What is the most important invention in history and why?

Question

What is the most important invention in history and why?

Answer 1

language

Answer 2

combustion engine

Answer 3

well id have to say the wheel because without the wheel we would have no way of transportation  other than horses then my extent-ion their would of never been the wagon or the car etc.  

Answer 4

Electricity, without which we would have very little else in this world.

Answer 5

Fire or the wheel, I suppose.

They are the basis of many things.

Answer 6

There are two possible answers.  One is the wheel.  Almost every piece of mechanical machinery (including the printing press) uses the wheel.  

The other is Gutenberg's printing press.  Before its invention, books were expensive and only for the rich and the church.   After its invention, knowledge got passed around and grew and added to.  It was possible to teach children who would otherwise never have held a book.  

Answer 7

Soap.  

Answer 8

Initially I was going to venture iron smelting.  But that was eclipsed by the mastery of fire.  Without that ability, little else would have happened.

Answer 9

electricity because almost everything today needs electricities.  

Answer 10

That's like asking what part of a pyramid is most important when if you remove any of the blocks everything below it (after it, in our context) is erased or altered. This factor taken out of the equation....I would say that the printing press was a d**n important one, even more important than paper, which seems illogical as one leads to the other, but. The guy above me goes into the press in more depth.

Edit: Fire isn't an invention, and I don't know that the wheel is either. I mean, we can roll a rock around on the ground. At what point does the distinction become real enough to call it a wheel? I think the wheel may sound cute and funny in dialogue, but I think it's too basic to really be considered an invention. Perhaps the use of gears could be argued for, but not the wheel.

Answer 11

Guns.  It took personal defense from the realm of aristocrats who could afford years and years of training to use weapons and gave it to the average person who could defend themselves with a few hours training.

Answer 12

electricity may not seem like an invention but sure it was invented.......

and where would the human race be without electricity.............

it's the modern day......

Answer 13

language.

Answer 14

i would say the wheel.

Answer 15

Guttenburg's movable type.

This allowed knowledge to reproduced on a massive scale, and for that knowledge to be disseminated throughout the world in all the major languages.

Knowledge was taken out of the hands of the elite and the privileged and became available for almost anyone to use.

This is the most important because this invention paved the way from barbarism to modernity, though the road was long and slow.

BTW, fire is not an invention.

Answer 16

Paper.

Paper allowed mankind to advance and become civilized and to prosper and to learn.

I was thinking the Native American Indian had a great way of life, content with verbal learning (which they developed to a high degree), also some of the groups in the Americas had writing.