What took longest to invent?

[LAV25]

I was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey the other day, and the scene where the apeman discovers (with the help of the monolith) that a thighbone can make a good smashy thing got me to thinking: What took the longest to invent?

I mean "invent" in the same sense as the apeman "invented" the club (because someone, somewhere, actually did). For the purposes of this question, all the precursors have to have been in place. The apeman had both opposable thumbs and a supply of animal carcasses to provide the material for clubs, he just had to make the mental leap and use Hand A to grip Shaft B and bash enemy C. Windows 7, which was invented approximately 200,000 years after that club, wouldn't qualify as a 200,000 year project because it could not have been invented prior to the invention of computing, which needed techniques to extract and refine certain metals, the ability to create plastics, and a whole slew of other things. Something like a Dyson vacuum cleaner, on the other hand, would qualify as a several decade invention because (AFAIK), all of the elements to create it were around for quite some time before Mr. Dyson had his brainstorm (and five thousand failed prototypes. (http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/dysonvac.htm))

So, any nominations for what took us longest to wrench from the realm of the merely possible?

[Whack-a-Mole]

Not sure how you answer this.

Most inventions are the result of standing on the shoulders of previous inventions.

No one invents the Large Hadron Collider out of nowhere. It is the result of all of humanity's collected knowledge of physics and engineering to allow it to be built.

Few things today could be said to be invented out of nowhere (e.g. not relying on a previous discovery).

If I had to answer I'd say the wheel since it took the Earth a few billion years to produce humans who invented it (or discovered if you prefer). After that everything else came a lot quicker relatively speaking.

[Blake]

Any number of modern inventions were technically possible using just bronze age technology. For example, there was nothing at all stopping the Babylonians inventing the telegraph, the steam engine, radiation detectors or brain surgery. All the materials for those things existed once people discovered metallurgy. You don't need to invent anything else.

So by that standard there are literally thousands of 19th and early 20th century devices that took 3, 000 years or more to invent.

You can even look at recreational devices such as kite surfers which have been around for ~100 years, and that were perfectly and readily possible using just tried and tested stone age technology: wood, rope, glue and silk.

So by that standard it took us at least 120, 000 years to invent the kite surfer. It's going to be hard to go past that.

[LAV25]

Not sure how you answer this.

Most inventions are the result of standing on the shoulders of previous inventions.

No one invents the Large Hadron Collider out of nowhere. It is the result of all of humanity's collected knowledge of physics and engineering to allow it to be built.

Few things today could be said to be invented out of nowhere (e.g. not relying on a previous discovery).


True, I didn't mean that the invention had to be out of nowhere, but something like the Large Hadron Collider only gets its clock started when the tech to build it is there.


So by that standard there are literally thousands of 19th and early 20th century devices that took 3, 000 years or more to invent.

You can even look at recreational devices such as kite surfers which have been around for ~100 years, and that were perfectly and readily possible using just tried and tested stone age technology: wood, rope, glue and silk.

So by that standard it took us at least 120, 000 years to invent the kite surfer. It's going to be hard to go past that.

That's probably the winner. Not that kite surfers are that useful, but that is the sort of thing that makes you wonder what else is out there just waiting for somebody to think of it. Thanks to both of you!

[Crazyhorse]

I put my vote on The Pet Rock (http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/The-History-Of-The-Pet-Rock/40051). It wasn't invented until 1975, yet all that was required was a 'rock'; something radiometric dating tells us had already existed on Earth for about 3.9 billion years by that time.

[JoelUpchurch]

Any number of modern inventions were technically possible using just bronze age technology. For example, there was nothing at all stopping the Babylonians inventing the telegraph, the steam engine, radiation detectors or brain surgery. All the materials for those things existed once people discovered metallurgy. You don't need to invent anything else.


There is also the issue of inventions that were made and then lost, since there was no incentive to publish information about inventions without a patent law. Most inventions were treated as trade secrets or temple miracles or there were too few samples of an invention, so a sack or a flood could destroy all the samples and the people who knew how to make it.

For instance, we know now that metalsmithes in the middle east knew how to make batteries and do electroplating. The Alexandrian Greeks could make small steam engines and understood many of the principles of hydraulics. The fairly complex astronomical calculators like the Antikythera machine.

[Whack-a-Mole]

I put my vote on The Pet Rock (http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/The-History-Of-The-Pet-Rock/40051). It wasn't invented until 1975, yet all that was required was a 'rock'; something radiometric dating tells us had already existed on Earth for about 3.9 billion years by that time.

