Totally absurd question for the denizens of the DU Science forum.

[Skinner]

And even though I recognize that it is absurd, I'm going to ask it anyway.

In your opinion, what is the single greatest scientific discovery/theory/insight/breakthrough of all time?

For the purposes of this exercise, I am not going to define "greatest." You can define it however you wish: What has had the greatest impact, or what was the most ingenious, or what was the most audacious, or what fills you personally with the greatest sense of awe, or whatever.

[Redneck Socialist]

1. Sliced bread

Sorry, somebody had to say it. :evilgrin:

[phantom power]

2. the invention of numbers and counting

[icymist]

57. Add to that the invention of the zero.

Invented in Ancient Persia was it not? Ironic!

[Deep13]

3. The idea that we can learn how the world works by observing it.

This is the foundation of science and seperates modern science from thought-only natural philosophy as espoused by Aristole and his crowd.

[trotsky]

4. I've thought about that a lot.

And it's not absurd at all. Near the turn of the millenium, there was a show something like "The Greatest Inventions of the 20th Century". I think they ranked the microchip #1.

Personally, in terms of its impact, I'd go with refrigeration. Not only has it allowed people to eat better, ship and keep food longer, but it has saved lives by allowing medicines and vaccines to be preserved better as well. Plus being able to crank up the old A/C on a hot day, well, hard to beat that!

[MindPilot]

5. The basic machines: lever and wheel

[Salviati]

6. Maxwell's equations

The application of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism lie at the heart of modern technology, and the theory itself set the focus for both reletivity and the modern quest for the unification of all the forces.

[phillinweird247]

7. The wheel is pretty cool

The wheel is turning
and you cant slow down
you can't let go
and you can't hold on

[kevsand]

15. You can't go back, and you can't stand still.

If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will.

[DrGonzoLives]

8. Nacho cheese

But seriously, the ideal gas law, PV=nRT.

[Celebration]

9. numbers and counting YES

I will go into a little greater specificity and say the use of Arabic numbers, and the use and inclusion of zero as a number, and the use of negative numbers.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

10. The Human Genome Project (analysis still in progress)

IMHO there is tremendous potential for breakthroughs into disease and basic understanding of the human body.

[donco6]

11. Experimentation

Up until the Renaissance, science was taught Socratically - that is, by logic and deduction. With Galileo and others, experimentation and observation of actual results took hold, and modern science was born.

That's my opinion anyway.

[hunter]

18. "The Scientific Method"

1. Observation
2. Hypothesis
3. Prediction
4. Experiment

It's not boring if it's taught correctly...

[kevsand]

12. Um, how about fire...? /nt

[Deep13]

21. You didn't say "ready, aim!"

Ah! The Promethean mystery of fire: protector, illuminator, giver of heat, maker of metal, teacher, friend x( ow! Goddamnit! That's pretty fucking hot! Where's the goddamn Neosporin? Reminder to self, don't hug the fire.

[OneBlueSky]

13. The Clapper . . . "Clap on. Clap off." . . . just ask Rosanne . . . n/t

.

[BillZBubb]

14. No way is this an absurd question. I've got four things:

1: We could make fire whenever we needed it.
2: We could make tools/shelter/clothing out of available materials to accomplish more.
3: We could plant seeds from wild plants ourselves and guarantee a source of food.
4: The Wheel.

I'm defining "greatest" as having the largest impact on society.

I think the discovery of how to make fire has to be at the top, or at least very near the top. Without that, we have no civilization. Perhaps it was inevitable that such a discovery would be stumbled upon without any real scientific effort, but it still is a huge moment in human development.

[Desertrose]

16. For me..a toss up between the telescope and the microscope

First, someone had to have the curiousity to ask the question..."is there more that we cannot see" to create these things in the first place.

and second because it (telescope) ultimately ( after many steps of course) led to space travel and all that we have discovered along the way...

and the microscope because of the knowledge of human physiology (animals & plants too) and all the advances that have come from imagining there is more than what we can see with the naked eye....

