# What invention or scientific discovery was most significantly ahead of it's time
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 24, 2015, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399 "2015-09-24T14:27:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/21 "2015-09-24T21:26:23Z")
**The invention of paper** about 2000 years ago in China, with its several important uses, qualifies as significantly ahead of its time. We know that because China kept the recipe secret and paper-making spread very slowly. [According to Wikipedia, the Islamic world learned the secret recipe for paper by interrogating prisoners taken in the 751 A.D. Battle of Talas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas), at least six centuries after the Chinese recipe was perfected.
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### Author:  [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/22 "2015-09-24T21:50:19Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> **The invention of paper** about 2000 years ago in China, with its several important uses, qualifies as significantly ahead of its time. We know that because China kept the recipe secret and paper-making spread very slowly. [According to Wikipedia, the Islamic world learned the secret recipe for paper by interrogating prisoners taken in the 751 A.D. Battle of Talas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas), at least six centuries after the Chinese recipe was perfected.
Again, I wouldn’t say that was necessarily ‘ahead of its time’. It’s more a case of China being ahead of the rest of the world at the time. Many things produced in China at the time would have been considered far advanced, unless you happened to live in China, where they would have been considered normal technological progress. The same is true for all ‘great’ civilisations.
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/23 "2015-09-24T22:20:22Z")
> [@dataguy](#):
>
> I nominate [Dennis Gabor](http://www.americanhungarianfederation.org/FamousHungarians/gabor) for inventing the theory of holography before lasers were invented.
>
> He knew that you needed a coherent source of light, but none were available in 1947, when he first forumulated his theory. It wasn’t until lasers were invented in 1960 that his theory was proven correct and workable.
>
> This is one of things that I don’t think would have been a self-evident use of lasers without his theory.
Einstein was 30 years ahead of Gabor:
[Einstein Predicts Stimulated Emission](http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200508/history.cfm)
(from link):
> [@](#):
>
> **The laser’s invention launched a multi-billion dollar industry.** Lasers are used to remove unwanted tattoos; to correct vision defects in laser eye surgery; to cut through steel and other materials in industrial assembly lines; to scan prices in supermarkets and department stores; for optical communications and optical data storage; and in electronic devices like CD and DVD players. **The root of all this technological innovation lies in fundamental physics research, specifically, a 1917 paper by Albert Einstein on the quantum theory of radiation.**
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/24 "2015-09-25T03:57:09Z")
Though more mundane, the Colt model 1911 was an advanced design for its time.
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### Author:  [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/25 "2015-09-25T06:25:59Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> Heron of alexandria (ca. 200 AD) invented s team turbine…had he been able to perfect it, who knows where we would be now.
Steam turbine, eh? Pffft!
The guy invented a [vending machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria#Inventions). _That’s_ what I call ahead of its time.
> [@](#):
>
> The first vending machine was also one of his constructions, when a coin was introduced via a slot on the top of the machine, a set amount of holy water was dispensed.
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/26 "2015-09-25T08:38:37Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#):
>
> Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that you should wash your hands before going from one patient to another, especially a woman about to give birth, to prevent puerperal (childbed) fever, which killed countless women and babies. This was years before Pasteur, and if enough people had listened to him, so many people would have been saved.
Not ahead of his time. Not only wasn’t he unique or first to recommend hand desinfection (mind you just washing your hands wouldn’t be enough), he was also wrong about the particulars of the problem.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/27 "2015-09-25T14:38:55Z")
Semmelweis recommended washing with a mild chlorine solution, which would certainly have been enough.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/28 "2015-09-25T15:05:58Z")
> [@dataguy](#):
>
> I nominate [Dennis Gabor](http://www.americanhungarianfederation.org/FamousHungarians/gabor) for inventing the theory of holography before lasers were invented.
>
> He knew that you needed a coherent source of light, but none were available in 1947, when he first forumulated his theory. It wasn’t until lasers were invented in 1960 that his theory was proven correct and workable.
>
> This is one of things that I don’t think would have been a self-evident use of lasers without his theory.
Pretty much by definition you can’t “invent” something without the technology to make it happen. Dennis Gabor actually made holograms in 1947. Therefore, he must have had a source of coherent light.
Gabor used narrow transition lines in a mercury discharge lamp, highly filtered.
Coherent light certainly existed before lasers. Coherent light certainly exists in nature. All light is coherent, to some degree (se below), but most natural light is effectively incoherent, or partially coherent.
What’s important, in making holograms (or any good interferometry) is the _coherence length_ – the length over which the light remains in some phase relationship with other parts of the beam. In nature the coherence length is very short – only a few wavelengths (but that’s enough to cause diffraction effects, including the rainbow). Gabor’s filtered mercury light had a coherence length of less than a millimeter. What made the laser so exciting is that the coherence length could be measured in inches or in feet.
You can only make a hologram of an object smaller than the coherence length. So Gabor’s holograms were essentially “flat” from a human scale. They didn’t look 3D. What Leith and Upatnieks did in 1962 was to take the first obviously 3D holograms, using long coherence length laser light.
Gabor was “ahead of his time” in the sense that his invention was capable of much more than the technology of his time allowed, although the techn ology caught upo in 15 years. Not really “significantly ahead of his time”. Other technology has a better claim on that.
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### Author:  [@Bert\_Nobbins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bert_Nobbins)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/29 "2015-09-25T15:06:46Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> Charles Babbage’s [Analytical Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine) comes to mind…
>
> Sadly, its mechanical complexity was such that it was never built, and Lovelace’s programming was only on paper. So it doesn’t count as an actual “invention” but rather a very far-sighted concept that was too far ahead of its time to actually be built. Had someone of Babbage’s caliber had access to anything like modern electronic or electromechanical memories and switching devices, the fields of computer engineering and software design would be immeasurably more advanced today.
