The 10 Most Important Technologies of Modern World History
By Jared Newman
Technology, for the most part, exists to make life easier. By that definition, we’ve got it pretty good thanks to the hard work of our fellow humans. In weighing the world’s most important technologies, we ruled out the nitty gritty that led to some of the creations below — transistors, electricity and the combustion engine, to name a few — and focused on products that changed the world forever. Here are the 10 technologies, in our mind, that have shaped the world in a way we could never go back.
The Light Bulb
No disrespect to candles, but light bulbs made it easier to burn the midnight oil (despite making that expression obsolete). That meant people could work late and party later, and stores could stay open for business to keep society functioning. High five to Mr. Edison and crew, this bright idea has made our lives all the more clear.
The Printing Press
Anyone who’s played a game of telephone knows how unreliable verbal messages can be. The printing press allowed information to be spread quickly and accurately. This was particularly useful for communication between scientists, and it also gave authors more prominence and boosted literacy rates by making the printed word ubiquitous. That’s why, even as the printing press gives way to new technologies, its impact on society can’t be ignored.
The Telephone
E-mails are more efficient and video chats are more personal, but no means of remote communication hits the sweet spot more than the telephone. And neither of those other technologies so easily get your attention when you’re focused on something else.
The Personal Automobile
Say what you will about their environmental impact; cars just make life easier (take it from someone who dealt with New York City subways for three years). When you can travel on your own terms to specific businesses or homes, it changes the social and economic landscape. Our need for gasoline may taper off, but cars are going nowhere.
The Camera
Words only go so far, but pictures let people see things with their own eyes. Even after the advent of Photoshop, photographs still carry a certain weight when proving something happened. Now, we can’t resist the impulse to snap photos during the most important moments in our lives, as if we won’t remember them on our own.
The Television
The ways we get our entertainment may be changing, but one thing’s certain: The television is king of the living room. Watching movies and playing video games just aren’t the same on a laptop, and, well, no one gathers around the radio anymore.
The Airplane
While the automobile connected states and countries, the airplane brought the entire world within reach. Families can now scatter to different parts of the globe and still visit each other in a matter of hours. Until someone invents the teleporter, the airplane will remain the fastest way to get around.
The Atom Bomb
We needed at least one destructive force on this list, and faced with a decision between guns and the A-bomb, only the latter was powerful enough to end a war (or humanity as we know it). Despite the fact that only two nukes have been used in battle, nuclear weapons continue to shape foreign policy the world over. And it can’t be uninvented.
The Personal Computer
Being able to perform billions of calculations per second has its advantages, and the personal computer made that kind of processing power accessible to all. Aside from games, music and other diversions; word processing alone makes the computer worthwhile. How else would I fuss over the last sentence in this blurb?
The Internet
The big one. I’d argue that this technology is up there with the light bulb, and we’re living to see how it changes everything, from personal communication to mass media. No business model is safe from the effects of an interconnected world, and it’s never quite felt like anything is possible. Forget the flying car; I’ll take a series of tubes any day of the week…
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Thanks for reading, GadgetCravers. So, what do you think is the most important technology on this list? Did we miss a technology that is more important than any of these listed above? Share your thoughts in the comments, we’ve love to hear what you think. Funny, noting that most of these advancements occured in the last hundred or so years…
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:04AM
These are all really important inventions. I think that someday Twitter will be considered an invention as important as email or the telephone.
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:09AM
Missed out on the flushable toilet.
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:11AM
Edison was a fraud!
Praise be to Tesla!
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:11AM
Einstein was undeserving of the title man of the 20th century. Nothing he did had any effect on the daily lives of any of us. Instead it should have been reserved for either Shockley or Crick/Watson. Few of you reading this know who the former is but you can't wave your arms except in a nudist colony and not touch something that wasn't affected by him. Sadly he was not only a genius but also a patent racist which wholly disqualified him from consideration. The contributions of the latter will not have full effect until this century but when they do…. Albert who?
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:16AM
mmmmm delicious national bias
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:26AM
You missed one of the biggest Electricity. The development of the technology to tame electricity made most of the other technological advances possible.
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:34AM
how about fertilizer, without it half the world will be starving
how about antibiotics and vaccines..without it half the world will have died.
I dont understand how television is above these technologies
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:36AM
You should have picked the gun – mass manufacture of interchangeable parts was pivotal to later items.
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:37AM
maybe next time try to include a serously important technology … alternating current (half of your technologies rely on it after all)
Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:47PM
I think that AC power should definetely have made the list, the effect that it’s had in the way power is generated and transmitted totally reshaped the way that electricity can be used.
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:48AM
Refrigeration anyone??
Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:54PM
Talk about the most boring list. Transistors which paved the way for the modern computing world? The zipper? Be more creative and pick something besides the stereotypes.
