Forbes magazine has a nice series on the 20 most important tools that Man has ever devised and used. For some inexplicable reason, it does not include the Swiss Army knife or the Callaway golf driver, but I am sure that was an oversight.
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Doesn’t include the micrometer, or the ship.
How about the forge, or the stirrup come to that.
I looked again, no hammer, no horse collar…..roads do not make an appearance, what about the tea bag? whither aircraft?
This is like those 1001 muslim inventions, only in reverse, theirs where crap and wishful thinking, this is an abominable lack of imagination.
I blame the labour government.
I don’t agree about the telescope as coming in the top 20 most important tools to mankind. In fact, I don’t think it fits in at all. Mankind was perfectly to observe the stars and the movement of the planets, and predict times thereby, without the telescope, which is way too sophisticated, considering the other tools mentioned.
I would have added the lock-and-key because the ability to secure private property must have been an important milestone in our history.
But an interesting list, nevertheless!
It’s ironic that you wrote this post as I had just read a book review over at the Sunday Times about the invention of the lowly shipping container.
THE BOX: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
Basically, loading and unloading cargo went from $5.86 a ton to $0.16 a ton when they changed from break-bulk to containers.
Well, the first absence I noticed was the wheel.
However, the rules exclude that on the grounds that it is not hand-manipulated. So I have had to search a bit harder (2 minutes) for justification of my dissatisfaction.
Within the scope of, at least, that “rule”, I question whether the lever and the pulley should not be included.
Finally, for now, how about the sling and the club/cudgel? Surely Kubrick’s 2001 informed us all of the importance of the latter in human development – as the first hunting tool. I suspect the sling was a close second.
This demonstrates, again, that you cannot please all of the people all of the time. Also, the essential pointlessness of such lists.
Best regards
You could argue for a dozen things that aren’t in the list that have a profound impact on how and why we do things: Writing, the Wheel, Internet, Nukes, Keystones, Rubber, Movies, the Bra…
But my vote would go for anything that gave the ability to make fire. Opened up all kinds of possibilities for man to get on with things instead of him waiting for lightning to hit a tree nearby.
Also allows Islamofascists to burn books, cartoons and anything they slightly disagree with.
You haven’t mentioned any tools, which is what the whole list is about. It wasn’t “things that have a profound impact on how and why we do things”.
Makes you wonder, though. I mean, why didn’t the Mexicans, Central Americans and S Americans fail to develop the wheel? Especially as the Mayas and the Aztecs had, separately, developed calendars that were as sophisticated and accurate as Egyptian calendars.
“Why did the Mexicans”, etc.
‘Our readers voted the condom, the syringe, the remote control and the floppy disk into their top 20, but those tools didn’t make the final list.‘
Good grief. What was that about history in schools today again?
Does the printing press count as a ‘tool’?
I also noticed the abscence of flint & steel/matches from the list. I would guess making fire had more of an impact on human development than telescopes.
Also missing—bow & arrow, plow, syringe, medicinal pill, tin can, fork, soap, calculator.
An interesting exercise. I would bet there is an extreme difference between generations, and also between members of rural cultures and urbanized societies.
It must be almost impossible for today’s youth to understand that Einstein worked with a pencil, paper, and slide rule to develop theories that are still being debated and validated by today’s science.
I was wondering where the micrometer was too Robert. It still amazes me how things can be mass produced to such accuracy. Easily a top 5 tool.
‘Our readers voted the condom, the syringe, the remote control and the floppy disk into their top 20, but those tools didn’t make the final list.’ That is absolutely chilling. It is totally scary.
Fisking Central – I would say no, because even in its primitive form, it was complicated, utilising other tools. If I understood the question – although it wasn’t very well-phrased – it was beginning tools of mankind, that enabled us to advance into civilised societies, that they were looking for. I still think the telescope is a bizarre inclusion for tools of this ilk.
I do think the wheel should have been included, though. And the padlock.
I think they were looking for primitive, beginning tools that allowed us to move forward. Otherwise, every modern wonder, like the telephone, the car, computers, etc would have been included – not things like the chisel.
I wouldn’t even classify the bow and arrow as a tool. That would come under weapon.
Well I suppose a bow and arrow comes under weaponary depending on what your pointing it at.
Yes if each other , no if you’re pointing it a deer, when it becomes a food gathering impliment.
Surely the wheel should have been there! But then you could say without paved roads, what good are wheels? Possibly why the Incas etc never invented one. Lovely cities, but no interstates. And on and on it goes.
