The Greatest Inventions
March 12, 2009
Most inventions appear on a study path of constant achievement and progress by mankind. New inventions generally out perform what existed in the past, and are usually characterised by an ever increasing amount of complexity. For example, just about all modern cars use computer controlled fuel injection rather that a simple mechanical carburator as in the past. Fuel injection definitely provides superior efficiency and performance, but it is very complex and based on numerous previous advances in many other technologies.
The really great inventions that I marvel at are the ones where someone comes along and thinks up something relatively simple, yet no one had ever thought of before. Unlike most inventions, these great ideas weren't waiting for the necessary foundation technologies to exist, but rather they were just waiting for someone to think of them.
In computer programming, the quick-sort algorithm is a great example of this. In circuit design, sigma-delta converters are another example of this kind of break though idea. These are great yet relatively simple ideas that could have been of great use and value 10 or more years before they were discovered, yet no one had thought of them, so the world had to wait.
Another invention that I would definitely put in the same class as those is the skate boarding ollie. For 20 years or more, in fact throughout my whole childhood, there was no way to jump over something with your skateboard. This made sense, since you are attached to your skateboard by nothing more than gravity. You can jump, but your skateboard stays on the ground. In reality however, for those 20 or more years, all of the millions of people, including me and my friends riding around on our skateboards, could have jumped our boards at any time, we just didn't know it, and we didn't know how. The world simply had to wait until some guy named Allan "Ollie" Gelfand invented the "ollie" in 1978. Now, just about every kid with a skate board does them all day long as they "ollie" over cracks and curbs all over the world.
Watching someone who is good do an ollie is like magic. It looks like the skateboard is attached to their shoes. If you want to learn how to ollie, check out
If you're over 40, and you didn't learn to ollie sometime during the 80's or 90's, don't try it unless you are stupid. You will fall and hurt yourself. Don't ask me how I know this.
-- Greg