# Now taking nominations for invention of the millenium. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 10, 1999, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323 "1999-10-10T01:27:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/21 "1999-10-11T16:48:00Z")
Nitpick: Beer and indoor plumbing were both around way before this millenium. My list: - the scientific method - the printing press - the steam engine - the telescope - the clock - the pill I can’t think of anything that hasn’t been mentioned. * * * _Sola bona lingua est mortua lingua._ ---
**Author:** ![Absynthetic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@Absynthetic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absynthetic)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 1999, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/22 "1999-10-12T05:30:00Z")
Movable type printing press (1436) The chimney (14th century) Courtly/ romantic love (12th century) ---
**Author:** ![Persephone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecc23a/32.png) [@Persephone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Persephone)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/23 "1999-10-11T18:15:00Z")
Post-It Notes. ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/24 "1999-10-11T18:51:00Z")
Well, since almost every invention listed is either dependent upon electricity or was improved greatly upon it’s invention, I’d go for electricity. Yeah, I know that electricity wasn’t INVENTED, per se, but you know what I mean… Invented in the harnessing it kind of way. * * * Yer pal, Satan ---
**Author:** ![Dirty\_Devil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Dirty\_Devil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dirty_Devil)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/25 "1999-10-11T19:10:00Z")
Happy hour. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/26 "1999-10-11T19:36:00Z")
C’mon, we all know it has to be sliced bread. * * * “The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.” - _Humphrey Bogart_ ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/27 "1999-10-11T20:15:00Z")
Ice cream! ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/28 "1999-10-11T20:26:00Z")
Beer. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/29 "1999-10-11T20:44:00Z")
Thermos. Whoops, that’s a trademark. “Vacuum flask.” ---
**Author:** ![torq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@torq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torq)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/30 "1999-10-11T20:46:00Z")
I appreciate how much some of you may like beer (don’t care much for it myself), but people have been brewing it several thousand years too long for it to qualify. I’ll go with movable type. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/31 "1999-10-11T22:32:00Z")
Add to spelling, our calendar for this Millennium because it lets us know that this question is a year early. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 1999, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/32 "1999-10-11T23:22:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Yeah, I know that electricity wasn’t INVENTED, per se, but you know what I mean… Invented in the harnessing it kind of way. So you mean something like the transformer, that enables electicity to be sent over a distance? Is “scientific thought” really an invention from this millenium? Wouldn’t that have been used in the previous millenium by someone in India, China or Greece? I seem to remember that at least in Europe, Thales of Miletus (around 600 BC) is credited with “inventing” scientific thought. If we’re talking “inventions”, not “ideas”, then I would say one of these four: The clock The Printing Press The long-range sailing ship The transistor * * * Jacques Kilchoer Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 1999, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/33 "1999-10-12T02:01:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Movable type printing press (1436) How about “Movabel type printing press (by the 11th Century AD in China)” (from Compton’s). The following is from [encycolpedia.com](http://encycolpedia.com): > [@](#): > > type > for PRINTING, was invented in China. Related devices like seals and stamps for making impressions on clay were used in Babylon and elsewhere. Movable types made from metal molds were used in Korea a half-century before the European invention of movable type attributed to Johann GUTENBERG. There is no evidence, however, that the European invention was not independent. I’m not saying that the dude from Mainz wasn’t brilliant; just that the date of the invention is a bit earlier than 1436. Cheers! (Ask me what happened when I my wife (now exwife), from Korea, and I went to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz and the tourguide said that Gutenberg was the first guy to invent printing!) ---
**Author:** ![Absynthetic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@Absynthetic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absynthetic)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 1999, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/34 "1999-10-14T01:06:00Z")
Monty, many other people simply say “Printing press” and you nit-pick me? Whatever. I found the following at [bbc.co.uk](http://bbc.co.uk): "Gutenberg’s printing press produced the first book, a bible, in 1456. The scribes who worked in the monasteries must have been grateful! By the way, we should remember that printing presses had been developed in China earlier than 1456. But ideas spread very slowly from China in those days. Besides, when your alphabet is madeup of 80,000 letters then the technology needed to print it is more complicated than was needed in Europe." So I will concede the point, while sticking to the fact that Gutenberg is _credited_ with the invention. In 1436. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 1999, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/35 "1999-10-14T06:50:00Z")
Gee, AB; now those other folks didn’t put a date on the thing, now did they? Personally, I think the invention of the printing press is the number one top invention of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 1999, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/36 "1999-10-14T07:36:00Z")
Damn, I can’t believe the single most significant invention of the last millenium hasn’t been mentioned yet. While movable type is a huge invention, and certainly in the top five along with anitbiotics the computer, eletricity. The last two are an amalgam of different inventions several of which are cross referenced like transistors, capacitors, and virtually all the different components of managing electricity. The single most important I belive is Henry Ford’s **Assembly Line**. All the other big inventions like CRT, computer, airplanes, steam engines, internal combustion engines, and individually packaged beer lend their impact to the assembly line. If only a handful of people can afford them then whats the value? ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 1999, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/37 "1999-10-14T07:39:00Z")
Damn ubb! ---
**Author:** ![DW3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@DW3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DW3)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 1999, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323/38 "1999-10-15T05:18:00Z")
My favorites are cordless power tools and the automobile. The single most IMO is the semiconductor. If we include developments I would say a tie between national highway system and TVA. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-taking-nominations-for-invention-of-the-millenium/9323.md?page=1)