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Mohamed Sayed

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What are the top 10 technological inventions that defined the last 100 years?

During the last 100 years, major inventions were set as milestones defining a decade after another, inspiring the world & leading to the massive technological jump & boosting the technological evolution velocity.

I believe defining these milestones, short list it, put it in the right order & form. would lead us to understand the evolution trends & predict what's next...

What are the top10 technological inventions?

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Topics: Brainstorm Technology innovation invention prediction technology trends
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    Toby Baier

    • +1
    Nov 9 2011: 1. TED conferences ;)

  • jackson mart

    • 0
    Nov 9 2011: 1. Green revolution wheat.
    2. Internet
    3. Genetic Engineering
    4. Internal combustion engine
    5. Antibiotics
    6. Television
    7. Nuclear weapons
    8. ATMs (my favorite)
    9. Computer
    10. Nanotechnologies

  • Robert Galway 20+

    • 0
    Nov 8 2011: Right you are..but both have evolved significantly in the past 100 years. However, I will keep in the spirit of this and pick a couple new events...

    4. Arc welding changed a lot of things

    9. Diesel engine changes a lot of things as well
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    Michael Wolok

    • 0
    Nov 8 2011: I wonder how many people know who invented the television. I wonder how many people care that he got nothing for it, not even people knowing who he is. Does the name Philo Farnsworth ring a bell?
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    Michael Wolok

    • 0
    Nov 8 2011: The vibrator.

    PCR (not to be confused with the PRC) would also be a good candidate.

    I prefer kilometer rocks to milestones.

    Credit Al Gore for the Internet. Seriously. If not for Gore th Internet would still be just a tool of the US military, and US universities. It was Al Gore who sponsored the legislation that created the Internet we know today. Instead of getting credit for having created the Internet, he was ridiculed for it.

  • Sakthi Somanath

    • 0
    Nov 8 2011: 1 Electricity
    2 Antibiotics
    3 Semiconductors/transistors/computers
    4 Imaging technology (ultrasound etc)
    5 Internet/Mobile communications
    6 Gene technology to increase food production
    7 Solar cells/Wind mills
    8 microscope/telescope
    9 Pace maker/Organ transplant
    10 Music players
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      Michael Wolok

      • 0
      Nov 8 2011: The microscope, telescope and windmills were inventing hundreds of years ago.
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    Ehsan Ahmad

    • 0
    Nov 8 2011: I guess first its really hard to find the inventions because of the vast fields of science and getting the right order is almost impossible. One suggestion could be to go for bases of these inventions and try to identify whether the bases are improving and then try to guess what's next. But as we know technology is changing rapidly so as Dr. Robinson said We can't predict even with all our resource...What's Next.

  • Sampath Weerakkodi

    • 0
    Nov 8 2011: GPS
    MOBILE PHONES
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    Fred Lanisake

    • 0
    Nov 8 2011: Alternating current and wireless energy transfer are the top two. Nikola Telsa deserves a statue at the very least.

    Next I'd have to say the transistor, followed by the internet.

    The television was alright I guess.

    The atom bomb.

    "Top" is a bit ambiguous. I'd add central banks and credit cards as game changing... I'm not sure they've left us better off.

    Same goes for the intelligence agency and modern patents.

    The airplane.

    The bong. :)
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    Giusi Storino

    • +2
    Nov 6 2011: 1. insulin
    2. contraceptive pill
    3. chemotherapy
    4. microwave oven
    5. computers and microprocessors
    6. nuclear fission
    7. optical fibres
    8. internet
    9. laser
    10 spaceflight

  • Guy Hardy

    • 0
    Nov 6 2011: Modern public sanitation/water treatment/water purification
    Anticeptics/Antibiotics/anesthesia/various vaccines
    Green Revolution farming
    Electric generator and power distribution/batteries
    Telegragh/telephone
    Electromagnetic transmission of information thru free space
    Nuclear energy
    Steam/combustion/jet engine/car/plane/train
    Exo-atmospheric rocketry/geosynchronous/GPS satellites
    Transistor/digital logic/computers/high level programming languages
    Fiberoptics/lasers/photocell
    Magnetic data storage
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    Steven Toth

    • 0
    Nov 6 2011: telephone, flight, automobiles, internet, nuclear power, credit cards, antibiotics, computers, radio, television
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    Randall Bretz 500+

