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The Wheel or the Computer? Which one has done more for humans?

Faolan said:
yes, but .. the question was wheel or computer... either, or... this or that.... not "which simple machine or more interesting machine has done more for humans"

so, your other opinions aside.. which is it? wheel or computer.. one or the other....
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And my opinion is: wheel or computer is a gross oversimplification, a silly question, and obscures a lot of interesting history of technology!
 
Jimbo07 said:
And my opinion is: wheel or computer is a gross oversimplification, a silly question, and obscures a lot of interesting history of technology!
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"..a gross oversimplification..." When you think about what steps it took to figure out the benifits of the wheel, or to create all the components for a computer that once fit in a large room and can now be microscopic, I see no simplification there.

.." silly question.." Hardly, the question poses the idea of mechanical/electronic technology/tools versus basic sticks, stones, build it with your hands technology/tools. The wheel and the computer have been helpful in many areas.

2 objects, out of thousands, were chosen to be compared. Answering this "silly question" does not negate that other useful and interesting tools exist or have furthered man's technological evolution.

So, in this setting, with this question, regardless that there are in fact lots of other nifty things out there, which is it... wheel or computer... ??? :)
 
Jimbo07 said:
Just to reiterate, in my opinion, choosing the wheel is absurd. If you're choosing any of the simple machines, I'd imagine the wedge came first. In fact, the first anything conscripted from its original purpose, like a bone or rock, is probably the single most important invention on the road towards more interesting machines. By the way, simple plows for agriculture have more in common with wedges than wheels.

Moreover we don't know much about the invention of the wheel, but we know an awful lot about the individual players in the invention of electromechanical and electronic computers!
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Except for the fokken stick, what use are most of the things without the string.

BTW to use the inclined pane does require either string or wheels of some sort, but you still need that string.

I would say that agriculture and storage are two biggies as well.
 
If given only those choices, I will take the wheel. Can't make the computer without it, couldn't make electricity with out it.

Or do you mean in absence of reality in some platonic tool plane?
 
applecorped said:
Which has done more to advance human civilization, the wheel or the computer?
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you could not develop with precision manufacturing needed to make a computer with out gears and screws and other forms of advanced wheels.

So with out wheels you have no computers.

Essentialy you are asking if the information revolution has advanced human civilization more than the industrial revolution.
 
Unequivocally the wheel. It has produce the ground means of moving heavy objects without having to lift them or deal whit friction. Providing means of construction and supply delivery that has been essential for the world until today.

In other hands computers have done little to no contribution the well fare of the population. No doubt it is an important tool for the development of science and consequentially well fare. But despite of what you may think about computers, they only speed up processes that could have been done by hand. Sure many of the data processing we wouldn’t even dare of doing just because it would waste us our entire life to do it, and became a trivial thing whit computers. Unless you think that a computer is done whit magic, some one had to build, some one had to design it and engineer it in order to perform the desired effect, and for that the engineer must know how to do those processes by hand in the first place, even worst it must know more then most of the people in order to create an algorithm that works whit the majority of the cases and in a way that can be computed. And despite of what you may think, the majority of the calculations needed for the cutting edge physics are done exclusively by hand.
Sure some of the hard work number crushing done by computers has given some contribution, but not has much has the wheel.
 
Actually, the wheel has limited use without the axle, which gives it vastly more applications.

So my vote is the wheel/axle combo. (Which I believe can be found in everyone's hard drive.)
 
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applecorped said:
Which has done more to advance human civilization, the wheel or the computer?
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Well you said "ADVANCE human civiliztion", on that and since computers are very very very new, I will say in the long term computers.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Wheels. Computers are not only too new to have advanced civilization comparably, but large portions of the world don't even have access to them, whereas wheels are ubiquitous.
 
I vote that this is a dumb question. Some of the very first computing devices were mechanical and hence relied upon some of the wheels relatives to work.
 
Faolan said:
Wheel. It promote actually interacting physically with the world. It provides a way to efficient harvest, make things mobile, etc.
While the computer has helped, and continues to help in many ways. It promotes detached socializing which will eventually cause more social anxiety and interaction issues. Furthermore, should something ever happen to the electricity we have come to reply on, at least the wheel will still be there, even is we have to carve it the "old fashioned" way.
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Don’t get too hung up on the electrical aspects of today’s computers. Before electricity computers were often just the application of variants of the wheel, the gear or the cam. Of course some non-electric computers like the abacus and the slide rule have no wheel like components.

ETA: What technoextreme said.
 
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gdnp said:
I'd have to read up on my simple machines to figure out if components of the motive apparatus of the flagellum qualify as wheels. I suspect nature has other examples, developed independently of human thought.
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The protein structure that turns adp to atp in the mitochondria is a wheel. That is the only wheel created by nature that i know of.
 
johan guttenberg's printing press and paper dwarf the computer and wheel but harnessing fire trumps all of them.
 
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