Greatest Invention ever?

[Claireliontamer]

I'm watching a TV show about Britain's greatest inventions, the seven they have picked are:

1. Antibiotics
2. Television
3. Steam Engine
4. Concrete
5. Mobile Phone
6. Fridge
7. Jet engine

Which invention do you think has changed the world the most (doesn't have to be one from the list)?

For me I think the one from the list has to be antibiotics as they have saved millions of lives.  However I have to have a vote also for the Internet, I think that has changed modern life like nothing else.

[Tank]

The lens for me. It was the invention that underpins all others. It opened the human mind to the worlds beyond our own and within our own. From the microbe to the universe the lens showed humanity they were nothing special while at the same time unique in al we can see.

[Davin]

I think that the printing press helped with spreading knowledge (and even lies), faster and more consistently and also made knowledge available to those with less means.

Also, I quite like fiction and science fiction books.

[xSilverPhinx]

I'm going with an ancient invention: writing.

[No one]

Sliced bread, or maybe the wheel.

[Dave]

I have seen this sort of question before. I do not think it is possible to say that any of the "great inventions" has veen more important than the others. They all form part of an interdependant web, they almost all have a "down side" (yes, even antibiotics and other life-saving medical breakthroughs, if you save millions you need to develop a parallel way of feeding, housing and maintaining those extra millions). I should have died about twenty years ago, in my father's time at the same age I would have done. Now, through some incredible medical science I live but also I risk being a burden on a failing financial system, too many ailing geriatrics for the families or tax payers to support.

Computers and the Web/Internet are great, but now server farms and data storage consumes increasingly, and noticeably, larger amounts of some nations' energy output every day.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warming-data-centres-to-consume-three-times-as-much-energy-in-next-decade-experts-warn-a6830086.html

[Dave]

Sliced bread, or maybe the wheel.

Chances are that the wheel was never actually "invented". Just sort of develooed from a log used as a roller over several evolutions.

[jumbojak]

The back scratcher.

[No one]

god

[Dave]

god

"Greatest invention"?

Or "Greatest Con-trick"?

[Sandra Craft]

I'd go with the Fridge.  Extended shelf life for food -- aces.

[Ali]

I'm super fond of phone charging cords that can be plugged into wall plugs, computers, and car adapters. All with one cord! What a world.

[xSilverPhinx]

I'm super fond of phone charging cords that can be plugged into wall plugs, computers, and car adapters. All with one cord! What a world.

Sigh. I have yet to see such a wonder.

[hermes2015]

In terms of advancing our knowledge of the world: the lens.
Improving our daily lives: antibiotics.

[Dave]

I'm super fond of phone charging cords that can be plugged into wall plugs, computers, and car adapters. All with one cord! What a world.

You mean the good old USB cable, Ali? Yeah, I remember the dsys when I had a different charger for each telephone, camera, tablet or whatever. Had to sort through a drawerful of power lumps looking at the labels I had stuck on them to get the right one! Now its two chargers plugged in, two different USB plugs, that serve all but one of my technology things.