To the transistor, which will be sixty years old tomorrow.

It has to be in the top five all-time inventions.

Cool.

Just as an exercise in futility I spent a few minutes trying to identify the top ten inventions in history. I left out a couple of obvious ones (the wheel, fire) and tried to focus on things you can point to and say "This was invented at such and such time by so and so".

Here's what I came up with, in no particular order.

The Steam Engine
Electricity on Demand. (The Generator and the Battery)
The Printing Press
The Transistor
The Telegraph
The Communications Satellite (all satellites, really)
The Gun
Nuclear Energy (mostly in the form of power for ocean going vessels and bombs. Civilian Nuke power hasn't really had that much affect yet)
The Automobile
Heavier Than Air Flight

I made my choices by trying to think of things which had a profound effect on society and/or civilization. Hence the preponderance of communications, transportation, and energy production in my list.

I'd be interested in anybody else's opinions on what should be in the top ten.

Coming at you from different directions, but I'd think at least one of the contraceptive pill and the public limited liability corporation have got to be on any such list.

Good point. Especially the pill. I completely ignored medicine in there. I'd probably want to think about adding effective anesthetics to the list as well. Or possibly the Germ Theory of disease.

How about:

Pasteurization
Penicillin
the microscope
the telescope
the sextant
magnetic compass
the pendulum clock
photography
the Periodic Table of the Elements
RADAR
LASERs
Aspirin
internal combustion engine
concrete
steel
gears
the screw
the pulley
the lever
the ramp

These are the sorts of things which are so ubiquitous that it is difficult to imagine life today without them.

Replace pendulum clock with spring clock and I'll agree with that one. It was the spring powered clock that allowed trans-oceanic navigation. (And, no, I'm not going to get into the amazing navigational feats of the south pacific islanders) Pendulum clocks didn't work onboard a ship at sea.

In fact, you could probably narrow it down to that little doo-dad that swings back and forth (the regulator?) that allowed spring clocks to work.

What, no wheel & axle? Or, how about the plow?

Not sure that the Periodic Table counts as an invention...

I would put the ancient inventions into their own category, and add one more to that list: the bow and arrow.

Nobody mentioned the computer, which revolutionized business accounting and the ability to play games by oneself.

And then there's the modem, whose technological offspring would eventually rain on Dan "Fake But Accurate" Rather's parade :-)

Fascinating. Always love these lists.

Given Fuloydo's definition I'd add:

Money.
Religion.

Btw, the pill is not medicine ;).

Ummm... One more
The number zero

The appendectomy
Modern dentistry

for two more