Other Most important invention in the past 50 years

Hi guys. As the title says, what do you think is the most important invention in the past 50 years? Just looking for some ideas as it's part of the interview I have for Portsmouth, any help is greatly appreciated

 

Integrated circuits or hydrogen fuel cells.

 

Whats the interview for? A bit of context might spring better ideas.

However, I think Smilodon hit the nail on the head with ICs.

That is unless you start counting medicinal breakthroughs, and other ones that i can't think of atm. Then you can start arguing if they would have been possible without the IC

 

Double post, sorry! Internet on the blink and i didn't refresh before hitting reply when it came back

 

t'interweb is most important ofc. Before then, students actually had to think for themselves.

 

High yield rice.

 

4chan?

 

Free Love?

 

Not strictly an invention, but i'd go for Human Genome Project purely because its responsible for so damn much.

 

Subtle.

 

Overall it would almost have to be the integrated circuit but in specific fields there are other things. Artificial heart being one.

 

+rep

 

Well being 50 years, you narrowly (by just over a decade ) miss out on the invention of the Transistor (1947, USA) but I would definately have to go with the Integrated Circuit (1961, USA) the invention of which is responsible for just about everything that we are capable of doing today and everything major that the Human race has accomplished in the past 50 years. Major milestones that spring to mind are the construction and mainstream availability of computers. The space race and the result of that, putting men on the moon couldn't have happened without the (then) powerful computers which were used both on the ground and on the craft. Then on a related note there's the construction of the ISS, the first long term human outpost in space. Cars and other modes of transport like motorbikes and trains have been revolutionized both directly using onboard electronic control systems and indirectly in the use of comptuer simulation and Computer Aided Design to create more efficient, aerodynamic and user friendly vehicles.

I could go on and on. It's the humble IC. Thanks, TI and Fairchild Semiconductor

 

No love for the Laser? It history starts before 50 years ago, but they only really came into their own during the time frame in question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_applications_for_lasers

Not bad for something that really didn't have a use when they where first speculated. And don't forget, with out lasers, no Pew Pew.

 

Integrated Circut for sure.

That or the concept of the internet.

 

Hubble Space Telescope.

 

Gosh where to start...

Thin filmed transistors (solar power), vaccines, the microprocessor, hell the microwave!, 2 minute noodles, the mobile phone, the first tcp/ip network etc.

I believe the HDD really kicked things off in the last 50 years, the ability to store mass amounts of information digitally and its importance in the formation of the PC's we know of today cannot be understated.

 

I think you'll find that vaccines are considerably older than 50 years!

Like everyone else, I'd go with ICs: so many modern inventions rely on ICs to function. Without them we'd be lost.

I'd originally wanted to suggest the transistor, but then I realised that was more than 50 years old.

 

I included that in the ISS program and space exploration in general. I definately think space exploration by NASA and other space agencies in general is one of the most important and impressive achievements we've accomplished in the past 50 years.

 

im looking forward to the next 50 years. Apparently there's going to be a manned mission to mars and another trip to the moon. Will be interesting to see what nasa decide to do seeing as the Space Shuttle has been mothballed.