View Full Version : Who is the greatest inventor of all time?
Gawain of Orkeny
08-21-2005, 03:25
Pretty much self expanatory.
Ill go with this dude.
ARCHIMEDES
Hard to believe most of his work was lost. Who knows where science would be today if this had not happened. Its even said that he was the first to invent the computer.
Archimedes was the eminent mathematician and excellent physicist of his time. He was born in Syracuse, on the island of Sicily in 287 B.C. At that time Sicily was a Greek land. Archimedes was the son of an astronomer. He studied at Alexandria in Egypt, and then returned to Syracuse. He early became an astronomer. He constructed a brass planisphere - a projection of the celestial sphere - that showed the revolution of the Sun, the Moon and the five known planets, and showed the nature of eclipses.
Discoveries and inventions (http://www.solarnavigator.net/inventors/archimedes.htm)
During a Roman siege of Syracuse in 213 Archimedes kept off the attacks of the Roman forces. There is a legend, that he used a gigantic mirror which focused the Sun's rays upon the Roman ships. When the Romans overcame the Syracusan defences, they ordered to bring Archimedes to Rome. Archimedes was 75 at that time. A Roman soldier was near Archimedes after the breach of the city's defence. Archimedes, probably tired after his work during the siege, was sitting on the ground, drawing mathematical figures in the dust. A soldier ordered him to surrender, but the great mathematician paid no attention to him. The problem was more important to him. Archimedes said, "Get away from my circles, you dog!" The soldier killed the world's greatest thinker.
His planisphere was taken to Rome and was described by Cicero, 150 years later. Archimedes is generally regarded as the greatest mathematician and scientist of antiquity and one of the three greatest mathematicians of all time.
Seamus Fermanagh
08-21-2005, 03:55
A good candidate. Archimedes and Da Vinci having a competition would have been something. Archy actually built more of his ideas though.
My vote is a tossup between the un-named someone who first developed the wheel or the folks who developed the intregrated circuit.
bmolsson
08-21-2005, 04:32
The one that invented the fire.......
Big_John
08-21-2005, 04:48
nikola tesla, because he has a badass name. plus, electricity is cool.
but seriously, tesla basically invented the modern world, which has seen, arguably, the most dramatic transformations in human history.
Samurai Waki
08-21-2005, 04:54
Da Vinci! invented almost 10 times as many useful things to mankind than Thomas Edison did.
Red Harvest
08-21-2005, 05:00
Archimedes is probably the most incredible of the lot. Da Vinci had a lot of ideas and would probably be above Archimedes in some ways, however I don't know how much he actually carried much past the concept stage. His skills of observation and understanding would be hard to top by any other in known history.
Edison would be competition for Archimedes.
Huygens deserves a mention although most of his inventions were major improvements rather than fundamentally new.
Soulforged
08-21-2005, 05:02
The one that invented the fire.......
Fire wasn't invented, it was discovered.
I think if that you take it from the side of numbers it would be Da Vinci. From the side of utility it would be the one who invented the wheel. But i like John Harrington inventor of the lavatory. ~D
Kaiser of Arabia
08-21-2005, 06:43
M. Werndl
Zalmoxis
08-21-2005, 11:30
The guy that invented forums? Or else we wouldn't be talking, and we'd all be sitting mumbling to ourselves about this general and that weapon.
John Moses Browning.
Not the greatest, but certainly great. Half the guns in the world were either invented by him or based on his inventions.
Duke Malcolm
08-21-2005, 17:43
I think that Tesla, Archimedes and Da Vinci are the best. Tesla could have done a lot more, I'm sure. Babbage must also be good competition for inventing the first computer. Faraday also is good competition for all the. work on electricity and such things
Gawain of Orkeny
08-21-2005, 17:46
Lets open this up a bit more and ask who was the greatest mind of all time? I still go with my original selection.
Overall, I'll have to agree with Gawain (probably much to his dismay) and say Achimedes. He invented his own calculus, and it functions just as well as modern calculus. That feat alone puts him ahead of Newton by 1800 years.
Leonardo da Vinci is right up there as well, the archetype for the Renaissance man, a genius in many different areas.
For the modern era, I'll say Einstein and Hawking.
I'd say Di Vinci, but the Catholic Church covered up most of his stuff, so whilst he was probably the best inventor ever, his work certainly didn't have much impact.
Duke Malcolm
08-21-2005, 18:56
Lets open this up a bit more and ask who was the greatest mind of all time? I still go with my original selection.
and I shall have to agree with you. Archimedes was probably the greatest mind, until I can think of anyone else...
Gawain of Orkeny
08-21-2005, 19:02
Heres one you dont hear about often but is right up there as far as Im concerned.