I'd call that a discovery and not an invention. :)

[runner pat]

I'd call that a discovery and not an invention. :)

I would call it domestication. ;)

[Farmer Jane]

Apparently the flying carpet existed three thousand years ago. :dubious:

I'm not sure about the OP. Seems like any animal uses itself - and whatever it is holding - to hit. First you'd have to figure out when ape-men started to 'play' or 'develop imaginations' or 'gain any kind of satisfactory sensory pleasure from holding the bone in the first place' or whatever.

[Whack-a-Mole]

True, I didn't mean that the invention had to be out of nowhere, but something like the Large Hadron Collider only gets its clock started when the tech to build it is there.

Then the wheel is your answer.

The tech was always there if even just using a log to roll under stuff.

Pick when humans became humans and go to around 8000 BC (or as late as 3500 BC...not entirely clear) and that's how long it took.

The problem with the kite surfer is needing multiple tech and it is not a useful thing. It is a fun thing but hardly a necessary invention.

Saying inventing rope and silk was always there is like saying the LHC was always there. Each requires precursor tech to manufacture it and refine it for the use you want.

[Blake]

Of course until people had big things they needed to move, using a log to roll under stuff was absolutely useless. And HGs simply don't have big things they want to move. A wheel would only be of use to a HG if it existed in the form of a wheelbarrow, then it could be used to carry a deer carcasse home in. A log placed under a deer carcasse would make it harder to move than using nothing at all, which is why HGs did not use the wheel. It took a lot of refinements of technology before any wheeled implement was vaguely useful to a HG. The basic log to roll under stuff is only useful to people who want to move large objects in one piece, something that HGs simply never want to do, because everything they possess must be able to be carried by one man. It was only after people settled into villages and built permanent dwellings that a log to roll under stuff became useful.

In contrast the ability to move rapidly over water has been highly useful throughout human history. Simply having an ability to reach offshore islands where birds nest would have been invaluable for humans since well before our species existed.

And of course the existing tech would need refining for the use you want. That is far more true of the wheel than it is of the kitesurfer. People knew how to sew, how to weave, how to shape wood, how to make glue and how to make rope for at least 60, 000 years. The fact that Aborigines knew how to do all those things suggest that humans have known how to do them for the entire history of our species. The actual refinements needed to produce a useful kiteboard from pre-existing technology was therefore much less than that needed for producing a useful wheel.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Of course until people had big things they needed to move, using a log to roll under stuff was absolutely useless. And HGs simply don't have big things they want to move. A wheel would only be of use to a HG if it existed in the form of a wheelbarrow, then it could be used to carry a deer carcasse home in. A log placed under a deer carcasse would make it harder to move than using nothing at all, which is why HGs did not use the wheel. It took a lot of refinements of technology before any wheeled implement was vaguely useful to a HG. The basic log to roll under stuff is only useful to people who want to move large objects in one piece, something that HGs simply never want to do, because everything they possess must be able to be carried by one man. It was only after people settled into villages and built permanent dwellings that a log to roll under stuff became useful.

In contrast the ability to move rapidly over water has been highly useful throughout human history. Simply having an ability to reach offshore islands where birds nest would have been invaluable for humans since well before our species existed.

And of course the existing tech would need refining for the use you want. That is far more true of the wheel than it is of the kitesurfer. People knew how to sew, how to weave, how to shape wood, how to make glue and how to make rope for at least 60, 000 years. The fact that Aborigines knew how to do all those things suggest that humans have known how to do them for the entire history of our species. The actual refinements needed to produce a useful kiteboard from pre-existing technology was therefore much less than that needed for producing a useful wheel.

You tell me how a wheel was unnecessary for a long time so doesn't count but then count a kitesurfer which, near as I can tell, did not exist till very recently and even today could not be said to be necessary.

[Blake]

You tell me how a wheel was unnecessary for a long time so doesn't count but then count a kitesurfer which, near as I can tell, did not exist till very recently and even today could not be said to be necessary.

You seems to be awfully confused about the meanings of "necessary", "useful" and "available". The three terms are not synonymous, or even particularly closely related.

Shotguns did not exist till very recently, so I guess you would argue that a HG 20, 000 years ago had no use for a shotgun.

Dugout canoes could not be said to be necessary today. Does that mean they were not needed 20, 000 years ago?

Snake antivenom was not invented until recently, does that mean that antivenom was neither needed nor useful 20, 000 years ago?

When you have thought about the answers to those questions, you should be able to see why the fact that kitesurfers did not exist till very recently and are not necessary in today's world, does not mean that they were useless and unnecessary 20, 000 years ago.