I have been asked many times to compile my top ten of this and that, usually around Christmas, and always refuse.
It always comes down to personal opinion and is generally futile. But enjoy anyway!
I think I hear the cows coming home…
I don’t believe we had paved roads in Britain until 100-150 years ago, but we’d had the wheel for thousands of years, and it was the cartwheels which set the pattern for where the roads would eventually go. Cartwheels going back to Roman times, and possibly before.
The Incas probably didn’t invent the wheel because it would have been hell pushing a cart up the massive, almost perpendicular Andes. But the Aztecs and Mayans – that is more puzzling, especially as they had to get all that masonry in situ to build their pyramids. Very odd.
Quite right Verity!
We are also forgetting the wheels that dont go anywhere. The sideways ones like potters wheels or the ones that run watches etc.
Ahem! 100-150 years ago? There were these chaps called Romans who were quite good at roads and they hung out round my way oh! ah a little short of 2000 years ago.
I’d pop out and buy you a sense of humour but the shops are shut. Still love ya though!
Please, do actually read the article; it does very clearly and very simply explain the methodology by which they reached those results.
I think their assessment is very much exact, by the standards they chose, although I would have included the sextant in that list … “as a material device that provides an advantage in accomplishing a task”
OK, Julian Taylor, but wouldn’t you have included a padlock? To secure private property? I just think that was terribly important. Because the person with the key to the lock owned the property. I think that was an important advance for us.
RAB – I mentioned the Romans when I talked about our ancient cart wheels in relation to the Aztecs and the Mayas. So your laboured point was … something? You’d love to “pop out and buy me a sense of humour. But the shops [in Wales] are closed.”
Phew!
It’s hard not to laugh at the gormless earnestness with which he regales us with his tale of how the list was chosen. And impossible not to guffaw at the inclusion of the pencil.
I was surprised about the pencil as well. I don’t know how they could have included the pencil, which never eclipsed the pen, and left off the ax, which I would have put in the top five.
Look Verity we really must cut this out!
It’s not good for the other folk who may be enjoying this thread on their own terms for us to have snarky personal duels around here.
You are again spectacularly showing your ignorance of history.
Pushing carts up the Andes! Now I laughed but not If you meant it to be funny!
“Sorry boss, these wheels you invented dont work! too goddam steep. I suggest we invent a pack animal!”
Your time frames and references are all over the place.
Our ancient roads followed well worn tracks. Not just for a couple of hundred years but 10,000 years. They had nothing to do with Cartwheels Roman or otherwise.
What had to do with cartwheels was the gauge of our railways. Perhaps you are confused?
This is just a Sunday night bit of fun, with nothing on the telly.
I will tell you this “Only once”.
My posts are often consise to the point of being coded.
I dont go in for screeds, so I try to tell the truth in a (hopefully) humourous way.
That’s the way I am wired up. Take it or leave it.
You plainly have missunderstood me again, but nevertheless I still love you, and so do many others because we think your instinct and general principles are sound, just that your uptake on the humour stakes is a bit lacking, er hard of understanding?
Read my stuff carefully from now on. Things may not be quite as they appear!
I like “the wheels that dont go anywhere. The sideways ones like potters wheels”.
Did they come before or after the ones that goes round and round up and down and go somewhere? I really don’t know.
The the invention of the micrometer was dependent on the development of the precision screwcutting lathe. The lathe as such was #12 on the list, but achieving accurate thread pitch was an interesting problem. The solution was actually multiple iterations and averaging the errors of two screws. The resultant machine was at the heart of the manufacturing end of the industrial revolution.
Read my stuff carefully from now on. Things may not be quite as they appear!
RAb, the world is full of people who don’t take direction from you. Jam-packed. In excess of six bn.
“Read my stuff carefully from now on.”
Yeah. Right. We’ll do that thing.
Sigh.
Night Verity!
Verity, RAB, puhleese. Take your fight outside or have a cuddle.
The strirrup was a rather key invention, since it enabled heavy mounted cavalry and hence had a key military impact.
Tony Blair is a tool and he is trying to change my world – does that count?
It still looks like most commenters haven’t actually read the article, from which you will see that the pencil also stands in for charcoal, the brush, the fountain pen etc.
Within the terms of the choice I still think the eyeglass and the telescope are wrong – they are of a different order of technology. Similarly I don’t think fire is right – it is a harnessed natural phenomenon rather than a tool per se.