Heron of Alexandria (http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/HeronAlexandria.htm)
Heres another good site on him (http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/h/he/hero_of_alexandria.htm)
Some inventions ahead of their times
The Mackine gun
Steam Turbine
Odometer
Worlds first coin operated vending machine.
Soulforged
08-21-2005, 19:39
Then i would say Aristoteles, by far...
Ja'chyra
08-21-2005, 20:55
Greatest Inventor = Ugo Agogo ~:cool:
Francis Bacon was quite a brainy chap too.
Spent most his life locked up though.
_Martyr_
08-21-2005, 23:36
Other great minds that spring to mind...
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Alan Turing
Stephen Hawking
William Shakespeare
George W. Bush
Johann Sebastian Bach
Pythagoras
Albert Einstein
Soulforged
08-21-2005, 23:55
Other great minds that spring to mind...
George W. Bush
~D ~D ~D ~D ~D ~D
Can't forget Larry Flint :book: :dizzy2: ~D
You might be better off not trying to interpret the smileys
GWB? what the hell has he invented?
Like to add: Alfred Nobel as well. :bow:
AntiochusIII
08-22-2005, 08:24
I saw a thingy on the History Channel earlier tonight speculating that Archimedes may have invented a massive steam cannon. Good stuff. ~:confused: There was certainly no steam power at the time, so how can Archimedes built anything like that! Even so, if they're actually real then the Romans would probably never conquer Syracuse. I think some guy in Alexandria "invented" a steam-powered toy during the Roman times or something like that...
Anyway, the greatest inventor in my opinion is Leonardo Da Vinci. Not in the least because I was just reading the Da Vinci code right now! ~D (Of course, I know it's all fiction...)
While the greatest mind I think is Aristotle.
Al Khalifah
08-22-2005, 10:22
The 'toy' was the aeolipile. It was invented by Heron of Alexandria in the first century. It is the first recorded steam engine in history, but never achieved utility because Heron did not choose to capture the spinning energy created.
_Martyr_
08-22-2005, 12:22
GWB? what the hell has he invented?
Like to add: Alfred Nobel as well. :bow:
It was a joke... :charge:
Al Gore surely?!? He invented the internet I hear.
Gawain of Orkeny
08-22-2005, 16:21
There was certainly no steam power at the time, so how can Archimedes built anything like that!
Check my links on Heron. There certainly was. I also saw that show on the history channel and they even built a working model of the steam cannon. Heron also built a steam powered organ. He also invented self opening doors. Its seems the Greeks and Romans werre really far far ahead of their times or should I say the dark ages were not called that for nothing. We had lost much more of their knowledge than was previoulsy imagined.
yesdachi
08-22-2005, 16:24
Leo gets my vote. But Heron and Archimedes were awesome too.
I saw I thing last night on the steam canon (didn’t catch the whole show though) but that would have changes a few things! A pre Gunpowder canon, watch out Constantinople!
Side note: it seems many inventors lost much of their work over the years, perhaps they should have invented a better filing system (Thanks,Dewey ~D ).
Goofball
08-22-2005, 16:53
I don't know his/her name, but whoever invented low-rise jeans should definitely make the list.
https://www.style-finds.com/shops/images/01-36-3-23-001%20pic%202.jpg
I mean, come on!
And I always thought Joe Mamma was the greatest inventor ever. ~D
Gawain of Orkeny
08-22-2005, 17:04
Heres a couple of sites with interesting stuff
Secrets of Lost Empires (various figures) (https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~crorres/bbc_archive/secrets.html)
Ancient Greek Artillery (http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/war/CatapultTypes.htm)
_Martyr_
08-22-2005, 17:08
I don't know his/her name, but whoever invented low-rise jeans should definitely make the list.
https://www.style-finds.com/shops/images/01-36-3-23-001%20pic%202.jpg
I mean, come on!
Hell yeah! Who really prefers calculus to those anyway! ~D
Paul Peru
08-22-2005, 17:13
Pretty much self expanatory.
Ill go with this dude.
ARCHIMEDES
Second or fifth or whatever that! ~:cheers:
Amazing guy, apparently.
Mr. Gore's Internet thingy is quite nifty as well, though it's Doomed (or so I keep hearing).
JS Bach has some good ones, also.
I do not know if he can be classified among inventors, but Alexander Flemming, for penicillin, places himself on the first rank of the great men.
yesdachi
08-22-2005, 17:41
I do not know if he can be classified among inventors, but Alexander Flemming, for penicillin, places himself on the first rank of the great men.
Absolutely important invention but wasn’t it the result of an accident? I would almost call this a discovery. Worth a mention but he’s no Leo. ~:)
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