wich single event had the greatest impact on history?

[cutepuppy]

A similar questian as the one posed by diablodelmar.

your ideas?

[Kralizec]

Also a tough one. I'd list some important inventions like compass, gunpowder, steam engine, light bulb, pencilline, etc.

I think I'll have to go for the invention of the atomic bomb. Not for finishing off Japan, but for revolutionising the doctrine of warfare and for the Cold War staying cold. It's to early yet to tell what its full effects will be.

[Kralizec]

Also a tough one. I'd list some important inventions like compass, gunpowder, steam engine, light bulb, pencilline, etc.

I think I'll have to go for the invention of the atomic bomb. Not for finishing off Japan, but for revolutionising the doctrine of warfare and for the Cold War staying cold. It's to early yet to tell what its full effects will be.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

the battle of Tours. where Charles Martel where he defeated the Muslims. I think if he lost perhaps many of us would be Muslim instead of Christian. (unless the empire falls and is taken over by Christians)

[Mount Suribachi]

The invention of the printing press. Although the Chinese had had a decent stab at it, Guttenberg cracked it, and Europe set off in so many different areas - religion, politics, science etc. The widely available written word impacts on our lives in soooo many ways.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

Fall of the Roman empire. Marked the beginning of the middle ages and made different kingdoms and empires.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

Fall of the Roman empire. Marked the beginning of the middle ages and made different kingdoms and empires.

im going to slap myself for not thinking that.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

double post

[Conqueror]

One could argue that the rise of the empire tromps it's fall in significance, since the latter would have never happened without the former. And the rise is very important in it's own right, for it
A) Enabled Roman culture to have such big impact on history to begin with, and
B) caused the downfall of other civilizations that could have had greater impact on history had they been able to survive.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The Battle of Hastings?

That little bit of Norman conquest led to America and the British Empire. The Saxons were fairly happen on their island, thanks.

[Aenlic]

The Black Death, for the reason I listed in the other thread.

(I just finished re-reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Years of Rice and Salt, so it's on my mind)

[Byzantine Prince]

The beggining of Christianity.

[IrishArmenian]

No doubt about it. People learning how to farm. This leads to surplus of food, which leads to people being able to specialize, or to do more than look for food. That set off the development of towns, and land became property. Border diputes rose, Religeon was developed to a greater degree and conquering became a 'pasttime'. The rest is, quite literally, history.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

ah yes the agricultural revolution

[Atilius]

A few candidates:

The Big Bang (18-12,000,000,000 BC)
No Big Bang, no history.

Cosmic ray zaps DNA of precursor species, resulting in mutation later known as Homo sapiens (250-200,000 BC).
Planet-wide mayhem ensues.

Natural fermentation of grain discovered (~4000 BC).
Cooperative effort required to brew beer triggers the rise of human civilization.

[Avicenna]

Big Bang of course.

Atilius: I think it's 13.7b years ago.

Second would be the formation of this solar system. If things changed a little bit, eg the Sun a bit bigger and Earth a bit closer, there might not be life on this planet. Also, if Jupiter got a bit bigger and became a star, life would be very different on this planet, if it would even exist.

[Somebody Else]

03/10/84. I was born.



Really though, in terms of human history, the whole farming thing is a big contender - allowing large settlements, freeing people to go off and think/kill each other.
There's a coupla books I've come across - on a 'what if x happened' theme, quite interesting ideas in there.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Big bang is a not very well founded theory. It assumes that the universe didn't exist before it happened, which is a prejudiced opinion remaining from misconceptions of religions, and it's an assumption that has no place in science unless proven first. I doubt there was no time or room dimensions before big bang, but I think it's very likely that a big bang has happened and altered and redistributed matter and energy to some extent. But that it would be a creation of room and time dimensions seems to me completely insane. Anyway, I also doubt anything happening before the first humans were born doesn't count as history, but rather as pre-history, so big bang is an incorrect answer in any case IMO.

The incident having most impact on history was obviously humans distancing and hiding themselves from nature and starting to fear it. It was what created civilization and all the things that belong to the concept - human sacrifice, war, persecution, struggle for power by backstabbing and ugly tricks, better weapon technology that allows faster killing of more people, and science and beautiful art. All other events in history are indirectly caused by that incident, so I'd argue it's undoubtedly the incident that most heavily influenced history.

