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The 10 Greatest Inventionsby Tamim AnsaryOf the millions of inventions, what are the ten greatest?

1. The Mechanical Clock. Before this invention, time was inseparable from events, the main one

being the Sun crossing the sky. Only local time existe, no universal river of time. !f you agree tomeet someone at sunset, you ha to say where, because the Sun is always setting somewhere. Thesunial merely ivie the Sun"s aily #ourney into units, which meant the hour ha no fixe length$it swelle an shrank with the seasons. Then, mechanical clocks came aroun%%gears, springs,

penulums, the works. &raually, as these clocks all came to be coorinate, they create publictime, a thing in itself$ one single, universal current flowing everywhere throughout the universe,always at the same pace. 'eople coul now communicate with each other by coorinating to thisuniversal frame of reference. Thus, clocks mae factories, offices, schools, meetings, anappointments possible. The activities of millions coul be meshe like, well, clockwork. An ofcourse, what clocks mae possible, they soon mae necessary. !n a clock%riven worl, most of usare now either (on time,( (ahea of scheule,( or (running late.(

2. The Toilet* and Modern Plumbing.) &o ahea. *augh. Then try to imagine +ew ork -itywithout toilets. ou can"t. The ability to remove sewage from an bring clean water into places ofense human habitation makes the moern city possible. ithout it, we" still have cities, but notlike the ones we know. A high%rise builing woul be impossible, really, without toilets an

plumbing.

3. The Printing Press. /noriginal, ! know, but still it"s true. &utenberg"s press, with its movabletype, launche publishing. !n the short term, this mae the 0eformation possible by putting a Biblein the hans of anyboy who wante one. The -hurch lost its lock on truth, an the sovereigniniviual soon emerge as the key unit of estern society. !n the longer term, publishinguniversali1e literacy). Before this invention, so few coul rea that, effectively, even those few

live in a worl of oral traition an memory. 2umanity"s consensual picture of reality was shapeby stories, tol an retol. !n this flui worl, if the big picture shifte, no one knew, because theyha nothing to check it against. The proliferation of text fixe ob#ective reality. +ow, when two

people isagree about what happene yesteray, they can look it up. Stories have survive, butmerely as entertainment. Our moern collective picture of reality is foune on facts archive astext.

. Immuni!ation and "ntibiotics.Three centuries ago, almost everyone ie of infectiousiseases. hen the plague broke out in 3456, it kille nearly half of 7urope%%in about two years.hen iseases such as smallpox reache +orth America, they reuce the inigenous population byabout 89 percent within a century. As late as 3:99, the leaing cause of eath in the est was

tuberculosis. 2arly anyone ie of ol age back then, one reason why elers were revere. Toay,elers are a ime a o1en$ nothing unusual about surviving past 69. !n the /nite States, 64 percentof people ie of heart failure, cancer, an stroke. -hronic respiratory illnesses ;relate to smokingmostly< account for the fourth biggest slice of funeral business. !t"s a ifferent worl, folks.

#. The Tele$hone.*ots of people imagine the telephone before any telephone existe. ouln"t itbe cool, they sai, if you coul talk to someone in another city without leaving home? Once theevice was invente, an businessmen ha wreste it away from the inventors, the +etwork beganto form. That"s the actual invention%%the +etwork. !t enables anyone to talk to anyone anywhere atany given moment. So toay, anyone"s real%time group inclues people not physically present, anthey coul be anywhere. The infrastructure took some time to evelop, but the telephone implie all

this from the start. ireless cell phones on"t change the core iea, they merely exten it.

%. The &lectrical Grid. 7lectricity existe all along, but the system of evices neee to generate

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this force an istribute it to iniviual builings was an invention, launche initially by 7ison$ 2eeffectively turne electricity into a salable commoity an his 'earl Street station was the worl"sfirst electric power station. +ikola Tesla"s invention of alternating current ;A-< technology thenmae it possible to transmit electricity over long istances, leaing to the nationwie gri we knowtoay. +ow, anyone in the est an throughout most of the worl can tap into the gri to powereverything from light bulbs to computers. e are, in fact, a social organism animate by electricity

;an renere conscious by the +etwork%%see above