What do you consider to be mankind's greatest technical/engineering acheivement?

what do we consider to be man's greatest science / technical / engineering feat?

let's start with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. 17 miles, two tunnels.
the tunnels are so freaky they will provide a driver for you if you're too skeered to drive it yourself.

a reply to: ElGoobero

The wheel.

That tunnel would be useless without it.

a reply to: Phage

No it wouldn't. We have legs. Do you ever use them?

The internet instant communication world wide.

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

Do you ever use them?

Not for crossing rivers. Boats work well for that.

(Phage got a star on that reply before I got one for the thread...)

um, yeah, okay, I guess the wheel was pretty useful.

a reply to: ElGoobero

I think the Moon landings were quite awesome.

But sending probes around planets and out of the Solar System ranks right up there.

Three Gorges Dam is pretty amazing.

a reply to: ElGoobero

The twin tunnels under the English Channel between England and France is more of an engineering feat.

32 miles long under the sea bed.


Anyway the answer to your question would be The Industrial Revolution. It all really started there.

Manned flight is way up there.

a reply to: ElGoobero

The automobile, which is still being improved on since its inception.

I know that the question was geared towards technology of the material persuasion, but my answer is civil rights. Social engineering is far more subtle and pervasive than any machine.

I would say nuclear power. It literally propelled us into a new age.

The Great Pyramid, although it was built by a different kind of human with knowledge beyond what we possess now.

The Chinese quantum communications satellite is pretty advanced technology. Might prove useful in our crowded bandwidth planetary communications system.

I think writing is the most powerfull things human have ever done ! (sorry if i made error im a frenchy )

Indoor plumbing and public water sanitation.

No other achievement can boast so many lives saved or preserved.

After the wheel as #1, I would vote for the alternating current induction motor, by Tesla. It made everything we have now even possible (including the thing we are using right now).

Tesla's AC Induction Motor is one of the 10 greatest discoveries of all time

originally posted by: Krakatoa
After the wheel as #1, I would vote for the alternating current induction motor, by Tesla. It made everything we have now even possible (including the thing we are using right now).

Tesla's AC Induction Motor is one of the 10 greatest discoveries of all time

Tesla didn't invent The AC Induction Motor. That honour goes to Galileo Ferraris.

Ferraris devised a motor using electromagnets at right angles and powered by alternating currents that were 90° out of phase, thus producing a revolving magnetic field. The direction of the motor could be reversed by reversing the polarity of one of the currents.

The principle made possible the development of the asynchronous, self-starting induction motor that is widely used today. Believing that the scientific and intellectual values of new developments far outstripped material values, Ferraris deliberately did not patent his invention.

He demonstrated it freely in his own laboratory to all comers. Meanwhile, others came independently to the same principle—among them Nikola Tesla, who applied and patented it. Ferraris was also an early advocate of alternating-current distribution systems for electrical power.

www.britannica.com...

a reply to: ElGoobero

Im going to go with the toilet