What is your favorite invention and why?

Answer 1

Everyone will have different "favorite inventions" and different reasons for liking them. Other contributors can add to this list:

• Though not technically an invention, I'm glad men learned how to quarry rocks and cut stones which they used to cover the first muddy roads. I appreciate the discovery of oil and the invention of asphalt much later. I like that men learned these things because even through the 1800s, people only had muddy tracks to walk on or ride their horses on. The National Pike was originally just a one lane dirt path. On that path, farmers drove cattle, sheep, hogs, horses, and even chickens to the next town for shipment on rivers. Animal feces littered the trail, and when it rained, it became a rutted, muddy track that even horses and horse-wagon had trouble traveling. People still walked back then-- up to 10-20 miles or more on foot. It had to have been very difficult just to walk to a neighbor's farm or to church.
• .
• I think back to an 1830s log cabin. They did not have glass for windows so they built wood shutters to close over the hole in the wall. It still let in cold air and insects. I think the discovery of how to heat natural minerals and make glass should be celebrated every day we see glass in houses, cars, drinking glasses, and even the original glass spectacles.
• .

• I have never ridden on an old train, but the steam engine and railroad let people migrate easier, and allowed shipment of products to rivers where they could be shipped down-river. Without the railroad, people would have lingered longer in eastern states.
• .
• I'm glad Mr. Drake invented the first oil derrick. American Indians long knew about "black gold"--oil-- because puddles laid on the ground in places. They used that oil for a host of reasons, including to heal the skin. But Mr. Drake's oil derrick allowed thousands of barrels a day to be pumped from underground. For a time, many men became prosperous, but its lasting effect is that petroleum products are used in a variety of products-- from Vaseline (petroleum jelly) to car tires to plastic dishes/containers.
• .
• Next must be the automobile! Walking is good exercise, but the auto gave people freedom of movement.
• .
• Electricity! Gas lights came first, but they could be dangerous. Electric lights made "day" longer to work and enjoy life. Our ancestors used to have to make their own candles before the first gaslights! We've come a long way in a relatively short time!
• .
• Pipes (big round underground pipes)! and Dams! If men had not invented a way to store up water and a way for water to travel from a source (a dam usually) to our homes, we'd still be going down to the creek to bathe and fetch water.
• .
• The flushable toilet must be on this list. From out-houses to "water closets" to a fully functioning indoor toilet must have made people shout for joy! Remember, many rural families still had outhouses up through the 1930s! Outhouses' contents had to either be dug out, or the outhouse moved every few years. The stench in an outhouse was overwhelming-- my great-grandma had a 3-seater. But with the contents uncovered when moving the outhouse made such a smell that covered a whole neighborhood!
• .
• Yes, I bet you think the computer should be on this list. But before the mainframe and home PC, there were inventions like The Telegraph, The Telephone, The Radio (with glass tubes inside), and The Television (with glass tubes and copper wound transformer inside). Without earlier inventions, the computer age would never have happened!

Please try to place other inventions into chronological order in the list above.