Greatest impact...thats a tough one....but they both led us to focus on the micro & the macro, didn't they?? Thats pretty cool. :)

[Kraklen]

17. the development of peer-reviewed journalism.

I suspect that's self explanatory.

[Ian David]

19. First Place- Synthetic fertilizer. 2nd- Fire. 3rd- The Wheel. 4th- Radio

Encyclopedia: Justus von Liebig

Freiherr Justus von Liebig (May 12, 1803 in Darmstadt, Germany - April 18, 1873 in Munich, Germany) was a German chemist. He made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and worked on the organization of organic chemistry.

He was expelled from his Gymnasium for detonating an explosive device he had made at home from chemicals obtained from his father's business. He was apprenticed to an apothecary in Heppenheim.

Liebig studied at the University of Bonn, together with Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner. When Kastner moved to the University of Erlangen, Liebig accompanied him and received his doctorate there in 1822. He then received a grant from the Hessian government to study in Paris. Through the influence of Alexander von Humboldt he was able to work in the private laboratory of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac.

In 1824 at the age of 21, he became professor at the University of Giessen. He was a professor at the University of Munich from 1852 to 1873. He became Freiherr (baron) in 1845. Liebig improved organic analysis, and discovered that plants feed on the nitrogen (actually microbes do the conversions to nitrogen componds) and carbon dioxide in the air, as well as on minerals in the soil. One of his most famous accomplishments was the invention of nitrogen-based fertilizer. He was also one of the first chemists to organize a laboratory as we know it today. The vapor condensation device he invented for his research is still known as a "liebig condenser"

In 1865 he founded the Liebig Extract of Meat Company which produced beef extract, an innovation of his, as a cheap, nutricious alternative to real meat.

The University of Giessen today is officially named after him, Justus Liebig University Giessen.

More:
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Justus-von-Liebig




Also:


Justus Liebig, whose name was given to the Giessen university after the second world war, taught here from 1824 to 1852 as professor of chemistry. In the rooms of his former institute a museum was opened in 1920. It is one of the six most important chemistry museums in the world*) and a historical of highest value, because it is here where the most important german chemist laid the experimental foundations for his influential innovations.

The most important of these innovations are:

* The development of an improved method of elementary analysis (40 times faster than before)
* The development of the theory of radicals in collaboration with Friedrich Wöhler
* The foundation of agricultural chemistry (development of the theory of mineral nutrients)

The consequence of these and Liebig's other discoveries was that major aspects of the development of modern scientific and technical chemistry as well as biochemistry started in this little institute in Giessen.

The application of the theory of mineral nutrients led to the systematic development of mineral fertilizer and more than doubled agricultural food production. As a matter of fact without this fertilizer the earth could provide good nutrition only for about one and a half billion people. Today there are already nearly six billion people and theoretically they all could get 3000 kcal per day only from the current grain production. "No other person has given so many people the possibility to live" said Prof. Theodor Heuss, a former german president in 1953. Nowadays we are realizing that Liebig's directives are of great importance for our future. He propagated the sparing use of mineral nutrients (Liebig's minimum law) and he stressed the need for a consistent recycling of those nutrients more than 150 years ago. He considered thereby already what we now call "alternative" agriculture as the long-term solution to the problem of feeding the world population, when nutrients mineral deposits can no longer be mined.

More:
http://www.liebig-museum.de/home1.html

[rman]

20. Theories of Relativity and Quantum Electro Dynamics

Because those two encompass all that can be observed and understood in some form.
There are some things that are observed and not understood, but those are outside the realm of any well established theory.

[beam me up scottie]

22. How to make fire. n/t

[DemExpat]

23. My thoughts go to the discovery of the world being round and

circling the Sun, not that everything revolved around the earth.

Simple hygiene too.

DemEx

[Tummler]

24. Agriculture

That is, the domestication of plants and animals.