The forge is interesting however – at least the idea of metal working – and also the hammer/club (the sling/spear/bow and arrow could perhaps be viewed as very specialised clubs in the same way as the chisel and sword are specialised knives) which I think should make the list . I’m not sure about the history of the sextant and it clearly is important in modern terms, but most of the movements of mankind across this planet have taken place without it, so again I think of a different order to the rest.
Finally, the lever/fulcrum and the wheel/roller. The lever has surely had a huge impact on history, since it multiplied muscle power. It could be argued that it is a discovery rather than an invention however. As to the wheel, I suspect the Inca/Aztec/Maya used rollers, but for some reason never made the jump to the idea of a fixed axle – the real invention in my view.
I forgot the axe – since this is a sort of hybrid of the club and the knife, presumably those had to be in place first?
What I like about the shipping container is that they are all measured in feet, everywhere in the world, and there’s nothing the French can do about it.
The sword should be replaced with the spear. Hand axes and knifes may predate it but the spear was surely the first purpose built weapon. It dominated battlefields until firearms and it still survives in the bayonet.
The methodology makes sense given that this article was written for a ‘mainstream media’ website.
The compromises they had to make just show that the Top 20 format probably isn’t a useful way to discuss this issue in any other than ‘factoid’ form.
Having said that, I dd enjoy the bite-size pieces of info about the significance of each tool. And as mainstream media, their job is to write simple, engaging articles that people finish, and even linger over.
How would you actually go about mapping the influence of human tools in a more systematic way? How many tools are there?
Has someone already catalogued every tool? That would be a useful start.
How would you do a map? Would it be a ‘tech tree’ such as is used in the Civilisation franchise?
Cheers David
They came close, but never even considered the most important invention of all. So much more useful than grunts and squeals.
Language.
Zimon – very interesting about the bayonet/spear.
ian – I agree that the telescope and the eyeglass are out of place. People were travelling using the North as a navigational tool for thousands of years and doing very well. Again, the eyeglass is way out of place because, before the printing press, who needed glasses? And takes us too far into the present.
And yes, the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans etc did use rollers to get their rocks in situ to build their pyramids but this is so puzzling. They built these huge pyramids and, in the case of the Mayans and the Aztecs, devised mathematically sophisticated calendars that were accurate to the second – I mean obviously, they weren’t stupid – but rolled those huge stones on rollers with two men running with the rear roller and putting it in the front – and no one ever said, “Hey, wait a minute! Why don’t we …”. It is baffling.
An interesting fact about the Mayan calendar: they calculated it far into the future – around at least 500 years, every day, every minute for 500 years. And guess what – it ends in 2012.
This is why I think the key invention is not the wheel, but the axle.
If we’re going to get all sophisticated, then I would say the generator is the single most important “tool” man’s hands have ever developed. If man were unable to predictably and safely generate electricity, we’d have nothing of the world we live in today.
Not only does the Maya calendar not end in 2012, it’s getting barely started.
The year 2012 is when the Maya date 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.13.0.0.0.0 falls. Yet the Maya calendar predicts the end of the last creation to be on the date 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0
Considering they count in base twenty (except for the second column which is eighteens), there is still yet a little way to go before they run out of calendar. The date referred to as the end of their calendar is just the end of the 13th baktun (400 year period).
By my definitely muddled arithmetic, this puts us approximately 5,200 years into an approximately 68,157,440,000,000,000,000,000,000 year calendar. Their intervals don’t correspond exactly with ours. And their calendar actually runs a lot longer than that last number, but that’s when they predict the end of creation. I think they were probably comfortable with thinking in astronomical time frames.
So, Verity, please confirm your facts before posting them. Try not to believe every legend you see on the internet.
Midwesterner – The Mayan calendar ends in the year 2012, unless every professor of Mayan studies in the country of Mexico is wrong and you are right. It ends at the end of the year 2012.
Or maybe, in the time between my posting and your posting, what? an hour? – you have turned the entire world of Mayanology upside down?
PS, Midwesterner, you aggressived, eager person, I have never looked the Mayan calendar up on the internet because I’m not that interested in the Mayans or mathematics, but I do tend to give credence to what academics say about their subject. Every calendar they wrote ends in the year 2012. Unless you have found some later calendars that no one else knew existed? Do let the Mexican government know. It will also be of incredible interest to universities all over Mexico and Guatemala.
