TECHNOLOGY: TABLE, TRUTHS, TIMELINE, TOP 100
Top 100 Greatest Inventions of All Time
Leo Dean Jansen MD
The book is still in development, still being written. Portions of chapters of the book will be included in the upcoming blogs as they finished.
The working title of the book is: TECHNOLOGY: Table, Truths, Timeline, Top 100.
The book concept has 4 main approaches to the history of technology.
- InventTable – the periodic table of technology. 10 classes of technology on the horizontal axis. 9 time periods on the vertical axis.
- Technology Truths – list of laws, axioms, rules of technology drawn from the analysis of technology history.
- Timeline – 2000 inventions listed chronologically in 9 time periods from the beginning of human existence to the present day.
- Top 100 – list of the 100 greatest inventions of all time organized by importance. Central to the book is the importance of data as the engine which drives the creation of inventions. The eras of technology are defined by data. The 5 dimensions of data helps us understand the unevenness of inventions over time. Data is as important as the energy, machines, materials, and biotechnology combined. Technology surrounds us, shapes us, and increasingly defines us. It answers life’s fundamental questions: What are our human origins? What future lies in the 21st century and beyond? The history of technology provides remarkable insights into where we are and where we are going.The upcoming book, TECHNOLOGY: Table, Truths, Timeline, Top 100 began as an effort to define the greatest inventions in history. Once the list of 2000 inventions was placed in a timeline, the InventTable was used to organize a reduced top 1000 list.The history of technology is incredibly uneven. Large time periods exist, completely void of new inventions. Other periods, often amazingly brief, demonstrate explosions of inventions across all technology classes. And yet, with each generation, the impact of technology is more profound. Some cultures and civilizations produce virtually no technology. Other civilizations produce 10X-100X the number of inventions we would expect. Answers to these technology riddles often lie with the technology and culture itself.Success in our increasingly synthetic world requires the fullest grasp of why things change. As a practicing orthopedic surgeon, I bore witness to vast technological change over 30 years. Changes in arthroscopic procedures, new materials, robotics, and joint replacements have transformed my specialty. I am alive today due to the technology of cardiology. I have an ICD (implantable cardioverter-defibrillator) device which not only monitors but can correct my malignant heart rhythms. This book reflects my love for and debt to technology.
Top 100 inventions of all time
- Control of fire, 35 prehistoric uses of fire, 33 direct and 34 indirect historical Top 100 inventions with fire, 250,000 BCE, Africa
- Written language with cuneiform on clay tablets, hieroglyphics on papyrus, beginning of history, 3500 BCE, Sumer, Mesopotamia, Egypt
- Printing press with movable type on paper, 100 AD, 1450, Cai Luan, Johannes Gutenberg, China/Germany
- Domestication of rice and the 8 founding crops, emmer wheat, eikorn wheat, peas, chick peas, flax, hulled barley, rye, and bitter vetch. 9000 BCE, Mesopotamia/China
- Domestication of herding animals, sheep, goats, cows, pigs. 10,000 BCE, Mesopotamia
- Radio wave technology, instantaneous wireless data transfer, radio, 1895, Guglielmo Marconi, Italy
- Computer 1822, Charles Babbage, UK
- Wheel/axle with horse domestication, 3500 BCE, Mesopotamia/Eurasia steppes
- Sailboat with wooden hull and oars, 3000 BCE, Mesopotamia, Egypt
- Plow with domesticated oxen, 5000-3500 BCE, Mesopotamia
- Smelting bronze and iron, 5000-1800 BCE, Mesopotamia/Turkey
- Insulated copper wire, light bulb filament, electricity, 1824, 1877, Thomas Alva Edison, USA
- Hindu-Arabic numbers, negatives, zero, fractions, decimals, 820 AD, India/Middle East
- Hydraulic engineering, ditches, canals, dikes, canals, dams, aqueducts, wells, 3000 BCE, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India river
- Telephone, instantaneous wired verbal data transmission, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, USA
- Watt steam engine with locomotive, steamboat applications, 1719-1814, James Watt, George Stephenson, Robert Fulton, UK/USA
- Automobile and gas internal combustion engine, 1876, Nicolaus Otto, Karl Benz, Germany
- Vaccination, 1796, Edward Jenner, UK
- Penicillin, 1928, Alexander Fleming, UK
- Black gunpowder with cannon, musket, rifle, pistol, 142-1450, Wei Boyang, China
- Integrated circuit 1958, Jack Kilby, USA
- Glass including: optical lenses, microscope, telescope, eyeglasses. 1600, Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Jansen, Italy/Netherlands
- Hypodermic needle and syringe, all glass, Francis Rynd (1844), Alexander Wood (1851) UK
- Internet, World Wide Web, 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, CERN, UK
- Toilet/Latrine, sanitation engineering, 2500 BCE, 1596, John Harrington, Indus River/UK
- Powered, controlled airplane, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright, USA