    • +1
    TED AttendeeTEDx Organizer
    Nov 5 2011: 1. Electricity
    2. Jet engines
    3. Internet
    4. Transistor
    5. Telephone
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    Laurens Rademakers 50+

    • +1
    Nov 2 2011: As a man, I would present technologies that have liberated women. Because as women have become liberated, they have given men more time to themselves too - which in turn has led to great inventions often seen as hard-tech and invented by men. So some technologies that have benefitted women in revolutionary ways:

    1. the birth control pill
    2. plastics (food, kitchen and domestic revolution)
    3. the washing machine
    4. detergents
    5. shipping containers and the way to handle them
    6. nuclear energy
    7. the haber-bosch process for nitrogenous fertilizer
    8. television and soap operas
    9. internet
    10. the V2 rocket

  • Gareth Dawson

    • 0
    Nov 2 2011: In no order
    1)AC electricity
    2) Transistors- used in most devices theses days
    3) combustion engine
    4)penicillin
    5)refrigeration
    6)fertilizers
    7)television
    8)internet
    9)spaceflight
    10)the hamburger
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    Erik Richardson 500+

    • +1
    TEDx Organizer
    Nov 1 2011: There are a lot of great suggestions below. I think there are three that have been overlooked, though, but deserve to be in such a list:
    1. Hubble's telescope which radically exploded our conception of the scale of the cosmos.
    2. The placebo which similarly exploded our conception of what the human mind is capable of achieving.
    3. The Turing Machine - so simple in its conception, but some ridiculously powerful in its import and implications.

  • Dinda Trisnadi

    • +1
    Oct 31 2011: i would say: binary code.

    t is basically bridge that help people communicate with machine. it started digital era with simple idea when the electricity is off (or 0) it means negatif and if on (or 1) it means positif. The idea was then expanded that each letter we wrote in the internet is combinasion of 0 and 1. i would say, binary would be the most essential invention for our digital era. :D
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    Tofig Ahmed 500+

    • +1
    TED AttendeeTED TranslatorTEDx OrganizerAssociate
    Oct 30 2011: 1) Newton's Law
    2) Electricity
    3) Steam engines
    4) Airplanes
    5) Antibiotics
    6) Transistors
    7) Computers
    8) Satellites
    9) Internet
    10) Fiber Optics
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    Jim Moonan 30+

    • 0
    Oct 30 2011: 1. automobiles
    2. airplanes
    3. computer technology
    4. telephone
    5. antibiotics
    6. electricity (not widely useded until earlyy 1900's)
    7. wireless technoology
    8. ATM
    9. Apple technology
    10.internet/Google

  • Betsy Raymond

    • 0
    Oct 30 2011: skyscraper
    inorganic fertilizer
    automobile
    x-ray machine
    airplane
    antibiotics
    vaccines
    atomic bomb
    television
    transistor
    discovery of DNA
    birth control pill
    computer
    internet

  • Amira Makhlouf

    • 0
    Oct 28 2011: Not in any order:
    1 freezers ( food storage capacities have changed the role of women)
    2 computers and all related offshoots...tabs, touch screens, memory sticks etc..
    3 insulin
    4 mamography
    5 nanotechnology
    6 genetic engineering
    7genome project
    8 credit cards
    9 lasers
    10 deodrants
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    Jak Xenon

    • +1
    Oct 28 2011: 1 & 2 Computer and Internet (not sure which order)
    3. video capture
    4. wireless electricity/data
    5. Nuclear power
    6. human genome
    7. space flight
    8. modern aircraft (helicopters, Jets)
    9. Mobile phone
    10. multi-touch screen
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    Fred Blum

    • +2
    Oct 27 2011: In no particular order:
    1. Green revolution wheat.
    2. Internet
    3. Genetic Engineering
    4. Internal combustion engine
    5. Antibiotics
    6. Television
    7. Nuclear weapons
    8. ATMs (my favorite)
    9. Computer
    10. Nanotechnologies
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    Pradee Happy

    • +1
    Oct 27 2011: my 10>
    Computer
    Internet
    Mobile Phone
    regenerative medicine and gentic engineering
    Visual effects in Media
    Quatum theory
    Microscopes,Telescopes
    Flying machines like Air plane
    TV&Radio
    Alternative energies like Solar, Wind, Nuclear,etc
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    Sergii Romankov

    • +1
    TED Translator
    Oct 27 2011: 1. Space flight
    2. Microelectronics
    3. Human Genome
    4. Antibiotics
    5. Theory of relativity
    6. Internet
    7. Rock Music
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