[Kirkwood]

I would also place electrical generation on the list. Without that, computers would be doorstops and the Internet wouldn’t even exist.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I would also place electrical generation on the list. Without that, computers would be doorstops and the Internet wouldn’t even exist.

Well, the light bulb is on the list - and it was the killer app which motivated the generation/distribution of electric power.

If you’re going for a grand list of “top 10 inventions,” I’d say that you have to go back a long way. Things like plumbing, and the wheel the bearing (which has to be made of metal, itself a major development).

In such a grand list, “communications, computer, internet” should all be one item.

And mass production, the auto, and refined petroleum should be one item.

The airplane probably deserves a point on the list.

“Steam engine” should be generalized to “heat engine” to include IC engines, piston and turbine flavors. And the air conditioner is just a heat engine run in reverse, just as an electric generator is an electric motor run in reverse.

Thing is, one technology enables another.

Money is an invention, too . . . and so is antibiotic medicine. X-rays, photography . . .

Actually, the horse (as we know it) is an invention; originally horses weren’t nearly as big and powerful as they are now. Selective breeding did the trick.