[mbh]

Hero of Alexandria's aeolipile: circa 50 AD

James Watt's steam engine: 1765 AD

So, depending on your definitions of steam power, about 1700 years.

[Alka Seltzer]

There are countless non-essential inventions that could have been developed hundred or even thousands of years ago. Something like swing(tether)ball (http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Toys-R-Us/Outdoor-and-Sports/Garden-Toys/All-Surface-Swingball(0029155)) could be constructed with basic woodworking skills.

I think a more interesting question is, what non-trivial invention took the longest period of time to develop? My nomination would be the steam engine. The Greeks had steam-powered toys, but we didn't have the industrial revolution for another 2,000 years.

Edit - pipped.

[squidfood]

Self-powered flight. From Icarus to 1904.

[jjimm]

Then the wheel is your answer.

The tech was always there if even just using a log to roll under stuff.A rolling log is a wheel. The actual invention was the axle.

[Der Trihs]

The stirrup certainly took a very long time, since I expect the necessary techniques already existed to make them when horses were domesticated; it's just a loop attached to straps around a horse, after all. Any culture that could work leather or make ropes ought to have been able to make crude stirrups. Horses domesticated about 4500 BC; the first simple stirrups perhaps 500 BC. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirrup#Early_development) 4000 years.

[Lumpy]

People envisaged flat-screen TVs virtually from the day TVs first were marketed, but a commercially practical flat-screen TV eluded researchers for decades. It took the invention of the laptop computer to create a market for "good enough" flatscreens, which could be incrementally improved to the point that they became useful as televisions.

[mla1]

Invention is created on need so time is irrelevant. man needed to talk to eachother across the atlantic quickly. The telegraph. we need to keep in contact Facebook. we need green energy solar panels, wind turbines, we need to show power the atomic bomb, we need more power so we invented the hydrogen bomb the list is endlist.

[code_grey]

18th century style crop rotation and other agricultural techniques of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolution . No technology needed - you could do this sort of reforms administratively at any era, if only the little birdie were to tell you it's a good idea.

ETA: no, the wikipedia article does mention a few technological innovations involved. Still, even they don't sound too complex, even for bronze age situation.

But then, go try convincing a busy Babylonian estate manager he should invest in experimenting with better ideas. The manager has read Paul Graham and knows that ideas are worth nothing. Better read up on Ninurta-the-Farmer's manual of getting the fields plowed with slaves through the copious application of whip.

[elmwood]

I think a more interesting question is, what non-trivial invention took the longest period of time to develop? My nomination would be the steam engine. The Greeks had steam-powered toys, but we didn't have the industrial revolution for another 2,000 years.

I'd consider the printing press among them. The concept was there about 5,000 years before Gutenberg's printing press, in the form of Mesopotamian cylinder seals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_seal). Ink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink) was around for about 3,500 years before the printing press.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Milking. We could have done that at any time, but the first evidence of it is less than 10000 years ago.

[code_grey]

Korean Hangul script appeared at a surprisingly late date, especially given that the Japanese had phonetic writing for much longer.

[mla1]

Liquid fueled rockets getting man to the moon instead of gunpowder.
First liquid fuel rocket 1926 as old as man

[gazpacho]

The stirrup certainly took a very long time, since I expect the necessary techniques already existed to make them when horses were domesticated; it's just a loop attached to straps around a horse, after all. Any culture that could work leather or make ropes ought to have been able to make crude stirrups. Horses domesticated about 4500 BC; the first simple stirrups perhaps 500 BC. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirrup#Early_development) 4000 years.The horse collar is a similar very useful invention. It went through many refinements of the course of around 1000 years. It greatly increased the land that could be worked by a person when it came into use in the middles ages.

[mla1]

Alternating current is one of the most useful ever

[Whack-a-Mole]

A rolling log is a wheel. The actual invention was the axle.

Fair enough.

So, by the OPs specs we need to count from when an axle was technically possible to when it was actually used.

An axle is just a slightly refined log connecting two other logs that have been cut.

The ability to make it existed almost since humans started using tools and human tool use goes back about 3.5 million years (although not sure you would call them what we consider modern humans...I forget where those lines are drawn...more proto-humans).

Perhaps that is pushing it but I bet it was technically feasible to humans 30,000 years ago but what record we have shows no use of a wheel till 8000 BC or so (maybe later).

[Alka Seltzer]

I'd consider the printing press among them. The concept was there about 5,000 years before Gutenberg's printing press, in the form of Mesopotamian cylinder seals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_seal). Ink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink) was around for about 3,500 years before the printing press.

