Top 10 Greatest Achievements of Mankind

The greatest things the human race has ever done or made.
The Top Ten
1 Travelling to the Moon

All throughout history, we have developed technology for a reason. Necessity is the mother of all invention. The technology we have made has many beneficial direct and side effects which will influence positions on this list.

The moon is the furthest we have ever gone, both literally and metaphorically. As humans, we are always desperate to know more, whatever the cost. Landing on the moon is the ultimate result of this.

It is our greatest achievement because it supersedes God for the first time in thousands of years. Religion has stagnated the human race because the questions it asks cannot be answered. So, we no longer need to look to the sky to see God. We see the solar system and possibilities for investigation in and beyond it, and this will continue to allow the human race to strive and therefore survive.

Imagine strapping yourself to a skyscraper and traveling 230,000 miles away from the planet you've known your entire life and stepping on another world. Imagine looking up and seeing the planet where every single human being has lived and died and how vulnerable it is to the vast universe we now know exists. This achievement will only be passed when Man steps on another planet, and beyond.

2 Mastering Flight

I agree with this text. I think everything is almost as it should be. However, I still have a couple of complaints. Second for me would be electricity, because without it we would go back to prehistoric times. And above all, nothing would be created. But the first should be the bicycle, because without it, we wouldn't even create electricity. And none of what's there. As a third, I would give flight because with it we can discover new states, countries, and places, and above all, it will be easier to travel. For me, the Internet should be somewhere in the middle because it can bring both destruction and humanity, and without it, we wouldn't be as far as we are today.

Great technological invention, and even by 2015, perhaps the greatest, but not the greatest of all human inventions. The ability to enlarge our brains, describe, and peer into atomic-level structures helped us discover and invent all that we see - medicine, materials, electronics, etc.

3 Creating Photography

Photography is the underdog of man's creations. While it may not seem as significant as walking on the moon or achieving flight, photography allows us to make moments in time timeless. Photos of landmarks, photos of love, even capturing the vastness of the universe for us to finally behold. Not only is it an important advancement, it's important to our culture. Our history.

Truly, a remarkable thing that we often take for granted.

Without photography, we would have never had an accurate perception of what it was like years before we were born. Sure, there are artists who could paint portraits and the town streets, but is it really the same? The past, present, and future. Moments in time, made timeless.

Photography developed into bird watching, pornography, records of human history, videos, movies, illustrated books, printing, and presentation (e.g., graphs).

4 Creating Electronic Devices

Electronic devices now make up a huge part of the lives for the majority of the world. First radios, telephones, following that, we got televisions and mobile phones, and now we're at computers, smartphones, and the internet. Electricity also provides us with lots of interesting technology such as space travel/exploration and special medication methods. Electricity made communication miles easier and opened up countless branches of entertainment.

I really have so much respect for that. Imagine life without cars, airplanes, computers, etc.? We would still be animals, not humans.

Humans didn't do in 200,000 years what has already been done in 100 years with the help of electricity. It boosted technology and research to an endless level.

5 Creating Movies
6 Creating Music

Music is the language of existence in my book. It puts our humanity into perspective and brings meaning to everyday moments. Without music, it would be very hard to reflect on where we are and what we are doing because, as selfish creatures, we are never fully satisfied. Always looking either toward the future or past. I guess its most unique quality is to stop time at a moment and give us the ability to judge life with a perspective.

Music rouses the greatest feelings one can witness. The ingenuity of composers like J.S. Bach is unsurpassed, and in my opinion, some of his works are the greatest achievements of mankind.

This would be one of my top 3, along with language/writing and the invention of electronic devices.

7 Developing Tools
8 Mastering Metalworking
9 Developing Vaccines

One-third of children used to die of smallpox until inoculation and vaccination. People did not count their children until they had smallpox and survived. All the other vaccines are just a cherry on the cake.

Going to the moon was just one nation flexing its muscles to show off to another nation. To tackle smallpox, all people around the world had to cooperate to banish a small piece of evil from the land. Eradicating smallpox was all of mankind working together to be the best that we could.

The ability to save not only humans but other life forms, from microscopic "devils" is absolutely amazing.

10 Farming
The Contenders
11 Domesticating Fire

Helped us cook food, making it easier for us to get more glucose to the brain - thereby enlarging our brains by about 2 times over the next million years - and this is when human beings unleashed the creative energy from their brains to discover, invent (and sometimes destroy) all the things attributed to humans.

While all these other discoveries are amazing, nothing compares to this. Without fire, we as a species do not start living past the age of 30, we cannot create civilization, and we cannot banish the dark, starting to take control of our fears of what goes bump in the night.

This has to be number 2. It was the thing that started the new era for humans.

12 Creating the Internet

I recently did a report on the internet for school, and the main thing is the level of communication it brings. You can send a message to someone on the other side of the world in the blink of an eye. Before, it took months for a letter to get to the other side of a country, depending on its size.

