subject: The Greatest Inventions Of All Time [print this page] Necessity is the mother of all inventions and over time there have been many inventions which were created because of this. Air travel so we could travel greater distances faster, freezers so we could look after our food and keep it for a period of time without it going bad and telephones so we could communicate with people across a vast distance are just a few examples. There have been so many that it isn't an easy task to say which has been the greatest.
Let's start at the beginning. Fire was a pretty big one. Fire gave man heat as well as the ability to cook things. This meant his life expectancy was greater because not only was it easier to digest cooked food but there was less chance of falling sick from it. Besides heat, fire also has the properties of light. At nighttime, this is valuable.
Electricity is the modern day successor to fire. Through it we can heat things and see at night. It also allows us to cook. It just became more practical than fire. Fire was ok and good in theory but in practice, you didn't want to have to start a fire whenever you wanted to be warm or to turn on the lights.
In turn, electricity spawned many other things. Could we have VCRS without it? What about LCD televisions? How could you have your nice LCD tv sitting on the wall without electricity? What about your computer? Sure it could run for a while on the battery, but what recharges the battery?
Speaking of which, LCD technology has contributed far more than just TV screens. Thanks to it we have high quality computer monitors, watches, alarm clocks and calculators. We are sometimes guilty of taking it for granted. We seem to be like this with many inventions.
Take something like medicine and pain-killers. We have a headache and look for an Advil or some other pill. We are lucky to live in a day and age where we can just do this. A couple of hundred years ago you wouldn't have been able to do this. All you could do is lie down and rest and hope that when you woke up it was gone.
What about something as basic as the shoe? Man didn't always wear shoes and there would have been a time when the connection would have been made between dirty feet and shoes. If we put something on our feet not only would our feet be cleaner but they would be protected from stepping on something.
What would you have done if you wanted to cut the grass and there were no lawnmowers? It would be quite a difficult assignment. What options did you have? Thanks to lawnmowers you have an efficient and effective way of doing this.
Whether it is escalators, binoculars, screwdrivers or sliced bread, man always strives to do things better. This striving has made our lives easier. Who knows what the next inventions will be? We'll just have to wait and see.