[Aenlic]

Big bang is a not very well founded theory. It assumes that the universe didn't exist before it happened, which is a prejudiced opinion remaining from misconceptions of religions, and it's an assumption that has no place in science unless proven first. I doubt there was no time or room dimensions before big bang, but I think it's very likely that a big bang has happened and altered and redistributed matter and energy to some extent. But that it would be a creation of room and time dimensions seems to me completely insane. Anyway, I also doubt anything happening before the first humans were born doesn't count as history, but rather as pre-history, so big bang is an incorrect answer in any case IMO.

Please don't take this the wrong way; but you seem to have a rather warped understanding of the Big Bang theory and the scientific method, especially the concept of scientific theory in that method.

First off, as a theory, the Big Bang theory is exactly science. It is a theory based upon observation of data. It can be disproven if future data contadicts the theory, the experiments which resulted in the data are repeatable and it is not guaranteed to be the absoute truth. As a scientific theory, it is the essence of the scientific method. It's not an assumption at all. It fits the known facts. It remains a theory, however. Your statement about needing to be proven first to have a place in science directly contradicts the scientific method as a whole.

We know that velocity and time are connected. It is an observable fact that time is not constant. Just because that seems impossible to you does not make it untrue. Because velocity is fundamentally tied to space, time too must be fundamentally tied to space. In fact, the reason that time is not constant is because it is a part of space. It's a very basic part of Einstein's theories of general and special relativity. Which have not been disproven; nor have they been proven. But they still fit all observable data. As long as they do, they will continue to be theories. When they no longer do, some other theory will take their place.

The assumptions are all on your side. Obviously, it is difficult for many people to grasp how time and space are so deeply connected. Your post directly refutes Einstein's theories of relativity (again, a scientific theory based on observation of fact but which remains a theory until disproven). We're going to need a little more proof from you than just an assumption and a statement of disagreement. Scientists have been looking for a better theory than Einstein's for a century. You're welcome to try; but simply stating it can't be true is about as unscientific as it gets. Yes, the mathematical foundation of the theory can be pretty esoteric and extremely difficult to grasp. Particularly in regards to string theory, which is pushing the limits of our ability to understand and observe and form hypotheses which fit the observable data.

Saying, essentially, that because you don't understand it, then it must not be true is the exact opposite of science. It's the mentality of the flat earth. It's religion. It's faith. Faith in a lack of knowledge or a lack of understanding is never science. This is how crocks like creation "science" and intelligent design end up accepted by the general population - a lack of understanding of science and the scientific method.

[Justiciar]

Whatever change in the enviroment caused our primitive ancestors to get down on the ground and walk.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The incident having most impact on history was obviously humans distancing and hiding themselves from nature and starting to fear it. It was what created civilization and all the things that belong to the concept - human sacrifice, war, persecution, struggle for power by backstabbing and ugly tricks, better weapon technology that allows faster killing of more people, and science and beautiful art. All other events in history are indirectly caused by that incident, so I'd argue it's undoubtedly the incident that most heavily influenced history.

Well since Aenlic dealt with you other codds wollop allow me to deal with this. Man did not begin to fear nature, man distanced him self from nature as a side effect of becoming more advanced. By farming he removed the neccessity to hunt, which meant he could live in a familiar fixed place and as such he could make it more comfortable for himself and his animals, and less comfortable for predators. Then, because life is easy one of his sons becomes a potter instead of a farmer-hunter and he learns very little about hunting, migration, spore etc.

Regardless, it isn't a historical event. History is defined as starting when things begin to be written down, everything before that is pre-history.

[The Stranger]

i vote for GUNPOWDER

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

i vote for GUNPOWDER

Ya killing from far away! no more swords!

[Rodion Romanovich]

Please don't take this the wrong way; but you seem to have a rather warped understanding of the Big Bang theory and the scientific method, especially the concept of scientific theory in that method.

