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The condition "you can pretty much build it yourself" forces me to exclude many things with important impact like for example nuclear reactors, LSD, birth contr
by cuspycode 7y ago
The condition "you can pretty much build it yourself" forces me to exclude many things with important impact like for example nuclear reactors, LSD, birth control pills, and the silicon transistor. But I think steam engines (or Rankine cycle engines in general) and penicillin are simple enough to qualify.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoI thought of penicillin, too, but "build it yourself" ruled it out, in my view.
- cuspycode 7y agoI was thinking that growing a penicillin producing mold culture (like Fleming did) is something anyone could do, but I have to admit that I have no clue about how much more processing is needed before it can be applied medically as an antibiotic.
- Synaesthesia 7y agoWhen I read Alexander Shulgin, the psychedelic chemist’s biography, I was struck by the fact that when he wanted to do LSD with some friends, he actually synthesised it in his lab.
- cuspycode 7y agoYeah, Shulgin was a special case, he was a genius biochemist after all. And there are of course lots of people who have synthesized LSD using fairly standard lab equipment. But it's not like something anyone could do.
- AWildC182 7y agoDepends heavily on your definition of "build yourself"... The airplane is a big one and I'm building one myself in my garage, as did the inventors of the first airplane. Hell, a solid chunk of all other inventions were created in someones garage. Compared to a full scale airplane, making nuclear reactors or transistors yourself is even easier and the transistor is easily the single biggest invention of the past century.