There are no Mayan calendars anywhere (unless you have unearthed some) that record a date after 2012 – although I’m sure their computations could go on forever. But they don’t. They stopped on December 31 2012. Maybe they got bored. Maybe a coconut fell on their head. Who knows? But there are no calendars extant after 2012.
Perhaps you should stop lunging into discussions after a few quick clicks on the internet in your fervour to prove someone wrong. Have you ever been outside your own state?
Verity , you aggressive eager person, it was in the first place I looked. If the math is too difficult for you, work at it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar(Link)
Maybe you’re the one who needs to widen your horizons.
“It ain’t what folks know that’s the problem, it’s what they know that ain’t so.” — Josh Billings (1818-85)
So the world ends at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. Lucky escape for “TeamGB” who would produce their usual dire trawl of medals.
Isn’t the Mayan calender abysmally off-topic.
Anyway, calenders are for practical purposes. I bet National Geographic haven’t started work on their “Beauty of Yosemite Park 2709” one yet.
And Verity, if you’re not interested in Mayans or Maths isn’t there something else you can post?
Although the Four Housemen will avoid the congestion charge as they’ll be using “eco-friendly” transport. They thought of everything in Revelation. Imagine if War forgot to pre-pay and got clamped (being too busy organising Armorgeddon – that would be embarrassing. “Sorry folks, the End of the World will be coming soon – we’ve just had a text from War and there’s a delay on the Jubilee Line – we apologise for the inconvenience – We’ll just podcast the Dies Irae from Verdi’s Requiem one more time…”
No one claims the world is going to end, Midwesterner. They calculated their bloody calendar until the end of 2012 and then quit. No one suggests the world is going to end because that’s when the stopped doing their calendar.
I know absolutely nothing about New Age magazines, and wouldn’t be able to name a single one. I know absolutely nothing about mathematics so didn’t bother to read your whole post. I haven’t looked the Mayans up on the internet because I am not interested in them.
I note that you do tend to leap to Wickypedia then type out what you’ve read. Hint: We’ve all got computers. We can go and read Wikipedia ourselves if we are interested..
It ain’t what folks know that’s the problem, it’s what they know that ain’t so.”– Josh Billings (1818-85) Cracker barrel wisdom is not of much interest, to be candid.
Have you ever been outside your state?
Nick, I made a simple observation in passing and Midwesterner began obsessing about it. I honestly had no intention of derailing this thread and I apologise that that has happened. I hope people can get it back on.
Then try this one from Stephen Hawking,
Now I know what brings people here – it isn’t that they are libertarian or have a leaning towards libertarianism. They just know that when they are feeling cranky there wil always be someone to have a go at.
But really – arguing about the Mayan calendar takes the biscuit…
I’d appreciate it if folks could stay on topic. I was actually really enjoying this thread and people’s suggestions.
Language, Johnathan. It meets all of their criteria and is by far the most useful invention, ever. Bar none.
Imagine life without nouns.
I definately think the Pea Shooter
should be in there.
I was damn near essential when I was six.
The gobstopper, especially for %%% and @@@.
Has anyone mentioned the screwdriver yet? That’s gotta be a top ten tool.
Or the needle. I’m keeping myself to simple, basic, items. Robert started his thread by positing “the ship”!
Verity: ‘but I do tend to give credence to what academics say about their subject. ‘
– righty-o then. Nuff said about you.
Clothing. Just imagine life without it. Err… In da nort country in winter I mean.
Nick M – I believe the needle came in at No 13 in the original list.
Poor old wannabee joiner-in Midwesterner never stops trying to blague his way out of ignorance: “In da nort country in winter I mean.”
“In da nort country in winter I mean.”
For those of you who missed it: “In da nort country in winter I mean.”
What does this, actually, meeean?
In whose parlance does ‘da nort country’ mean something and why would he think that the rest of us would relate to ‘da nort country’? Is it some American phrase about Wisconsin, referring to Canada, for example? He needs to be more specific as N America is rather a large landmass.
The shops are open.
Why dont you slip into something more comfortable
Like a good mood.
Some of the fringe elements around here are too hostile and permanently pertubé. No wonder women don’t frequent this bar.
Okay, didn’t think I would need to explain this. Even as far south as Wisconsin there is a tendency to slip into a vernacular that drops ‘th’ sounds and replaces them with ‘t’s and ‘d’s. Hence, ‘the’ becomes ‘da’ and ‘north’ becomes ‘nort’. This is due in part to the highly scandinavian ancestries I presume, but a linguist may know otherwise. Generally the farther north you go, the more likely you are to encounter this dialect.
