A standout invention is one that is enduring. It’s celebrated. It shapes what comes next. It addresses an issue that’s been there for a long time. That just it – time.
I’m stretching the intent of the question a bit. Invitation doesn’t always have a single moment of realisation. Theory and experimentation come together to show promise. It’s latter that practical applications start to flow from that innovation. For me, the key invention is the beginnings of atomic time. The ability to measure time with precision.
Now, we know that past, present and future are the way we experience time. Not time itself. Having create clocks that gain or lose less no more than a second in billion years is an astonishing feat.
Today, a great deal of the infrastructure that surrounds us, and we hold in our hands, depends on precise time. Communication systems exploit it. We navigate using this asset. Society has been and will continue to be transformed.
Yet timekeeping systems have not reached their limit.
John Vincent 