History's most underrated inventions.

[Dark Jezter]

Can't believe he lists the longbow. If anything it's one of the most over rated medieval weapons of all time.

Look on the bright side: at least he didn't nominate the katana.

 

[mythusmage]

Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin?

Lowered the cost of deseeding cotton bolls, and so made cotton plantations more profitable. Which made keeping slaves economically viable again. Changed socio-economic development in the South dramatically.

 

[Bront]

I would say indoor plumping, but that's just me.

Nah, they wanted underrated. Indoor plumbing has been used to compair the next best thing too.

What is indoor plumping?

 

[ssampier]

Nah, they wanted underrated. Indoor plumbing has been used to compair the next best thing too.

What is indoor plumping?

A type of fruit

It's strange how I always misspell the easy words. At least my rogue looks good in his red makeup.

 

[Galethorn]

I'd like to nominate metal.

Yeah, metal. Sure, it's not exactly underrated, but most people take it for granted, assuming that 'they' just find lumps of it in the ground and make it into I-beams and engine blocks...

I've got a lot of respect for the guy who noticed that weird green stuff seeped out of certain rocks in very hot fires, and when the green stuff cooled, it could be squished around and made into stuff more easily than stone could...and it looked nice when you scraped the green surface off.

I'd also like to nominate the candle; longer lasting than a torch, bright, and not prone to make much smoke, meaning they're good indoors. If not for candles, the great inventors, philosophers, and so forth of the past would have been forced to stop writing things down at sunset and wait until dawn to start again.

 

[mythusmage]

The mouldboard plow.

Combined with the horse collar it opened up literally millions of square miles of agricultural land. Without it the heavy, thick, and ancient root systems clogging German, Russian, and American Great Plains soils would never have gotten plowed at all.

Why is the horse collar necessary here? Oxen are simply not strong enough to pull a mouldboard through the type of soil we're talking about.

 

[mythusmage]

I'd like to nominate metal.

What about ceramics? Pottery to begin with, progressing to porcelin and china in the long run. Led to advances in fuels and ovens, which impacted metal extraction and use. If not for the invention of the kiln (used to fire pottery) and charcoal (to fuel kilns) smelting iron would've remained impossible.

Pottery also made the transportation of oils and wines over great distances possible. Matter of fact, vases have been found at the bottom of the Medditerranean still filled with olive oil and resinated wine. Had a big impact on trade, which in turn led to advances in naval architecture and communications.

 

[was]

How about roads?

 

[Ranger REG]

How about paper?

Very underrated. Without paper, we wouldn't have Charmin.

Imagine using a papyrus.

 

[mythusmage]

How about roads?

Now there's a good point.

The Aztecs had the wheel, but they lived in terrain wheels were of little use in, and they saw no need to change things so they could use their wheels. The Spanish had wheels and had developed the technology, infrastructure, and society necessary for their use. They needed wheels, so they needed to change things in Central Mexico so they could use their wheels.

The first culture, the Sumerian, to use wheels had the good fortune to live in a part of the world where wheels could be used with little change to the environment. Southern Iraq is flat. Central Iraq is mostly flat. The highlands and hills (especially to the west) are gently sloped. Wheeled vehicles were useful, and soon came to dominate in transportation and trade.

Outside Mesopotamia was another matter. But, wheels proved so useful people figured out a way to get wheeled vehicles into areas they otherwise couldn't go. First by leveling a sort of track through rough terrain, later by developing road construction techniques that in ancient times culminated in the famous roads of Rome.

And yes, roads are built. Even something as basic as a city street is a complex construction project requiring many steps.

Then you have all the things that come with road construction. Surveying - of a type more involved than surveying a field, basic topology, soil chemistry, hydrology, civil engineering as a whole. What sort of load can the ground take? What sort of foundation is needed so the road can handle the expected load? What about drainage? Many construction techniques originally developed for roads would later be adapted to constructing walls and buildings.

And good roads opened up trade routes that would otherwise have been closed. Rivers are great at transporting goods and people, but they don't always go where you need them to. You've got the resources you can build roads that can go most anywhere. In Medieval Europe the problem with transporting goods by road had more to do with tolls than any other cause. With her strong cental government 14th century England could send more trade by road, and more profitably than any other part of Europe.

Roads are definitely under appreciated.