The other humor, was simply that not wearing clothes gets progressively less appealing as the weather gets colder.
And yes, North America is rather large landmass. And it appears to have a rather large windmass to its south right at the moment.
You thought an international audience would instantly latch on to some obscure Wisconsin dialect as it went further north?
No. You thought, for reasons too obscure to be interesting, that you were saying something in English dialect. Claiming a false worldliness.
“Okay, didn’t think I would need to explain this.”
Really? Are you mad? You thought the dialect used around Wisconsin, which is apparently Scandinavian, applied to the Anglosphere – around 2 bn peeps?
Have you ever been out of your home state? Third time of asking.
They stopped on December 31 2012. Maybe they got bored. Maybe a coconut fell on their head. Who knows? But there are no calendars extant after 2012.
-Verity
If my experience with programmers is any guide, I expect they were thinking “Okay, that should last long enough for someone to come up with something better. And if they don’t, by the time it runs out, it’ll be Someone Else’s Problem.”
Time passes and technology advances, but people persist in being people.
Verity,
you really will get into a fight overanything. Remind me never to toss a coin in your presence.
Sorry, I’d forgotten the needle, you clearly hadn’t.
If they were on about the most important tools then why weren’t such remarkable inventions as the printing press considered? Why include the knife and the sword and the scythe as tools, yet omit the plough – surely the most important agricultural tool ever invented?
That list strikes me as though its not awfully well thought out. Including items such as the needle, scale, pot etc seem to be fishing for basics rather than actually considering the overall merit of each item in the grand scheme of the the top 20 list. They inlcude eyeclasses and then follow up with the telescope – surely they could just say ‘the glass magnifier’ which would quite nicely handle eyeglasses, telescopes and microscopes within one context? This cries out for someone to do it better and open to a far wider, and dare I say better educated, audience.
Well, Verity. I avoided this question because it seemed spectacularly OT and irrelevant to the points discussed.
I’m really not sure how this bears on Mayan calendars, but since you seem so determined to find out, here are the states I’ve been to.
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
and of course, our capital
District of Columbia.
I’ve never been to Alaska and Hawaii. And I don’t recall having been to Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington. It’s possible that I’ve been to some of them, I just don’t recall.
This year has been a slow start and I’ve only been in seven states so far, traveling about 2500 miles, interstate.
If it is your intention to make a claim that you have seen more international airport lounges and hotels than I have, you win. If you make the claim that this better qualifies you to get your facts re the Mayan calendar correct, then, “huh?”
I will admit that my ‘international’ travels are limited to the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. I would like to add Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories to the list on a trip to Alaska, but that me be a few more years, yet.
I’ve never been to Mexico, but Mexico has come to us. I have many times been shopping and had to wait for the store clerk to find someone who could speak English.
We all make mistakes. I’ve gotten my facts wrong more than once. All that’s required is a simple ‘Oops. My mistake.’ and life goes on. I don’t see what you hoped to gain by defending a statement so provably wrong. Why don’t you stick to expressing opinions and giving us links to interesting news stories. I always read your opinions and follow your links. They are both generally quite good and always interesting.
I’m done with this absurd and unnecessary line of debate. See you on another thread sometime.
Rosignol, as a past programmer and systems analyst, I’ve seen that often when deadlines approach. But that isn’t what happened here. Verity’s ‘facts’ are just plain wrong. At the very least, at Palenque, the Mayans referenced a date that compares to our October 13, 4772, and at Coba they referenced some astronomically distant date as the end of creation.
Julian Taylor, I got the impression they were looking for things that basically kicked off human progress. Very basic things which quickly became universal and on which we built. That is why I objected to the telescope and eye glasses because neither was key to our development. But I agree with you; the assignment was ill-defined and ragged.
Julian, apparently the list is the product of a committee. It does rather have that look to it.
Fork ‘andles
How could they leave out
Fork ‘andles?
2012 being the end of the current creation according to the Mayans.
2012 London Olympics
2012 Condi v Clinton
(actually I think 2012 is when Hilary, after being in for 4 years finds out all the dirt and dealings of Bush…)
Can we start a list of the top twenty people Verity has pissed off with his/her attitude?
But really – arguing about the Mayan calendar takes the biscuit…
Even more interesting, it gets that biscuit out of the cracker barrel.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Midwesterner – I think the quote should correctly be attributed to Daniel Boorstin, rather than Hawking (who has also said it, but only after Boorstin did). Sorry for straying off-topic.