The annoying thing is that it would have been perfectly practical to build the analytical engine at the time. The difference engines built recently have proved thoroughly constructable and work. The real impediments were organisational and financial, and could have been overcome.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/30 "2015-09-25T15:19:04Z")
Vaccinations? The Chinese were doing a form of them a couple thousand years ago.
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### Author:  [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/31 "2015-09-25T15:47:24Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#):
>
> Einstein was 30 years ahead of Gabor:
>
> [Einstein Predicts Stimulated Emission](http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200508/history.cfm)
>
> (from link):
I don’t think we’re on quite the same wavelength here.
I’m not crediting Gabor with inventing lasers, but inventing a practical application for lasers. I’d agree with you if there were evidence that Einstein anticipated this application of laser technology.
However, I agree with the later post by Cal Meacham, which is both clarifying and informative:
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> …
> You can only make a hologram of an object smaller than the coherence length. So Gabor’s holograms were essentially “flat” from a human scale. They didn’t look 3D. What Leith and Upatnieks did in 1962 was to take the first obviously 3D holograms, using long coherence length laser light.
>
> Gabor was “ahead of his time” in the sense that his invention was capable of much more than the technology of his time allowed, although the technology caught upo in 15 years. Not really “significantly ahead of his time”. Other technology has a better claim on that.
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/32 "2015-09-25T16:01:00Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> Semmelweis recommended washing with a mild chlorine solution, which would certainly have been enough.
Yes. I didn’t intend to imply Semmelweis recommendations were a failure, just the opposite. What he recommended was disinfection, even if he was actually aiming at removing the corpse smell. Which is slightly different from “wash your hands” as Denarii Dame wrote. Just a nitpick though.
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### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/33 "2015-09-25T17:14:36Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#):
>
> Steam turbine, eh? Pffft!
>
> The guy invented a [vending machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria#Inventions). _That’s_ what I call ahead of its time.
True. what we have to remember…Heron was a solitary genius who worked alone. he could not order parts, or have a machine shop make something from his sketches.
Inventions like the automobile came about because there was already a machine tool industry able to make the required parts.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/34 "2015-09-25T17:33:49Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> Vaccinations? The Chinese were doing a form of them a couple thousand years ago.
Cite? (I’m curious)
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/35 "2015-09-25T17:53:57Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> Heron of alexandria (ca. 200 AD) invented s team turbine…had he been able to perfect it, who knows where we would be now.
AFAIK, the aeolipile , also known as a Hero engine, has no practical usages.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/36 "2015-09-25T17:57:25Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> 1600 additional years of industrially driven climate change without the science to understand it or mitigate it would have been interesting. The US would certainly be a much smaller place today, from the Pacific coast in Colorado to the Atlantic maybe somewhere around Indiana – though it might be too hot or too stormy for anyone to actually be able to live there!
Umm, not really since for most of that 1600 years they were casually burning wood and coal for heat and cooking. And you exaggerate the amount of water rise.
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/37 "2015-09-25T17:59:54Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> AFAIK, the aeolipile , also known as a Hero engine, has no practical usages.
Perhaps not then. But, if you wanted, you could easily make a dynamo out of such a device.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/38 "2015-09-25T18:07:09Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> Cite? (I’m curious)
Well, In England it was fairly common to deliberately get infected with Cow Pox, as it was rarely deadly, and it protected you from Small Pox.
> **[Cowpox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox)**
>
> Cowpox is an infectious disease caused by the cowpox virus (CPXV). It presents with large blisters in the skin, a fever and swollen glands, historically typically following contact with an infected cow, though in the last several decades more often (though overall rarely) from infected cats. The hands and face are most frequently affected and the spots are generally very painful.
> The virus, part of the genus Orthopoxvirus, is closely related to the vaccinia virus. The virus is zoonotic, meaning ...
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/39 "2015-09-26T00:12:16Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> Cite? (I’m curious)
I possibly should have used the term “inoculation.” Not sure how different if any that is from “vaccination.” But [this cite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation#China) lists 10th-century-AD as the first inoculations, and [here](http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/timelines/all), so make that a thousand years ago. I’ve also read of evidence in India about the same time.
Similarly, [China seemed to know before James Lind and England’s Royal Navy the value of vitamin C in preventing scurvy on long sea voyages](http://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/opinion/blogs/who-discovered-how-to-prevent-scurvy/11072182.blog).
Both of the above I first learned about in college.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-invention-or-scientific-discovery-was-most-significantly-ahead-of-its-time/732399/40 "2015-09-26T00:18:32Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> I possibly should have used the term “inoculation.” Not sure how different if any that is from “vaccination.” But [this cite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation#China) lists 10th-century-AD as the first inoculations, and [here](http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/timelines/all), so make that a thousand years ago. I’ve also read of evidence in India about the same time.
>
> Similarly, [China seemed to know before James Lind and England’s Royal Navy the value of vitamin C in preventing scurvy on long sea voyages](http://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/opinion/blogs/who-discovered-how-to-prevent-scurvy/11072182.blog).
>
> Both of the above I first learned about in college.
To add: In fact, I recall an essay by the historian JM Roberts illustrating how China invented a lot of firsts that the world just wasn’t ready for, mechanical clocks and gunpowder as two examples. They were largely just curiosities until the West managed to take off with them.
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