First off, as a theory, the Big Bang theory is exactly science. It is a theory based upon observation of data. It can be disproven if future data contadicts the theory, the experiments which resulted in the data are repeatable and it is not guaranteed to be the absoute truth. As a scientific theory, it is the essence of the scientific method. It's not an assumption at all. It fits the known facts. It remains a theory, however. Your statement about needing to be proven first to have a place in science directly contradicts the scientific method as a whole.

We know that velocity and time are connected. It is an observable fact that time is not constant. Just because that seems impossible to you does not make it untrue. Because velocity is fundamentally tied to space, time too must be fundamentally tied to space. In fact, the reason that time is not constant is because it is a part of space. It's a very basic part of Einstein's theories of general and special relativity. Which have not been disproven; nor have they been proven. But they still fit all observable data. As long as they do, they will continue to be theories. When they no longer do, some other theory will take their place.

The assumptions are all on your side. Obviously, it is difficult for many people to grasp how time and space are so deeply connected. Your post directly refutes Einstein's theories of relativity (again, a scientific theory based on observation of fact but which remains a theory until disproven). We're going to need a little more proof from you than just an assumption and a statement of disagreement. Scientists have been looking for a better theory than Einstein's for a century. You're welcome to try; but simply stating it can't be true is about as unscientific as it gets. Yes, the mathematical foundation of the theory can be pretty esoteric and extremely difficult to grasp. Particularly in regards to string theory, which is pushing the limits of our ability to understand and observe and form hypotheses which fit the observable data.

Saying, essentially, that because you don't understand it, then it must not be true is the exact opposite of science. It's the mentality of the flat earth. It's religion. It's faith. Faith in a lack of knowledge or a lack of understanding is never science. This is how crocks like creation "science" and intelligent design end up accepted by the general population - a lack of understanding of science and the scientific method.

I agree to space-time, but I fail to see why space and time being related means that before a big explosion of matter there wouldn't have been any matter at all. All creation theories, religious and scientific attempts, are based on the assumption that space and time once didn't exist at all. What I'm complaining about isn't the making of assumptions and theories, but the making of an assumption without any argumentation to support it. There's no argument whatsoever that suggests universe was created, and that room and time hasn't existed always.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Well since Aenlic dealt with you other codds wollop allow me to deal with this. Man did not begin to fear nature, man distanced him self from nature as a side effect of becoming more advanced. By farming he removed the neccessity to hunt, which meant he could live in a familiar fixed place and as such he could make it more comfortable for himself and his animals, and less comfortable for predators. Then, because life is easy one of his sons becomes a potter instead of a farmer-hunter and he learns very little about hunting, migration, spore etc.

Regardless, it isn't a historical event. History is defined as starting when things begin to be written down, everything before that is pre-history.

I consider sacrificing humans to imaginary gods to get nature's support and liking a form of fearing nature. It's also IMO distancing from nature to regard people who live close to nature as inferior beings and being ashamed of nakedness and attraction. This "man became more advanced" is BS IMO, it's a racistical way of looking down on the few remaining savages. It's also funny how people of today, and the 19th century, seemed to look down on savages. People feared savages to be, you guessed it - savage and brutal. There have been various documentaries of "advanced" humans visiting savages and have been shaking with fear, then most of the time the savages are the most loving and caring beings they have ever seen. People try to use it as an excuse for maltreating and abusing savages to call them primitive, and when they come with revenge after having realized the hidden agendas of white man and answer to white man's backstabbing by coming to kill white man with the same backstabbing and sudden aggression, white man calls them brutal. Man did not distance herself from nature for becoming more advanced, but because it was a development where tribes who embraced civilization and weapons technology could kill others and claim useful geographical parts of nature as theirs and kill all others. When the first wars thus begun, others had to either embrace the same nonsense called civilization or die. Today civilization has reached a point where there has been a counter-reaction to the fear of nature, and some sort of enlightenment has been reached again. But civilization in itself has been a cruel and horrible thing since it's foundation and perhaps for as long as up to at least the 18th century, in my opinion. Because my opinion is that mass murder, war, genocide, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, human sacrifice, massive rape, prostitution, power struggle, money struggle, backstabbing, herd mentality in nazism, heretics hunting, witch hunting and many other things are a lot more primitive - not more advanced - than the minds of those who are called savages. There is natural life-style and enlightened civilization on one hand, and civilization on the other hand. Civilization alone is a horrible thing, while natural life-style or enlightened civilization are good things.