Agriculture is the basis of civilization. Without agriculture, you'd have no permanent human settlements of any size. Without permanent settlements, you'd have little to no science, technology, art, writing, etc. To wit, nomadic peoples have lived in essentially the same manner for thousands of years, with virtually all of their new technology being introduced from the outside world. Their lifestyle is a relic of prehistoric times.

There's a great episode of the old Jacob Bronowski series "The Ascent of Man" about the discovery of agriculture. Oddly enough, it was discovered independently at least twice -- once in the Old World (about 10,000 years ago?) and once in the New. It amazes me that this most critical of discoveries was made only ~300 human generations ago!

My first runner-up: written language. It's another predicate for advanced civilization (science, literature, etc.), though not quite as important as the securing of a steady food supply.

[Boomer]

45. Agriculture by a mile

Without agriculture, which can sustain large numbers of people, there would be no "leisure" time for pursuits beyond finding enough food to eat and no stable settlement to build more complex, resource-intensive tools like ovens and forges and enclosed areas in which to keep domesticated animals.

The earth would probably be a much more pleasant place if humans hadn't developed argiculture, but it's undoubtedly our greatest leap forward on the path we're still walking.

[htuttle]

25. I gotta agree with the 'Fire' answers

Toolmaking, agriculture, language -- you can find animal species that do all those things to one extent or another. And the Wheel? That's really just another tool (and you could argue that slime mold use a 'wheel' by forming it/themselves into a log and rolling somewhere).

But controlling and harnessing fire? That's all ours, and it leveled the playing field against predators. It also allowed cooked meat and food, which allowed shorter intestines (and therefore larger brains).

Fire is it.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

26. Speed of light as a constant, by Einstein

And following through to the logical consequence (distortion of space and time).

Honorable mention:

- Calculus (devised independently by Newton & Leibniz)
- Evolution through mutation & natural selection (Darwin)
- The universal algorithmic machine (Alan Turing)

[BurtWorm]

27. Natural Selection as the mechanism for evolution

The radical effect of Origin of the Species was to render science godless, to separate it once and for all from theology, and, thereby, to demystify and democratize it.

[benburch]

28. The electricity distribution system.

Courtesy of Nikola Tesla and Charles Proteus Steinmetz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Steinmetz

The modern world could not do without their inventions. Edison had part of the solution, but his DC distribution system required a powerhouse in every powered neighborhood, and you could not send low voltage DC long distances (from a distant dam, for example) without huge losses. High voltage DC would have had to be converted to a lower voltage where used by a Motor-generator set, and that has losses all its own.

[Up2Late]

74. I Agree, without this one, this conversation would not be possible

[Igel]

29. Ouch.

I'd go with the predecessor of the scientific method: the idea that things can be observed and reliable predictions made, i.e., that not every event requires a special dispensation or intervention by a diety. Without that insight, everything's caprice, no further intervention is necessary and no further insight is likely.

Agriculture's not a necessary precondition for that, but without a sufficient food supply, it's hard to get people that are far enough away from the caprice that "nature" (or any sufficiently complex system) seems to exhibit to sit back and ponder. But the same can be said for fire and stone knapping.

[bemildred]

30. Occam's Razor. nt

[Ediacara]

31. Mendelian genetics

This is the lynchpin that makes evolution make sense, and without evolution, modern medicine (and biology and paleontology and geology) doesn't work or make any sense.

[Maple]

32. Gunpowder

[SteppingRazor]

33. Agriculture

Without moving from a hunter/gatherer, nomadic culture to one based in staying in one place and forming a society, life as we know it would not exist. The discovery of farming is, very indirectly mind you, responsible for everything from space flight to quantum physics.

[Pepperbelly]

34. the Written Word is the basis for ALL of our knowledge...

When we developed the written word, we developed the means to transcend our own mortality and enable the single most significant scientific method ever devised: the ability to stand on the shoulders of experience from before. The ability to stand of the shoulders of giants.

Or duct tape.

:shrug:

[Astarho]

36. I'd have to agree with that

The written word, preserving the words and deeds of people who died long ago. We would not be having this conversation without it.

