I just read a comic strip in which the Hubble Space Telescope is called the most important scientific tool ever invented. I disagree; I would put the microscope first. My husband, Doper Andy L, says it should be the notebook.
What do you think?
If it has to be a physical tool I agree that paper is hard to beat. The ability to store and hand down vast amounts of knowledge for following generations to build upon is pretty impressive.
If you’re willing to relax the definition of tool the I’d say the scientific method.
I think the scientific method came about because of the creation of paper. Scientifically minded people could no longer live in their own bubble and assume their conclusions to be correct.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “tool.”
I certainly wouldn’t say the Hubble Space Telescope is the most important scientific tool, not by a long shot. If we’re talking large, complex yet single-use items I’d say medical imaging devices (MRI, CT scanners, etc) are far more vital.
On a much more basic level, almost nothing in our modern life would be possible without transistors. They are the heart of most computers and computers control almost every aspect of our lives, from coffee pots to airliners, including Hubble and MRI machines. Thus transistors get my vote (assuming they count as a “tool”).
If we’re going that route, what about the discovery and implementation of math? From crop rotation and harvest planning to building cities, math is a pretty vital part of our transition away from a hunter-gatherer society.
Surely you’ve heard the joke about the thermos bottle in this context…
the hearing aids ! 
No, not hearing aids. Eyeglasses.
They greatly extended the intellectual life of intellectuals when they were invented in the Middle Ages. Used to be that when someone’s vision started to fade, that person had to give up reading and writing, as well as any other activity that required visual precision. With the invention of eyeglasses, it became the norm for people to continue working into old age (if they survived that long.)
Also, eyeglasses changed the way that people thought about the themselves and the world. If a fundamental reality like one’s vision can be altered by a couple small lenses, then it begs the question, what other aspects of our bodily reality might also be changed by the thinking about them in a new way?
While the development of paper, and especially the lignocellulosic pulp paper that we currently produce in great volume, was a revolutionary technology (one, by the way, brought to Europe and invested as a commercial product by the Moors), I don’t think it is fair to restrict its influence strictly to scientific applications. The development of paper had as much or more influence on commerce. codified laws, and (along with the printing press) greatly expanded literacy and overthrow of Papal dominance in Europe.
“Math” is such a large bag of tools in and of itself that to claim it as one innovation is an unfair generalization. The development of mathematics–starting with counting integers, later recognizing the value of representing nothing (zero), the understanding of the relationship between theoretical geometry and real world structures, the development of algebra, trigonometry, and later integral and differential calculus to quantify the actions of forces, moments, and movement, and onto the discrete mathematics that powers modern digital computers and statistics that explains thermodynamics and quantum mechanics at a fundamental level–is distributed across such space and eras that math isn’t just a tool, it is a fundamental language that has evolved along side of natural philosophy and our attempts to model the world from an analytic perspective. But if I had to pick one most critical concept of mathematics that has been of inestimable value to the modern sciences it would be the concept of the exponential function and its complement, the logarithm, giving rise to a means to model things behavior that is not linear or represented by simple geometrical operations, especially using the natural number e. The concept of pi and circular and elliptic functions takes a close second.
However, if we are speaking of physical tools that are operated by scientists rather than methods for analytically modeling or approximating behavior, I’m going to submit x-ray crystallography as the tool which allows us to directly image the molecular structure of minerals, metallic lattices, proteins, and most especially nucleic acids which gave rise to our understanding of how atomic structures form and how their structure controls observed physical properties, thermal behavior, and of course, the very structure that describes life itself. X-ray crystallography was also one of the first fields of the physical laboratory sciences where women in quantity made significant contributions including Dorothy Hodgkin, Kathleen Lonsdale, Constance Tipper, and the tragically overlooked Rosalind Franklin. (I honestly don’t know why women made more inroads into that particular field than, say, experimental particle physics or computational mathematics, and would be pleased to be educated on the topic by anyone who has an explanation.) It may not be as ubiquitous as the transistor or as sexy as a high energy particle accelerator, but the practical understanding that x-ray crystallograpy has given us on how materials both inert and biological function at the atomic level is unparalleled in breadth and utility to any other single technical tool or instrument I can think of, including the optical microscope or scanning electron microscope.
Stranger
The one true correct answer is of course the Juice Loosener.
I’m terrified to google that…
It is very much safe for work…at least in its original form. Though knowing the internet, I’m sure it probably has been enpornulated somewhere.
Are empiricism and the scientific method considered a tool? If so, that is the most important.
Will it’s hearing aids for me , I would had been lost without them growing up !
Unless you drop it…
(I don’t know this joke. Tell!)
Second the nomination of the microscope. If you allow broad generalization, “magnifying lenses,” covering microscopes and telescopes.
A case could well be made for particle accelerators.
Lots of good tools mentioned. My first thought was the thermometer.
Don’t think it’s a joke per se, more of an imponderable question – i.e. “How does the thermos know whether to keep something hot or keep something cold?”
Lotsa people mentioned paper; but what good is paper without something to write with?
Anyhow, let me be the first to nominate the six simple machines: the lever, pulley, wedge, screw, inclined plane, and wheel & axle.
If you broaden a bit further to all optical glass, you get eyeglasses, which was a major meta factor in the scientific revolution. Because about the time most people understand the existing knowledge well enough to contribute new stuff, their eyes go to shit and would have slowed down all areas of advancement without correction available.
I agree.
Let us go forward a few millennia and I would nominate the movable-type printing press.
It freed us peons having to depend on those pesky self-entitled scribes - who took forever to transcribe and when finished, didn’t want to share.
Ah! Gotcha!
Now that’s generalizing!
Grin! Lovely point! Partial credit goes to medical science, for helping keep people alive long enough to get doctorates in difficult sciences.