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So just what is the third Great Invention of all time?

First we had agriculture, then the scientific method, now …

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Checking the reference to it tells us that early Papal archives were the same, meaning that “To find anything, therefore, you'd have to know which year it belonged to; there is no sign of any attempt to cross-reference by subject or place.”

All of which is something I find astonishing: the entire Roman Empire ran on that system recall, they had lots of data but it's difficult to say that they had much information at all.

And checking around a bit, filing systems got better after that but even “cross-reference” only seems to have entered English in 1840 or so. And I recall reading about how Dr. Johnson created the Dictionary without much concept of proper referencing.

And, as you all know, the first computer databases were pretty cool things: but they weren't relational which I am using here as a synonym for cross-referencing. Which brings us to EF Codd's definition of an RDBMS of 1970: I think we could argue that that's in line for being an exemplar of our third great invention.

No, not the RDBMS itself, that would be like saying Sage was, instead of double entry bookkeeping. No, it's an exemplar of that idea, that data should be properly cross-referenced in order that we might be able to extract information from it.

So I'm willing to put forward any of those three as the third great invention. I think I would plump for limited liability myself but that's probably because of an economics background. I am also, of course, entirely willing to consider any other ideas people might have.

However, I've been rather limited, or limiting, in what I'm considering to be an invention. The reciprocating steam engine is definitely an invention but it wouldn't get anywhere near such a list.

Because it's an exemplar (again, as with Sage) of what is the real invention to me, which is the use of fossil rather than human or animal power.

So my definition of an invention is being limited to what is really more an approach to something, not the invention itself. The concept if you like, before it has been perfected by engineers, making it work.

So, within those constraints of what is an invention, what say you all? ®

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