Although, Duct tape is damn useful too (you can even write on it)

:hi:

[htuttle]

42. Ever heard of Korzybski's 'Time Binding' theories?

http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/pennvalley/biology/lewis/ethics.htm

He devised the field of General Semantics, but the reason he seems to have done so was to further explore and understand the effects of language on human evolution.

In his view (as I understand it), humans are not 'mere animals' nor are they 'errant god-children', but rather animals with a unique ability to 'bind time'. His books sketch out the idea the the plant kingdom binds 'energy' (sunlight), the animal kingdom binds 'space' (ie., territory), and the human realm binds 'time', as in being able to pass ideas down through time.

Since his work, other species have been discovered to bind time in at least some degree. Certain specific whale songs, for example, are known to modify slightly over time and generations of whales, suggesting that some songs may actually be oral histories of some kind. However, that only means that we may not be the only time-binders on the planet.

In any case, his theory of 'time-binding' is close to what you are describing.

[arwalden]

46. The "BASIS" for ALL of our knowledge?? Really?!

[Pepperbelly]

47. Yep ...

otherwise it would be all oral tradition.

Try passing on technical information that way. Try remembering what has come before. Our advancements are purely the product of standing on the shoulders of giants.

[arwalden]

48. Oh, you exaggerate.

[Pepperbelly]

49. then tell us something more essential to science than

this?

And then tell us how you would have ever known of it or how it could have been developed without earlier developments?

[arwalden]

52. I Have Not Said That It Was Unimportant or Not "Essential"

I said that you exaggerate its importance. I do not agree with your assertion that written language is the *basis* for *all* knowledge.

<< "then tell us something more essential to science than" >>

That's a bit of a departure from the original question.

PS: Written language is also "essential" for passing along superstitions too.

[Pepperbelly]

53. no reason to even respond to this ...

my original post still hasn't been refuted. A snark does not invalidation make.

[arwalden]

55. Oh, Brother.

<< A snark does not invalidation make.>>

And like Yoda talking, does not for reasoned argument substitute.

<< my original post still hasn't been refuted.>>

Of course it has. It's absurd to make a sweeping categorical statement like the one in your OP. You choose to ignore it rather than to acknowledge it or address it directly. That fact alone pretty much speaks for itself.

A more accurate statement would be "your original post still hasn't been proved".

You asserted that written language is the BASIS for *ALL* knowledge. That's simply untrue. It's an exaggeration.

Rather than admitting it, you attempt to re-frame the discussion by telling me that written language is "essential". Well, that's all well and good, but that wasn't what you originally said. And by acting as though I've denied the importance of written language, you're not being entirely honest.

When I point out what you're doing, your response is "no reason to even respond to this..." --- Huh? :shrug: That makes no logical sense, but I can certainly understand why you'd want to be so evasive and non-responsive.

-- arwalden

PS: Wouldn't spoken language and written language be better categorized as being "social" rather than "scientific"? The original question did ask what about the "single greatest scientific discovery/theory/insight/breakthrough of all time".

[greyl]

71. Look at the multitude of cultures that exist today without writing

but that are still aware of scientific knowledge (particular to their lifestyle) and it becomes clear that writing isn't necessary for human societies to retain and pass down knowledge.

[Pepperbelly]

75. Which ones?

Just curious. Which cultures exist without writing that show an ability to not only retain scientific knowledge from the past but to a level sufficient to allow the work to act as the foundation for more?

[greyl]

70. agriculture developed before writing

Wouldn't that mean that something else is the basis for all of our knowledge? (if there is a single basis, that is)

Written language used to be the basis for our culture's knowledge about itself, but paleantology thankfully allowed us the awareness of "pre-history" or pre written language. Before that happened, our culture logically but incorrectly assumed man appeared on this earth as farmers.

[Pepperbelly]

76. Remember the original question ...

And I stand by my response. The existence of agriculture in a pre-historic society in no way shows an ability to not only retain but advance based on the retention. So Og's dad Wog shows little Og how to used a stick to carve a furrow, drop seeds in and recover them. He might even have shown him how to water them, cultivate them and top them.

