Mount Rushmore for Creative Thinkers
If there were another monument comparable with the one on Mt. Rushmore for creative thinkers, who would be your four choices? Also, what do you feel is the most important invention of the last two thousand years. Please explain your reasons for each selection.
My four choices would be:
Hay. The most important invention of the last two thousand years was hay. In the classical world of Greece and Rome and in all earlier times, there was no hay. Civilization could exist only in warm climates where horses could stay alive through the winter by grazing. Without grass in winter you could not have horses, and without horses you could not have urban civilization. Some time during the so-called dark ages, some unknown genius invented hay, forests were turned into meadows, hay was reaped and stored, and civilization moved north over the Alps.
Johann Gutenberg for his invention of the printing press which ushered in the information age.
Michael Faraday. Michael Faraday discovered how to induce an electric current, described by Asimov as ‘probably the greatest single electrical discovery in history’, on August 29, 1831. Following this, ’10 days of decisive experiment’ ended in his paper on ‘The Induction of Electric Currents (7).”
The Wright brothers for the airplane which symbolizes the essence of invention by being composed of other inventions: the wheel, the bicycle, a glider, a prop, and a 12 horse power engine. The airplane is important because it diminishes our parochial view; it too changed the manner of warfare and one can argue that it was an early form of the space shuttle.
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Michael Michalko is the author of the highly acclaimed Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative Thinking Techniques; Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius; ThinkPak: A Brainstorming Card Deck and Creative Thinkering: Putting Your Imagination to Work.
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