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

a reply to: Lumenari

The birth control vending machine:

www.theverge.com...

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: VictorVonDoom

Could you include the abacus? Granted, all it could do was help with multiplication, addition, division, subtraction, square roots, and cube roots. But still, pretty handy.

Definitely yes! I was thinking I should include the abacus and the slide rule in my post. But they were both a little limited in function. They could only perform certain mathematical tasks. The computer was a quantum leap in that the mental task it could perform were only limited by our imagination.

Try getting YouTube on a slide rule.

a reply to: dfnj2015

The technology has improved.

a reply to: VictorVonDoom

The computer was a quantum leap in that the mental task it could perform were only limited by our imagination.

Or our ability to code the damn thing. To make it do what I want rather than what I tell it.

The abacus makes neat noises when you shake it real hard and the slide rule makes a nice thwap when you beat your kids with it.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: VictorVonDoom

The computer was a quantum leap in that the mental task it could perform were only limited by our imagination.

Or our ability to code the damn thing. To make it do what I want rather than what I tell it.

Just like human minds.

Yea, id go with the moonlanding and
probes aswell... As the greatest.

But the most important ones
should be, making fire, cooked meat,
bow and arrow, the weel...

And so on....

How about beer and other alcoholic beverages?

The whole process of making it taught us how to distill water.

No one suggested semiconductor manufacturing?

Do you ungrateful fools have any idea, that the interconnections in a modern day processor or GPU are larger scales of architecture than the largest cities on the planet?

Atlanta Georgia's highways have NOTHING on the interchange system in a modern Intel or AMD APU.

The feats inside a processor that we manufacture with basically magic are far more incredible than any monument man ever constructed with brick and mortar.

We shoot a laser beam through a contact lens, and build a city with more complexity than Manhattan, in seconds, and we make thousands of these, on a manufacturing line and send them all over the planet.

a reply to: ElGoobero

To be fair you are talking about MAN of today but in real term's I would argue Agriculture (and it's incumbent science of irrigation which has given rise to hydroengineering on a huge scale today), domestication and cooking as man's greatest technical achievement's, you have to always look at the foundation before you look at the apex or else you risk taking the apex into account without considering the underlying structure.

In today's term's the greatest are thing's you will seldom see such as medical prosthesis and life saving machines.

In the visible view of the world however, well that would be very debatable what is the current greatest achievement.

You see my view is going to be heavily skewed as I only regard such a feat as worthy of consideration if it BENEFIT's the human race and not if it is merely a useless piece of engineering art no matter how big or hard it has been to construct.

But if I had to choose the greatest 20th century feat it would be the aeroplane (though it has both good and bad practicality as we all know) - though were we the first to invent them or could they once upon a very long time ago have existed before?.

As for the 21st century it is too early to say as there have not yet been any really noteworthy contributions to the human race.

a reply to: Phage

Do they give out free condoms in white areas? Oh dear, surely you should have picked a better picture.

I was really wanting to discuss engineering and technical acheivments like bridges and dams and buildings
and machines.

the Three Gorges was mentioned. quite an acheivment but still working on the unforseen consequences.

on a more humble note, this time of year we see a lot of this around. really improved life for mankind.

a reply to: ElGoobero

On the agricultural discussion - aside from ag machinery you have refrigeration and nitrogen fixing that has revolutionized agriculture and given us the ability to feed more people. You also have GMO which allows us to feed more, on less land, using less fertilizers and pest chemicals, but that's a touch subject for some.

I would also say from an engineering standpoint you could add concrete to the list.

Without a doubt, the pinnacle of engineering.

Greatest technological achievement? A tie between the chain driven safety bicycle and soap.

Oh, and the ceiling fan. Three-way tie.

When they'll start terraforming planets, dyson spheres and such, says i, now you'll do as i say, i say.

The Higgs-Boson, it is leading us to eventually discovering that none of those great inventions were actually of human origin to begin with.

Electric Chair

a reply to: quercusrex

P-38.

Right?

originally posted by: ElGoobero
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.

Simple making it to Orbit is by far the greatest feat of all time. Then the moon landing which I am sure many here do not believe. But we did, ive looked into the so called evidence and it falls under intelligent inspection, in fact Nvidia did a good docu on it.