He also showed him how to make sacrifices to Great Zog who assures that all of the plants will come up, mature, and that the sun will rise tomorrow and that it will come back after Dec. 21.

No, I do not think that agriculture invalidates my initial position.

[NNadir]

35. Not a forum denizen, but Newton's Three Laws are the greatest, hands down.

It seems that not much is explicable without appeal to these laws.

[muriel_volestrangler]

58. I second that

The first great ideas to come from the age when you can call what people did 'science'. They are the basis of all physics, and civil and mechanical engineering, and you wouldn't have the industrial revolution without them.

[Nevernose]

37. Language (basic atomic theory, geometry, agriculture)

The building blocks of matter and the building blocks of, well, buildings. Agriculture of course was a greast advancement, but civilization still needed a basic understanding of geometry to flourish; otherwise, how would they have actually built the cities they needed to provide a focus for centralized agriculture.

Okay, so language wasn't exactly "discovered" as much as evolved, but it dis provide the key to sapiency. And these days, linguistics/etymology are key to fields as diverse as psychology and archaeology.

[Zorbuddha]

38. Quantum Mechanics

Because it is simultaneously definitive and irrational, sublime and a mind-fuck...and it opens up scientific inquiry into aspects of reality previously relegated to magical thinking.

[moggie]

56. QM, definitive?

Without gravity? QM is a stupendous achievement, but as long as it doesn't incorporate the fourth force, it's incomplete. I hope string theory manages to unite QM and general relativity, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Caution]

39. The use of tools

When human beings began to use tools their development began to take massive leaps forward. From the use of tools came the ability to harness fire, the ability to conquer one's environment, the ability to develop the written word.

[Tesha]

40. Evolution through natural selection.

And it has applications far beyond simple bio-sciences.

Tesha

[HeeBGBz]

41. Velcro

Gotta love it.

[evermind]

43. The stored program, and incompleteness, get my vote

The notion of the stored program, the trick of treating data as a program, contained in Turing's attack on the foundations of mathematics via the universal computer, marks the start of the modern information revolution, which I think is the most scientifically, economically, and socially significant development since the beginning of science proper. The transformation being wrought as a result is only starting to get going and one can only hope we last long enough to see where it can take us.

It's worth remembering that the idea was originally brought into service by Turing in the attempt to show the limits of mathematical reasoning and that there exist truths that remain beyond formal proof for any given formal system.

(On edit: If we include inventions from before the start science proper, with the conjunction of mathematical reasoning and experimental method at the turn of the 17th century, then the obvious candidate is language.)

[arwalden]

44. The Germ Theory Of Disease

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease

[Pepperbelly]

50. How would Louis have done this without ...

Leeuwenhoek?

[Celebration]

51. Or Semmelweis

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi622.htm

Ah, such is the fate of the brave soul who introduces a practical and useful method which is inexplicable by the prevailing scientific theory.

Semmelweis is a Hungarian doctor teaching medicine in Vienna. He notices that students move between the dissection room and the delivery room without washing their hands. On a hunch, he sets up a policy. Doctors must wash their hands in a chlorine solution when they leave the cadavers. Mortality from puerperal fever promptly drops to two percent.

Now things grow strange. Instead of reporting his success at a meeting, Semmelweis says nothing. Finally, a friend publishes two papers on the method. By now, Semmelweis has started washing medical instruments as well as hands.

As outside interest grows, we begin to understand Semmelweis's silence. The hospital director feels his leadership has been criticized. He's furious. He blocks Semmelweis's promotion. The situation gets worse. Viennese doctors turn on this Hungarian immigrant.

[lazarus]

54. The number zero

While it appeared almost randomly for centuries, it took the Greeks, then the Indians, to truly bring zero into its own.

Yes, I consider this scientific, since math is, if nothing else, the language of science.