Finally history does NOT begin from the first written sources. History begins from the first human beings. For the earliest periods pre written language, archaeology is the main tool. After written language, written stuff alongside archaeological stuff becomes an important tool. But the aim of all historical research is to find out about the history since the first homo sapiens appeared.

[Avicenna]

History

his·to·ry [hístəree]
(plural his·to·ries)
noun
1. what has happened in the past: the past events of a period in time or in the life or development of a people, an institution, or a place

Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

History isn't just limited to times when humans were here.

Also, you assume that it's just us humans wanting to perch down and grow agricultural crops when there was first civilisation. Wrong. Take a look at geography: it was the beginning of a warm period, the end of an ice age, which triggered civilisation.

Well, matter can be created, as you can see in beta decay, for example. Energy can become matter. Also, there is proof that the universe is expanding. Do you think that the universe just stayed put, and then suddenly starts to expand for no reason whatsoever?

[Atilius]

What I'm complaining about isn't the making of assumptions and theories, but the making of an assumption without any argumentation to support it. There's no argument whatsoever that suggests universe was created, and that room and time hasn't existed always.

The fact that the universe is expanding (which can be inferred from observation of the Red Shift) means that it was once very much smaller. The existence of the 3 degree K cosmic background radiation implies that the energy density of the very early universe was enormous. In fact, it is consistent with the early universe being so dense that the basic assumptions of physics (spatial isotropy, homogeneity, etc.) can't be applied and any space-time associated with it cannot be described.

Everything which happened after the first few milliseconds of expansion of the early universe is entirely different from what obtained before and can fairly be considered the evolution of a new universe.

Here's a summary of the observational successes of the Big Bang Theory.

[Redleg]

Well I will give my baised based event


The American War of Independence which was based upon the enlightenment philisophy which happened because of the development of the Printing Press which happened because the Roman Empire fell.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Well, matter can be created, as you can see in beta decay, for example. Energy can become matter. Also, there is proof that the universe is expanding. Do you think that the universe just stayed put, and then suddenly starts to expand for no reason whatsoever?

Occam's razor - there's a very simple explanation of all observations by using simple school knowledge of particle physics and chemistry. The random momvements used as a model for gases in a confined space explains it all - very rarely there'll be times when statistically many particles will be in one place, and they then crash together. If there are sufficiently many of them the reaction can be quite fierce, with fissions, fusions, enormous heat etc. In a not confined space it's also likely that situations occur where extreme amounts of matter statically happen to be in the same spot and cause such an explosion. In both cases, whether the universe is infinite or not, a big bang that can explain the expanding universe we see makes perfect sense. In the former case, many big bangs are likely to occur in time, in the second case the chances of big bangs decreases as time passes.

And the cosmic background radiation is also explained by this very simple theory I just presented. The formation of galaxies etc. is also explained by the theory. Statistically, at certain points after the explosion there would be collissions between elements that were part of the big bang, and elements around. When an appropriate temperature and compression is created, and a larger body is formed, it attracts smaller particles around it. Different temperature and compression level patterns create different structures. Rotations also matter, for instance a galaxy like our own was most likely created by a form of rotational movement involved in the compression and temperature pattern.

Finally, the big bang theorists say "the universe expands", but that's based on observations today. There's nothing that says the expansion is just due to built-up momentum caused by the big bang (as you can see I agree that there was a big explosion but in my model it's importance isn't overrated), and that gravity will eventually slow down and reverse the effect, causing one or more new big bangs. We can't know if what we can see of the universe is just a small subset of the universe or if we're seeing almost everything. In a bigger perspective we might just be seeing a local expansion. If the universe is bounded similar to a gas in a confined space, there'll certainly be new big bangs. If universe is unbounded in space, it's possible that gravity will still compress stuff again and cause a big bang.

The moment our telescopes can see so many light years as the number of years since big bang, then we will have arguments to throw away certain theories and confirm others. In the meantime, I rely on Occam's razor and use the simplest explanation. Or until someone counterproves my simpler model.