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:07AM
Hmmm. airplane deserves some credit too…
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:08AM
There are plenty of more important technological advancements from the past 200 years that are much more important than some of the ones listed. What about advances in waste and water treatment? Immunization vaccines? How about medical imaging equipment? Or the Electric Motor? Or Batteries? Or Refrigerators and Freezers? Or the rim fire or pin fire gun cartridge? Or Penicillin? Realistically there isn't any way to narrow down the list to the top 10 anyway; maybe we could do top 200 but that may be too limited also.
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:08AM
oh nm… there it is.. duh
ok, the train/railroad then!
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:17AM
What about penicillin and all the other great things that let me live past 33?
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:57AM
What about air conditioning? That has a huge impact on the world, maybe not always for the better. Also would suggest the invention of industrial production of ammonia for fertilizer.
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:59AM
Satellites, radar, penicillin, birth control, air conditioning, ice makers, just to name a few off the top of my head
Friday, June 26, 2009 4:09AM
Printing press. Without it all the others would never have happened. Even light bulbs only came from Edison being able to read about others coming before.
Friday, June 26, 2009 4:10AM
That has got to be one of the lamest top 10 lists I have ever seen.
"2/10 – Next time try harder"
Thursday, June 25, 2009 11:30PM
No medical technologies? Antibiotics? Anesthetic?
Friday, June 26, 2009 12:29AM
What about the transistor, which without it, the personal computer, the Internet, my itouch(where i am typing this in from) would not even be possible?
Friday, June 26, 2009 7:48AM
The A-Bomb wasn't necissary at all. It caused a great deal more trouble than it's worth( i.e. fifty years of cold war with various countries). That was the end of the world's respect for the U.S. It was the ultimate pussy out in the history of the world. Not only that, but it was obvious the Japanese had lost, and weren't equipped to fight a war with us anymore, they weren't even a threat. Go suck a cock whoever wrote this
Friday, June 26, 2009 10:33AM
This list is so based on the viewpoint of someone who has so much tech that they forget about all the really important stuff like food and health. I think in modern times the train is at least a couple of times more important than air planes. It "fuelled" the industrial rev. and continues to make your life possibly. Also mammoth ships aren't on the list, possibly even more important than the train.
Not well thought out in my opinion.
Friday, June 26, 2009 10:54AM
How is the lighter not on here? It's portable fucking fire!
Friday, June 26, 2009 11:46AM
Running watter anyone?
Friday, June 26, 2009 12:01PM
What about the barcode? I'm serious – try to imagine modern supermarkets existing without them. Cheap, simple and essential. Oh – and 35 years old exactly today. See my website for more info!
Friday, June 26, 2009 12:44PM
powdered milk
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:49PM
Penicilin…
Röntgen…
You mean top 10 Most Important "Gadget" Technologies I presume.
Friday, June 26, 2009 1:57PM
Santos Dumont invented the airplane, not the Wright Brothers.
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:06PM
Did you look at the list at all??
Friday, June 26, 2009 2:46PM
Twitter is cool, but if it will be so popular in 10 or 15 years as today, i would agree with you. Twitter was founded in 2006, it's too short time for comparsion with this.
And I miss transistors and electricity, which were noted in lead paragraph.
Friday, June 26, 2009 5:51PM
Okay, start with the beginning: The invention of tools, then fire, then metallurgy, then the wheel, cultivation of grains and irrigation, domestication of dogs, cats, and horses, and then the rest.
Friday, June 26, 2009 11:15PM
IDIOT
Sunday, June 28, 2009 12:46PM
How about the iPod? XD
Monday, June 29, 2009 11:14PM
Gramophone and moving picture camera.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:28AM
without einstein there wouldn't be GPS.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 6:35AM
you make me want to vomit.
Thursday, July 2, 2009 1:54AM
Plastic. Its the single most important material invented in centuries.
Thursday, July 2, 2009 12:34PM
Some people wouldn't be happy if you hung them with a new rope! Good Grief!
Friday, July 3, 2009 4:40PM
Hmm – ok, so where is wireless technology? Would have thought it should make it on to that list rather than the Atomic bomb. We could have developed nuclear energy without blasting the bombs.
Friday, July 10, 2009 7:29AM
i second that motion
Sunday, July 12, 2009 7:25AM
to the naysayers…your in the GADGET section…that's why there all gadgets!
Monday, July 13, 2009 6:27PM
Yep, too much tech here. What about antibiotics? That's surely saved more lives than all this stuff combined.
Monday, August 3, 2009 6:54PM
How about the humble transistor without which we would not have the reveltion in IT that we have today…
Monday, February 28, 2011 2:45PM
kyiv hotels
Wednesday, March 2, 2011 5:41PM
Our example shows a Five-high straight, which is the lowest possible straight. Three of a Kind, Poker Hand – Three of a Kind. Any three cards of the same