- Battery, 1800, Alessandro Volta, Italy
- Steel and steel alloys, stainless/galvanized, 1850, 1913, Henry Bessimer, Harry Brearley, China/UK
- Television, 1945, Philo Farnsworth, John Logie Baird, USA/UK
- Fission power, 1945, Oppenheimer et al., USA
- Timekeeping, mechanical clock, 725 AD, Yi Xing, China
- Rocket and artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, 1957, Werner von Braun, Sergei Korolev et al., Germany/USSR
- Jet engine/jet aircraft/jet boat U.K./Germany/New Zealand
- Ceramics, stoneware, earthenware 25,000 BCE (14,000 BCE pottery China/Japan) Czechoslovakia
- Alphabet, true alphabet with vowels, 725 BCE, Greece
- Photograph/camera, 1826, Nicephore Niepce, Johann Zahn, France
- Motion pictures, motion picture camera, projector, and theater, 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiere, France
- Refrigerator, vapor compression, 1805, Oliver Evans, USA
- LASER, 1958, 1960 Theodore Maiman, Gorden Gould, Charles Hard Townes, Arthur L. Schawlow, USA
- Postal service, 50 AD, Caesar Augustus, Rome
- Carpentry/wood working, 3000 BCE, Egypt
- Woven fiber cloth, rope, silk, cotton, wool, flax, 20,000 BCE, Europe
- Plastics technology, 1863, 1907, Alexander Parkes, John Wesley Hyatt, Leo Baekeland, UK/USA
- Modern steam turbine, 1884, Charles Parsons, USA
- LED, light emitting diode, 1962, Nick Holonyak, Jr., GE, USA
- Nitrogen fixation, Haber-Bosch process, 1918, Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, Germany
- Concrete and reinforced concrete, 6500 BCE, Nabatacea, Middle EastRobot, 1961, George C. Devol, USA
- Computer mouse and graphic user interface, Macintosh, 1984, Douglas Englehart, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, USA
- Pasteurization, germ theory 1863, Louis Pasteur, France
- Air conditioning, 1902, Willis Carrier, USA
- Blood, tissue, organ transplants, 1900, Karl Landsteiner, Austria
- GPS Global Positioning System, 2000 Gladys West, Ivan Getting, Bradford Parkinson, Roger L. Easton, USA
- Soap, 2800 BCE, Sumer, Mesopotamia
- Money, credit card/paper currency/coins, 600 BCE, 1946, John Biggins, Phoenicia, Tang Dynasty, USA/China
- Search engine, Google, 1998, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, USA
- Telegraph, Morse code, 1837, Samuel Morse, USA
- Aluminum, 1825, Charles Martin Hall, USA
- Fiber optics, 1953, Narinder Singh Kapany, UK
- X-ray imaging, computed tomography, 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen, Germany
- Tesla AC induction motor, 1887. Nikola Tesla, USA
- News, later newspaper, Acta Diurna, 50 BCE, 1605, Rome/Germany
- Saddle/stirrups, 300 AD, China
- New World crops, tomato, potato, beans, corn, peppers, 1500, Americas
- Nail, 3400 BCE, Egypt
- Screw, propellar, fan, 250 BCE, 1770, Archimedes, John Ericsson, Francis Pettit Smith, Greece/UK
- Silicon photovoltaic cell, 1954, Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, Gerald Pearson, USA
- Opium domestication, 9000-3500 BCE, West and Central Europe
- Email/text messaging, 1971, Ray Tomlinson, USA
- Water turbine, 1849, James Francis, UK
- Short range wireless radio data transfer, WiFi, Bluetooth, 2000,John O’Sullivan, Jaap Haartsen, Australia/Sweden
- Compass, 1040, China
- Fusion technology, 1956, Edward Teller, USA
- Facebook, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg, USA
- Magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, 1973, Raymond Damadian, Paul Lauterbur, USA
- Medical ultrasound/echocardiography , 1956, Ian Donald, Tom Brown, UK
- Catheter surgery, minimally invasive, 1961, Werner Theodor Otto Forssmann, Germany
- Oxy-acetylene torch welding, 1905, Edmond Fouche, Charles Picard, France
- Safety bicycle, 1885, J.K. Starley, UK
- Petroleum refining, 1840, James Miller Williams, Ontario, Canada
- Amazon, on line shopping, 1994, Jeff Bezos, USA
- Magnetic tape data storage, 1951, Univac/IBM, USA
- Metal wedge (simple machine), knife, sword, axe, chisel, 1800 BCE, Egypt
- Bow and arrow, 70,000 BCE, Africa
- Gears, 350 BCE, 50 AD, Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria, Greece/ Hellenic Egypt
- Touchscreen, gorilla glass lithium silicate, 1975, 1982, George Samuel Hurst, USA
- Robot, Unimate, George C. Devol, 1961, USA
- Psychotropic medications, Prozac, Thorazine, lithium, 1951, Paul Charpentier, France
- Sound recording, phonograph, 1876, Thomas Alva Edison, USA
- Microwave oven, 1945, Percy Spencer, USA
- Rivet, 1915, Charles Ward Hall, USA/UK
- Fermentation of beer and wine, 7000 BCE-10,000 BCE, China/Mesopotamia
- Latex, vulcanized rubber, synthetic latex paint, 1500, 1844, Latin America, Charles Goodyear, USA
- DNA splicing, gene therapy, GMO ‘s, CRISPR – Cas 9, 2001, Jennifer Doudna, USA
- Container shipping, container ship, railroad, trucking, 1956, Malcolm McLean, USA
- YouTube video streaming, 2005, Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, USA
- Randomized controlled clinical trials, 1747, James Lind, UK
- Fiber polymers, polyester, nylon, 1939, W.H. Caruthers, USA/UK
- Julian/Gregorian calendar, 50 BCE, Julius Caesar, Pope Gregory XIII, Rome
- Submarine, 1620, Cornelius Drebbel, Netherlands
- Contraception, birth control pill, 1960, Gregory Goodwin Pincus, USA