[Aenlic]

Finally, the big bang theorists say "the universe expands", but that's based on observations today. There's nothing that says the expansion is just due to built-up momentum caused by the big bang (as you can see I agree that there was a big explosion but in my model it's importance isn't overrated), and that gravity will eventually slow down and reverse the effect, causing one or more new big bangs. We can't know if what we can see of the universe is just a small subset of the universe or if we're seeing almost everything. In a bigger perspective we might just be seeing a local expansion. If the universe is bounded similar to a gas in a confined space, there'll certainly be new big bangs. If universe is unbounded in space, it's possible that gravity will still compress stuff again and cause a big bang.

Umm... no. You are describing part of the classic controversy between the concave, convex and flat descriptions the geometry of space-time. The idea that gravity will eventually slow down the expansion of the universe until it contracts into a reverse Big Bang is called the convex geometry model, or the closed or positive curvature model. On the other hand, if the universe expansion slows and then stops but does not then collapse, this is the flat geometry or open model. A third possibility postulated after Hubble was a concave, or open model which had the universe expanding forever, or the heat death model. This modeling of the universe expansion, after the Hubble Law, was considered the big problem in cosmological physics for 80 some years. The actual problem turns out to be something quite different, which I'll get to presently.

Einstein added what he called the cosmological constant to his equations because the equations were predicting an expanding universe. He felt this was in error and so created the cosmological constant to fudge a static universe. At the time, the universe was thought to be static, as in unchanging, not expanding, or flat. Hubble's discovery of the red shift around 1929 or so, also known as Hubble's Law, showed that the universe was, in fact, expanding. This led to the Big Bang theory. Einstein decided he'd made a mistake in adding the cosmological constant and called it his greatest error. This appears to be where your knowledge of modern cosmology stops.

One of the most important details to Hubble's Law was that the expansion is uniform. The matter in the universe isn't expanding. Space is expanding with the matter carried along. This is a difficult concept for many to grasp. The matter in the universe didn't fly apart in the Big Bang, speading out into the universe. The universe itself flew apart in the Big Bang and continues to do so. The universe is expanding uniformly at all points away from all points. There is no edge to the universe. Another difficult concept to grasp. This was the standard view in cosmology; but it still left open the argument about convex, concave and flat curvatures.

But it gets worse. New data, within the last 6-7 years and being confirmed almost daily as our ability to observe improves, shows that the expansion of the universe, while uniform, is not constant in rate of expansion (as would be predicted in an open, concave model) or slowing down (as would be predicted by a closed, convex model or an open, flat model). The universe is expanding at an increasing rate. In other words the expansion if getting faster and faster, but is still uniform. And not only is the rate of expansion increasing; but the distribution of matter in the universe doesn't match the mathematical predictions of a uniform expansion of matter affected by gravity. There are clumps. There is missing mass, the so-called dark matter. Something is causing the universe to expand ever faster, the so-called dark energy.

The idea that the Big Bang was just one in a never ending series of expansions and contractions has been disproven by observation.

Initially, as the universe expanded, gravity acted to slow down the expansion. But... a point was reached, somewhere at about half the current age of the universe, at which something now called "dark energy" was able to exert more effect than gravity. It can almost be thought of as a repellant force. The result was that the force of the dark energy exceeded the force of gravity and the expansion of the universe began to speed up. It is still speeding up. The universe is flying apart at an ever increasing rate, exactly opposite of gravity pulling the universe back together as you stated. This dark energy, or more precisely the force which the postulated dark energy describes, was predicted by Einstein as his cosmological constant. In effect, his greatest mistake is beginning to look more and more like it was bang on.

You're about a decade or more behind in your cosmological theory, Legio. The study of Cepheid variables, the Sloan Digital Star Survey and more are all relatively recent and contradict your assumptions which seem based on decades-old theories. You're in serious need of some hard studying. Increased rate of universe expansion, dark matter, dark energy, partial dimensions, neutrinos with mass, accelerons, string theory, super string theory and more have overtaken the 70-some odd year old theory of an expanding universe affected mostly be gravity, whether convex, concave or flat.