• Question: Hello again, what is your faviroute scientific invention of all time? Thank you, Ryan.

    Asked by ryanevans429 to Alice JB, Andy, Barbara, James, Jo on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Barbara Guinn

      Barbara Guinn answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I am afraid very boringly the wheel made a huge impact so is thought to be one of the most important. It meant we could travel by car, train, airplane and could turn the table in a microscope. It was invented in 8,000BC in Asia. Initailly invented as a potter’s wheel (for making clay pots) it was 3,500BC before it was used for moving things.
      However my personal favourite was probably PCR (polymerase chain reaction) invented by Kary Mullis in 1983. It’s a chemical reaction we do in a small tube. It allows us to look at individual genes for changes (comparing genes in cancer and normal cells), it let’s us look at gene expression and has let us sequence the human genome so we know exactly which sequence makes every gene. Pretty cool. Kary received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this invention in 1993.

    • Photo: Andy Norton

      Andy Norton answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Wow – so many options to think about!

      I think that the internet is something which has probably had the biggest and fastest impact on society of all inventions. Things like light bulbs, wheels, electricity etc. will have taken a long time to move from being something that only the rich and powerful could have to something that was readily available to everybody. In only a few decades, the internet has gone from a little known tool for a few people to something that is almost everywhere. And look at the impact it has had on society – can you imagine a time without it? News, information, facts, figures etc. can be found so very quickly now, and it has sped up how society runs so dramatically that you can’t imagine what the world used to be like without it.

      My favourite invention in terms of my research is probably the invention of electron microscopy (microscopes that use electrons to image features rather than light waves) – it has revolutionised how people can look at samples and understand what is going on in the world. There is hardly a paper that I find in ceramics that doesn’t use images from an electron microscopy – it really is very very important for our science.

      How about you, ryanevans429?

    • Photo: Alice Jones Bartoli

      Alice Jones Bartoli answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Hi Ryan,
      This is a really, really, really hard question to answer – i have tons. One of my favourites is the invention of wireless telegraphy, developed by Marconi at the beginning of the 1900’s. Wireless allowed the development of radio, easier communication to ships and across the sea (important for communication to other countries – quite useful if you live on a small island like us) and eventually, communication to outer space and mobile phones.

    • Photo: Jo Hulsmans

      Jo Hulsmans answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      It’s not really an invention, but for me it would be the theory of evolution, it explains everything in biology in a few simple words.

    • Photo: James Jennings

      James Jennings answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      I had already answered this, but i doesn’t seem to have loaded up. Anyway, I’ll repeat my answer!

      My vote is for the computer. As well as being very useful for the internet, it does alot of good for the rest of science too. We can use it to simulate experiments before we actually do tem, in order to try and predict what is going to happen. It can save scientists alot of time! Also, it makes searching for scientific papers very easy for us.

      So much more has become possible thanks to the computer, its a world-changing invention!

Comments