History's most underrated inventions.

[Lorgrom]

Baby wipes

My vote is for the lowly Baby Wipe, and the adult equlivent. If we ever run into alien lifeforms from another planet or dimension, we should use the Baby Wipe as a guage for how advanced they are .

 

[Ranger REG]

My vote is for the lowly Baby Wipe, and the adult equlivent. If we ever run into alien lifeforms from another planet or dimension, we should use the Baby Wipe as a guage for how advanced they are .

Unless they invented poop-vac.

 

[shaylon]

Can't believe it took 44 posts!

Paper clips.

Great answer Olgar! I read an article once about all the different things that paper clips are used for and how useful it can be. I wholeheartedly agree.

I also would like to add that I disagree with chariots as well. They weren't that useful.

-Shay

 

[Dark Jezter]

Great answer Olgar! I read an article once about all the different things that paper clips are used for and how useful it can be. I wholeheartedly agree.

That is true. In fact, if you happen to be McGuyver, you can turn a paper clip into a nuclear reactor capable of powering 10 city blocks.

 

[Ranger REG]

That is true. In fact, if you happen to be McGuyver, you can turn a paper clip into a nuclear reactor capable of powering 10 city blocks.

Nah. The paper cllip alone only give the capability of powering just 5 city blocks.

But paper clip and gum wrapper foil, now that's some power....

 

[Ferret]

Or longitude and latitude.

Yup, and glass. Glass is awesome*


*Doing a piece of coursework on materials, and I jsut realised much you can do with glass. Dope it with Lead and its RI increases drematically, Dope it with Boron and it becomes heat resistant, add a layer of Titanium dioxide and it cleans its self!

 

[mythusmage]

Then you have the various metal glasses, transparent aluminum being one example. You also have transparent copper, transparent iron, transparent bronze, and transparent steel. Actually metallic oxides with additives, they have remarkable mechanical properties, and with a bit of 'stiffening' (the metal in crystalline form) can be used in many applications.

Bring the price of transparent steel down enough you could have 'crystal' bridges.

 

[Darkness]

The pencil and ball point pen. I don't know who developed writing graphite, but I do know the ball point pen was a WWII invention for bomber craft navigators.

I can't imagine developing games with a quill and ink.

Me neither; I use a laptop these days.

Yeah, I still use pencils too.

I'd like to nominate metal.

Good point. I especially like ManOWar, but other bands are great as well.

 

[Warrior Poet]

add a layer of Titanium dioxide and it cleans its self!

Sweet, can I get a bathroom made with a layer of titanim dioxide?

Warrior Poet

 

[buzzard]

Then you have the various metal glasses, transparent aluminum being one example. You also have transparent copper, transparent iron, transparent bronze, and transparent steel. Actually metallic oxides with additives, they have remarkable mechanical properties, and with a bit of 'stiffening' (the metal in crystalline form) can be used in many applications.

Bring the price of transparent steel down enough you could have 'crystal' bridges.

You are mixing terms inappropriately.

Yes, you did get it right when you talked about metallic oxides, but you should realize that it is possible to make a "glass" out of a non oxide metal as well. A glass is merely a state in which a material has an amorphic structure. There are no crystals whatsoever. This is achieved by some complicated thermodynamic gobblydigook, that I won't explain here (it would take a while). Metallic oxides are generally the easiest thing to make into a glass, but there are plenty of alloys which can be used for this these days. In fact metallic glass golf club shafts are supposed to be rather popular.

The advantage of a metallic glass is that it does wonders for the physical properties, because the lack of crystal structure disables the primary mechanism of deformation.

buzzard