That's a good candidate.

[Kevbo]

As for not needing to move heavy stuff, the plains indians in the US transported their camp goods by pack horse and travois (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travois). Wheeled carts probably would have allowed them to cover more ground in a day, but the travois poles could be repurposed for tent poles when the new camp is reached, So you'd have to move the weight of the cart in addition to your tent poles each time, and the cart would be sitting around useless until the next time you moved camp.

Wheels are useful things to be sure, but without pneumatic tires they wear out quickly, wear out roads quickly, and are fairly limited in the sort of surfaces they work well on. Until you are building good roads, and figure out how to vulcanize rubber, I think the wheel is of limited utility.

[Alka Seltzer]

Wheels are useful things to be sure, but without pneumatic tires they wear out quickly, wear out roads quickly, and are fairly limited in the sort of surfaces they work well on. Until you are building good roads, and figure out how to vulcanize rubber, I think the wheel is of limited utility.

Wooden cart wheels were used successfully since ancient times. A cart could carry far more goods than a draft animal by itself.

[John Mace]

You can even look at recreational devices such as kite surfers which have been around for ~100 years, and that were perfectly and readily possible using just tried and tested stone age technology: wood, rope, glue and silk.

So by that standard it took us at least 120, 000 years to invent the kite surfer. It's going to be hard to go past that.

You might be right about kite surfing, but silk at 120,000 years ago? I suppose animal skins could be used. Or bladders, sewn together would be lighter.

How about writing? There is no reason we couldn't have invented writing as soon as we began speaking. Depending on who you believe, that might have started 1M years ago.

[brocks]

Can't believe nobody else has mentioned crotchless panties.

[John Mace]

Actually, the OP may have hit on the answer himself, pardon the pun. The bone club could have been "invented" by any of our primate ancestors going back at least 50M years. There are always plenty of bones around (or sticks, if you can't find a bone) and we've had opposable thumbs for, like I said, at least 50M years. Hell, you really only need fingers to grasp a club. Opposable thumbs makes it easier, but their not necessary.

So, either clubs or tooth picks. Or chopsticks. Or dildos. Or anything like that.

[Der Trihs]

How about writing? There is no reason we couldn't have invented writing as soon as we began speaking. Depending on who you believe, that might have started 1M years ago.
That reminds me of Sequoyah of the Cherokee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoyah), who invented a written Cherokee language. That shows it's possible to go from no writing to a full fledged written version of the language in one jump if someone has the basic idea.

[mac_bolan00]

it took the japanese more than 20 years to construct a walking humanoid robot. experiments and developments were continuous.

[Acsenray]

Invention is created on need so time is irrelevant.

This is not true. You might notice an invention only upon needing it, but the actual invention might have taken place at any time. It's just as accurate to say that invention creates need as it is to say that necessity is the mother of invention.

[Whack-a-Mole]

This is not true. You might notice an invention only upon needing it, but the actual invention might have taken place at any time. It's just as accurate to say that invention creates need as it is to say that necessity is the mother of invention.

IIRC the first thing that could be considered a steam engine existed in ancient times. It wasn't till the Industrial Revolution where it really came into its own.

[Lumpy]

AFAIK, there was nothing preventing building a gas-discharge laser from the time Einstein first hypothesized the stimulated emission of radiation. But the first lasers weren't built until the 1960s.

[Clothahump]

Babbage's Difference Engine: 1822

Z3 programmable computer: 1941

[chacoguy]

Sharpened stone flakes took millions of years of experimentation and testing to develop.

[John Mace]

Sharpened stone flakes took millions of years of experimentation and testing to develop.

Cite?

[ralph124c]

The automobile had to have successful parallel developments to be possible:
-smooth surfaced roads (McAdam, late 18th century)
-cheap gasoline (late 19th century)
-rubber tires (early 19th century)
-cutting tools that could handle hardened steel gears (late 19th century).
There were attempts at building steam cars in the early 1800's-but these were only a limited success.
For people like Henry Ford to scceed, you needed a lot of other stuff to be available.

[John Mace]

The automobile had to have successful parallel developments to be possible:
-smooth surfaced roads (McAdam, late 18th century)
-cheap gasoline (late 19th century)
-rubber tires (early 19th century)
-cutting tools that could handle hardened steel gears (late 19th century).
There were attempts at building steam cars in the early 1800's-but these were only a limited success.
For people like Henry Ford to scceed, you needed a lot of other stuff to be available.
That would be an excellent offering for a thread concerning the exact opposite question the OP is asking. Not sure what use it is in this thread, though.

