The Greatest Human Achievements
“These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution.”
Allow me the self-important task of listing some of the greatest achievements of humankind.
Things we found
Charles Darwin. Albert Einstein. Isaac Newton. Galileo. Pasteur. Heisenberg. Planck. Bohr. Each of their achievements have, unquestionably, changed the human race forever. Each, individually, is based on so many others that unless you let me include all of science, I would hard time promoting any one to the “greatest”. If I had to pick, I’ll go with Isaac Newton and his three laws. There is simply no more useful theory in all of science. Still today, it forms the basis of virtually all physical calculations. Second place goes to the guy who discovered fire.
We may live to see other names join that list. We have dark energy and dark matter, we have the standard model, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll have the unification of physics. We may understand the human genome and begin the really dangerous meddling. We may find life on another planet.
Things we made
The Great Pyramids, the Great Wall, and the various other buildings. Great, but not the greatest.
We’ve also split the atom. I think this is a terrifyingly giant step forward and certainly worth considering. I mean, we finally gained the ability to destroy ourselves. That’s not half bad. Even better, we haven’t done it. Yet. As good as that is, there is an obviously better one: we put a man on the moon. Look at the moon the next time you are out and think about the fact that for centuries human beings have looked at that same moon. Aristotle, Charlemagne, Hitler, and Babe Ruth. It looked identical to them all. And twelve of us have walked on it. Just twelve. The most elite fraternity there is.
I believe our generation has seen the emergence of the single greatest human construction of all time: the Internet. Before it’s all said and done, it will have as big an impact as anything ever has. Proximity, for the first time in human existence, is really not necessary. Physical space and distance become less important. It contracts and shrinks the world. As distance matters less, borders matter less.
Last but not least
Let’s say you wanted to learn about the twelve men who set foot on the moon, what would you do? What if you wanted to know when Newton devised his laws? What if you wanted to figure out the most prominent men who contributed to quantum theory? There’s exactly one place you should go: Wikipedia. In 100 years, I don’t know what Wikipedia will become, but I do believe it has a chance to be among the most important things humanity has ever done.
It’s certainly not there yet. It’s going to take some work. It is a singular collection of all human knowledge, written by us all. If our greatest legacy is our science and technology then Wikipedia is our historian. He’s been keeping accurate notes on everything of value that we’ve ever done. He has all of our most powerful ideas, an accurate account of our greatest structures, and a laundry list detailing our greatest discoveries and inventions.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Sounds a bit pre-WolframAlpha to me
May 18th, 2009 at 8:41 am
@SingAlong: I lollerskated all over the park.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Nice post.
But who is Plank? I guess you mean Max Planck?
May 18th, 2009 at 10:22 am
There are so many names missing from the first list though, really. Discovery of atomic structure was, arguably, as important as any discovery we have made: so Boyle, Dalton and Thompson (the infamous J.J. of Cavendish Labs fame). Those 3 deserve as much recognition as the others
May 18th, 2009 at 10:30 am
@roland,
One day I’ll make an error-free post. One day I swear it.
@Errant
I actually tried making a better list and it was a miserable failure. There are just too many. I do think its an interesting exercise to think of those that are underrated. Einstein, Newton, etc are obvious. That’s why I included Pasteur. Although it might be wrong to give him the credit for the germ theory of disease, that theory has had a gigantic impact on human kind. We used to burn witches (and in some places still do) because we didn’t understand disease.
I also left out the scientific method, intentionally, even though it’s probably the most profound and world shattering concept ever conceived.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:21 am
brandy old man, you had me at $carl_sagan_quote. i couldn’t agree more about wikipedia. i look forward to the day when it is more closely linked with my brane.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Science (mostly physics), engineering, computing. Are you, perchance, a geek?
These are great accomplishments, sure, but it’s pretty one-sided. I’d also include human accomplishments in other categories, like:
- Herodotus (the “Father of History”), who showed how to research, test, and record history systematically
- Gandhi, who showed how it’s possible for a small soft-spoken person to liberate a subcontinent from a foreign power without lifting a finger (“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.” –Einstein)
- Beethoven, who wrote what many consider to be the greatest symphony of all time, while completely deaf
- Bruce Lee, who was not just a top martial artist and international movie star, but whose shows of strength and physical ability are still unbelievable, especially for his size
- sciences that are not called “physics”
Mendeleev (chemistry), Mendel (biology), Crick and Watson (biochemistry)
- you make a nod to fire, but I think other ancient developments, like agriculture and domestication and written language were arguably just as significant
I’m a bit of a geek myself, but the internet does not make proximity unnecessary, unless the only things you consume are packets of binary data. If anything, by dropping the cost of sending binary data, the internet highlights how often proximity is supremely important.
January 10th, 2010 at 12:24 am
i’ve spent my time in the shower obsessing over the “great human achievement” and so i had to google it and found you. glad to see you hit a bunch of mine (especially Wikipedia!) i was also thinking the I.S.S., the Bible, and the United States of America.
April 10th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Nice article. Wikipedia all the way.
@jackson
Why United States of America ??
April 26th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
And so if witches are still burned, then mankind is still not deserving of God’s greatest wonders as of yet.Perhaps another 100 yrs will help those who are blind to All wonders and blessings from God.