Definitely number one. Without the Internet, we wouldn't be able to communicate with the other side of the world cheaply, quickly, and decisively.

The greatest communication tool ever devised!

13 Creating Writing

Writing is the sole reason that mankind has been able to accumulate knowledge. The limits of oral language become quite evident when death comes for all of us. There is also a limit to the quantity of knowledge we can hold, compute, and comprehend within our heads. Abstract thinking is much less efficient when it comes to creating formulas and logical statements.

Writing has also allowed us to generalize variations within many fields, especially mathematics and sequences, consequently leading to the discovery/creation of calculus. In short, all of the other achievements listed here would have been impossible or significantly more difficult without the creation of writing.

Personally, I think saying that going to the moon was our biggest achievement is a very closed-minded thought. Think of it in the big picture, writing is a way to get thoughts on paper, stories, recipes, instructions, letters. Nothing would exist in our modern world without the art of writing.

14 Creating Nuclear Weapons

Man stumbled upon atomic power and fashioned it into nuclear weapons, which possess the capacity to destroy every living thing in their path. Nothing man has done is more significant to the future of this world and its inhabitants.

A new world war would be way too risky. With such massive weapons, the world would blow each other up.

Can't you see? The only thing preventing WW3 is nuclear weapons.

15 Creating the Wheel

The first steps to moving rapidly to where we want to be and where what we wanted to be was. A critical milestone for setting milestones.

The wheel improved the transport of things, which in turn improved commerce and the progress of humanity.

Almost everything uses the wheel, like elevators, cars, basically everything. That's why I think it is one of the biggest accomplishments of all time.

16 Creating Cities
17 Creating Language

Language, an entire list of words, sentences, phrases, and a whole lot of grammar made up of strange sounds from our mouth, have the power to express ourselves and others. Without language, we would have been prisoners in our minds. Without language, creative writing wouldn't be possible nor would the internet. What would our thoughts be like if we did not know any language? We even think in a certain language (that's what I think).

Language is the single most important technological leap for mankind. It dwarfs all others in comparison. And how mysterious and powerful it is to be able to take an abstract concept and implant that in the mind of another. It's an incredible feat when you think about it. It borders on being a metaphysical force.

I don't entirely disagree with the last statement, "How is language not number 1?", the highest achievement of humankind. However, I believe that the voice is the crowning achievement of evolution/of humankind. No voice, no language. I think of the frustration, anxiety, and depression that stroke victims experience when unable to speak or barely speak.

18 Creating the Theory of Evolution

This theory has completely altered our understanding of how organisms co-relate, change, and came to be. It asks one of the most provocative questions: What are we? From what did we come from? What will we become?

Compared to so many other things, this is huge! An explanation of how we came into being, if you combine it with natural selection, it also becomes possible to manipulate evolution.

A theory which explained our complicated root with basic cause-effect relationships. A true masterpiece of humanity.

19 Creating Theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics

How can someone not agree with this? All the objects in the universe can be explained using these theories. Moreover, the future would be based on it. Remember teleportation and quantum computing? All the above are daily objects which make man's life simple, but did you figure out how to explain them on the scale of subatomic particles? These theories help you, though there might be loopholes which would be solved in the future.

Explains almost all that we see - from galaxies and stars to protons and electrons.

These are the greatest achievements in human history.

20 Invented the Printing Press

Back in the days before any of us were born, books and works of writing, namely the Bible, were expensive. Someone had to sit down and copy an entire book. Until the printing press. Now, normal civilians can own those books, that knowledge.

This has changed the history of the whole world. Without the Printing Press, the Bible and several other books and works would never be in the hands of simple civilians.

I don't think it was one of the greatest technological ideas ever. However, despite it not being amazing, it had more impact than any invention in the last 500 years, and that is saying something.

21 Discovering Mathematics

We humans need mathematics. Mathematics is the language of the universe. Math is fundamental to our understanding of the sciences. Math is not only one of the greatest achievements of Man but is arguably the greatest discovery ever, period.

We created something that enables us to grasp the truth. This allows us to explore the universe without using our senses. Mathematics was one of the first creations of humans that exists beyond a physical world.

As Rutherford said, "When you can express something quantitatively, you can say you know something about it," and that covers music, the arts, and all the sciences.

22 Discovering and Controlling Electricity

Of all man's accomplishments, most would not have been possible without the harnessing of electricity.

None of the things rated higher than this could have been done without this.

23 Creating the Periodic Table of the Elements

Got to know about atoms and how to manipulate them before you can reach the moon.

Huge amounts of time, hard work, research, and knowledge, all in an elegant table, a masterpiece.

Yeah, the first priority is to know about the matter around you.

24 Mapping the Human Genome

The manipulation of genes is the future of medicine.

25 Conquering Mt. Everest

The greatest achievement by climbing the biggest mountain in the world.

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