Excerpts and Excursions: The 50 Top Innovations Since the Wheel

James Fallows, November, 2013

The List

The Atlantic asked a dozen scientists, historians, and technologists to rank the top innovations since the wheel. Here are the results.

1. The printing press, 1430s

The printing press was nominated by 10 of our 12 panelists, five of whom ranked it in their top three. Dyson described its invention as the turning point at which “knowledge began freely replicating and quickly assumed a life of its own.”

2. Electricity, late 19th century

And then there was light—and Nos. 4, 9, 16, 24, 28, 44, 45, and most of the rest of modern life.

3. Penicillin, 1928

Accidentally discovered in 1928, though antibiotics were not widely distributed until after World War II, when they became the silver bullet for any number of formerly deadly diseases

4. Semiconductor electronics, mid-20th century

The physical foundation of the virtual world

5. Optical lenses, 13th century

Refracting light through glass is one of those simple ideas that took a mysteriously long time to catch on. “The Romans had a glass industry, and there’s even a passage in Seneca about the optical effects of a glass bowl of water,” says Mokyr. But it was centuries before the invention of eyeglasses dramatically raised the collective human IQ, and eventually led to the creation of the microscope and the telescope.

6. Paper, second century

“The idea of stamping images is natural if you have paper, but until then, it’s economically unaffordable.” — Charles C. Mann

7. The internal combustion engine, late 19th century

Turned air and fuel into power, eventually replacing the steam engine (No. 10)

8. Vaccination, 1796

The British doctor Edward Jenner used the cowpox virus to protect against smallpox in 1796, but it wasn’t until Louis Pasteur developed a rabies vaccine in 1885 that medicine—and government—began to accept the idea that making someone sick could prevent further sickness.

9. The Internet, 1960s

The infrastructure of the digital age

10. The steam engine, 1712

Powered the factories, trains, and ships that drove the Industrial Revolution

11. Nitrogen fixation, 1918

The German chemist Fritz Haber, also the father of chemical weapons, won a Nobel Prize for his development of the ammonia-synthesis process, which was used to create a new class of fertilizers central to the green revolution (No. 22).

12. Sanitation systems, mid-19th century

A major reason we live 40 years longer than we did in 1880 (see “Die Another Day”)

13. Refrigeration, 1850s

“Discovering how to make cold would change the way we eat—and live—almost as profoundly as discovering how to cook.” —George Dyson

14. Gunpowder, 10th century

Outsourced killing to a machine

15. The airplane, 1903

Transformed travel, warfare, and our view of the world (see No. 40)

16. The personal computer, 1970s

Like the lever (No. 48) and the abacus (No. 43), it augmented human capabilities.

17. The compass, 12th century

Oriented us, even at sea

18. The automobile, late 19th century

Transformed daily life, our culture, and our landscape

19. Industrial steelmaking, 1850s

Mass-produced steel, made possible by a method known as the Bessemer process, became the basis of modern industry.

20. The pill, 1960

Launched a social revolution

21. Nuclear fission, 1939

Gave humans new power for destruction, and creation

22. The green revolution, mid-20th century

Combining technologies like synthetic fertilizers (No. 11) and scientific plant breeding (No. 38) hugely increased the world’s food output. Norman Borlaug, the agricultural economist who devised this approach, has been credited with saving more than 1 billion people from starvation.

23. The sextant, 1757

It made maps out of stars.

24. The telephone, 1876

Allowed our voices to travel

25. Alphabetization, first millennium b.c.

Made knowledge accessible and searchable—and may have contributed to the rise of societies that used phonetic letters over those that used ideographic ones

26. The telegraph, 1837

Before it, Joel Mokyr says, “information could move no faster than a man on horseback.”

27. The mechanized clock, 15th century

It quantified time.

28. Radio, 1906

The first demonstration of electronic mass media’s power to spread ideas and homogenize culture

29. Photography, early 19th century

Changed journalism, art, culture, and how we see ourselves

30. The moldboard plow, 18th century

The first plow that not only dug soil up but turned it over, allowing for the cultivation of harder ground. Without it, agriculture as we know it would not exist in northern Europe or the American Midwest.

31. Archimedes’ screw, third century b.c.

The Greek scientist is believed to have designed one of the first water pumps, a rotating corkscrew that pushed water up a tube. It transformed irrigation and remains in use today at many sewage-treatment plants.

32. The cotton gin, 1793

Institutionalized the cotton industry—and slavery—in the American South

33. Pasteurization, 1863

One of the first practical applications of Louis Pasteur’s germ theory, this method for using heat to sterilize wine, beer, and milk is widely considered to be one of history’s most effective public-health interventions.

34. The Gregorian calendar, 1582

Debugged the Julian calendar, jumping ahead 10 days to synchronize the world with the seasons

35. Oil refining, mid-19th century

Without it, oil drilling (No. 39) would be pointless.

36. The steam turbine, 1884

A less heralded cousin of steam engines (No. 10), turbines are the backbone of today’s energy infrastructure: they generate 80 percent of the world’s power.

37. Cement, first millennium b.c.

The foundation of civilization. Literally.

38. Scientific plant breeding, 1920s

Humans have been manipulating plant species for nearly as long as we’ve grown them, but it wasn’t until early-20th-century scientists discovered a forgotten 1866 paper by the Austrian botanist Gregor Mendel that we figured out how plant breeding—and, later on, human genetics—worked.

39. Oil drilling, 1859

Fueled the modern economy, established its geopolitics, and changed the climate

40. The sailboat, fourth millennium b.c.

Transformed travel, warfare, and our view of the world (see No. 15)

41. Rocketry, 1926

“Our only way off the planet—so far.” — George Dyson

42. Paper money, 11th century

The abstraction at the core of the modern economy

43. The abacus, third millennium b.c.

One of the first devices to augment human intelligence

44. Air-conditioning, 1902

Would you start a business in Houston or Bangalore without it?

45. Television, early 20th century

Brought the world into people’s homes

46. Anesthesia, 1846

In response to the first public demonstration of ether, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. wrote: “The fierce extremity of suffering has been steeped in the waters of forgetfulness, and the deepest furrow in the knotted brow of agony has been smoothed for ever.”
47. The nail, second millennium b.c.“Extended lives by enabling people to have shelter.” — Leslie Berlin