Imagine trying to do the high-level calculations required these days with a zero. Before the zero came along, a punctuation mark was used. So, instead of two thousand one hundred and four being written 2104, or 2,104, it would be written 21"4. Yikes! Numbers were much more contextual then.

The Indian mathemeticians Brahmagupta, Mahavira and Bhaskara were the first to really come to grips with zero as a number, figuring out how it worked in equations as something more than a placeholder.

(The Mayans came up with it, too, but just as a placeholder.)

[Beetwasher]

63. Yeah, It Really Sucked Before Zero

You always had to get at least one of EVERYTHING!!! Where would you put it all?

[lazarus]

66. hee!

:hi:

[FormerDittoHead]

59. The wedge.

The sharp edge of a rock used for slicing and chopping.



When hominids figured out how to slice meat and chop things up, it no longer required their jaws to be so big and muscular, making room for more brain.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs

Now if only we could do that again!!!

[Dogmudgeon]

60. Fundamental logic that opposed intuition

Or, the ability to make observations that led to counterintuitive conclusions.

This probably happened before the beginning of written language, and possibly also spoken language. If it was related to a particular brain development, it would have started around 100 kYA, when Homo Sapiens became establishes as a separate species.

It is also possible that this faculty, and a number of others, were also present among Erects, Habilines, Heidelbergenes and Neanderthals. But any way it happened, the ability to transcend one's senses and intuitions marked the first big jump from beasthood to humanity.

--p!

[evermind]

61. Seems like a difficult one to get started.. If you didn't have

fundamental logic that opposed intuition, how would you recognise the value of it? By intuition? ;-)

[Dogmudgeon]

62. That was the big problem!

The value of rejecting one's intuitions can only be appreciated by evaluating outcomes. Rejecting a "pretty" food and staying healthy when half the members of your group are sick and feverish is one use for this contrarian logic.

You could also call it trusting cognition over intuition.

Intuition is a very powerful form of knowlege, but it only acts as a kind of rudder; it's largely ineffective for coming to the conclusion of a question. Most of the world-changing explorers in science, and in any other discipline, have used each of these methods.

Early herbalists surely used both methods. They would use intuition to figure out which plants caused changes in people's and in animals' behavior and health; actual testing allowed them to discover the relative risks and benefits of individual herbs. Only after herbalists developed "philosophies" of medicine did they reject their own discoveries to make their materia medica conform to their preconceived notions instead of their sufferers' realities.

Knowlege is a complex pursuit, and its first big advance was in discovering that there were at least two fundamental ways of evaluating a situation. There may be plenty more -- but it always comes down to discovering what's really going on, as opposed to what may simply appear to be.

--p!

[northzax]

64. underwear.

you know how annoying life would be without it?

seriously, I'd go with the concept of work. That one can use the three simple machines to multiply force. Without that, there is nothing, even fire.

For the modern time, there are three. biologically, the Germ Theory of disease, which led to pasteurisation, vaccination and anti-biotics.

Physically, Rutherford's Atom. which led to everything from computing to nuclear power to modern chemistry and physics.

Theoretically: relativity.

[anarch]

65. I'm gonna go with the "atomic theory"

since it lays the foundation for understanding all sorts of phenomena - thermodynamics, electrodynamics, everything involved in chemistry. If you don't understand the world as being composed of atoms, you can't really get to all that other stuff.

[AndyP]

67. Medicine, specifically antibiotics

If you think on terms of "impact on society" I think saving people's lives is number one.

[greyl]

68. Predicting the future by reading traces of the past.

No other species can do that. (edit: and is central to the idea of the scientific method /edit)
It evolved hand in hand with tracking game and gave the urge for storytelling.

Honorable mention to creating fires. Can you imagine the effects of Gorillas learning how to make fire today?

[GOPFighter]

69. Words! and the development of language(s)

...without words and language, concepts that couldn't be demonstrated could have never been described and passed on to others.

[sakabatou]

72. The abacus

[renter]

73. Liberalism.

[GOPFighter]

77. So, Skinner....

...who's the winner of the highly prized DU T-shirt for the best answer?