religious bodies, e.g., the muezzin's call to prayer or the hour that a priest may say his matins. In fact, Galileo had hell's own problem with the Church which denied his findings, including the pendulum, the basis for accurate timekeeping up to the invention of the chronometer. The Antikythera mechanism bears witness that the ancient Greeks used time in their astronomical calculations without religious significance. Before them, the Egyptians had a good notion of astronomical time. The ke, fen and qi of ancient China and Japan were also secular, using decimal scales, although, earlier, the Chinese divided the day into 12 "hours".

Or are you referring to God creating the world in 6 days and having a lie-in on the seventh as per Genesis I? This begs a point, because the day, as we know it, could not even have existed before He created the sun and the planets and started spinning them around. Even so, if the day has a divine origin, He was not the inventor of the hour, minute, second etc. or the various crude and sophisticated ways man has devised for determining them.

[TransformX]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar

They even measured hours in factions of 1/1080
And that's just one example. Check the ancient Babylonians, South American religions etc. Catholic Christianity is a modern and rather backwards religion in anything that smells that science.
Astronomy was a matter of religion far before it became a matter of pure science.

[cjolley]

But it's still an invention.
There is no reason other than mathematical simplicity to assume that time has a constant rate.
It's just a convenient invention that makes life easier, like the wheel.

[Brian Ellis]

1/1080[QUOTE=TransformX;668613]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar1/10801/1080[QUOTE=TransformX;668613]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar1/1080[QUOTE=TransformX;668613]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar1/10801/1080

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar

They even measured hours in factions of 1/1080
And that's just one example. Check the ancient Babylonians, South American religions etc. Catholic Christianity is a modern and rather backwards religion in anything that smells that science.
Astronomy was a matter of religion far before it became a matter of pure science.

To quote your ref (my emphases)

Originally the Hebrew calendar was used by Jews for all daily purposes

Not for religious purposes!

The Hebrew calendar (Hebrew: הלוח העברי‎ ha'luach ha'ivri) or Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar used by Jews and the followers of Judaism, now predominantly for religious purposes.

Only NOW!

[Fat Tone]

In terms of populous impact at least, the Hubble Space Telescope should be on the list.