[Swords to Plowshares]

Cite?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levallois_technique

Not developed until near the end of the Lower Paleolithic age.

[TriPolar]

The television remote control. Early cavemen must have stared at the cave wall and wondered why they couldn't see moving pictures of people delivering distorted news ( Smilodons big danger! Details after sun go sleep) , informercials (NEW IMPROVED OG ROCK not available in caves, 6 rabbit skins shipping and handling), mindless sitcoms ( Thag: Ugh! --- Everybody: THAG!), and sports (Dag has rock, throws, hits Ig head!). Yet they realized the cruel irony of such an invention ("Why Drog stand, walk cross cave change wall picture?).

[constanze]

I'd consider the printing press among them. The concept was there about 5,000 years before Gutenberg's printing press, in the form of Mesopotamian cylinder seals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_seal). Ink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink) was around for about 3,500 years before the printing press.

Do you know how many tries it took Gutenberg to work out all the problems, and that he had many precurors who failed? It's like James Watt - the steam engine was there long before him, he just invented that small detail of the relief valve to keep the thing from exploding.

[TriPolar]

Do you know how many tries it took Gutenberg to work out all the problems, and that he had many precurors who failed? It's like James Watt - the steam engine was there long before him, he just invented that small detail of the relief valve to keep the thing from exploding.

I thought he invented the valves and condensor that kept the engines from reaching heat equilibrium. Am I wrong about that?

[constanze]

As for not needing to move heavy stuff, the plains indians in the US transported their camp goods by pack horse and travois (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travois). Wheeled carts probably would have allowed them to cover more ground in a day, but the travois poles could be repurposed for tent poles when the new camp is reached, So you'd have to move the weight of the cart in addition to your tent poles each time, and the cart would be sitting around useless until the next time you moved camp.

Actually, the Plains Indians used big dogs first, and horses only after the Spaniards introduced them.

Secondly, when the white settlers with their oxen wagon went across the treeless plain, they found out how much trouble wooden wheels on bad roads are, because they keep breaking.

The wheel was invented in ancient Mesapotamia because it had a civilsation that needed to move a lot of stuff and relativly smooth roads on the hard earth. Jared Diamond in "Guns, Germs and Steel" also points out the lack of strong big animals elsewhere, that prevented the development from sledge (like the travoise) being pulled to putting a log under the sledge.

That's why the Incas and others only had wheels as playthings: because the llamas and Alpakas could carry not more than 50 kg, and not pull anything heavy.

Wheels are useful things to be sure, but without pneumatic tires they wear out quickly, wear out roads quickly, and are fairly limited in the sort of surfaces they work well on. Until you are building good roads, and figure out how to vulcanize rubber, I think the wheel is of limited utility.

Yes.

[constanze]

I thought he invented the valves and condensor that kept the engines from reaching heat equilibrium. Am I wrong about that?

No, we are both right, kind off. here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_steam_engine) it says:

Watt solved the problem of the water spray by removing the cold water to a different cylinder, placed beside the power cylinder. Once the power stroke was complete a valve was opened between the two, and any steam that entered the cylinder would condense inside this cold cylinder. This would create a vacuum that would pull more of the steam into the cylinder, and so on until the steam was mostly condensed. The valve was then closed, and operation of the main cylinder continued as it would on a conventional Newcomen engine. As the power cylinder remained at operational temperature throughout, the system was ready for another stroke as soon as the piston was pulled back to the top. Maintaining the temperature was a jacket around the cylinder where steam was admitted. Watt produced a working model in 1765.

which is what you said; further down it says

Watt never ceased improving his designs. This further improved the operating cycle speed, introduced governors, automatic valves, double-acting pistons, a variety of rotary power takeoffs and many other improvements.

Which is the part I remembered about his improved safety design leading to a commercial breakthrough because people didn't want to buy an engine with the tendency to blow up.

[FatBaldGuy]

I humbly submit that whatever is the most recent thing invented is the one that took the longest to invent. It took from the beginning of time until the present moment. You can't get much longer than that.

[John Mace]

I humbly submit that whatever is the most recent thing invented is the one that took the longest to invent. It took from the beginning of time until the present moment. You can't get much longer than that.
Except that's not what the OP is asking.

[code_grey]

it seems that modern horseshoe was invented only during the post-Roman Dark Ages in Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe#History . Whereas chariot horses and regular cavalry that could have benefited from it existed a thousand years and more before that time.