this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
69 points (94.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43907 readers
1384 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

By greatest invention I mean something that had big and positive influence.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Wahots@pawb.social 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

3D printers were a 21st century invention, I think.

Quadcopters and other multirotor designs resulted in an incredible leap in affordable cinematography, racing applications, rescue, mapping, and warfare.

[โ€“] runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 months ago

A lot of 3D printing patents from the 80s and 90s expired between 2010-2020, clearing the way for commercial 3d printers and a million innovations. I'd call them honorary 21st century inventions, since the patent holders squandered the technology in the 90s.

https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/how-patents-die-expiring-3d-printing-patents.html

[โ€“] DrBob@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

We had a 3d printer in the 90s at my Uni. It built layers with laser cut paper lol. It was the cheapest version available and it lived in the engineering department for rapid prototyping. This link says they were invented in 1981, metal sintering was added in 1988 and fused filament in 1989. https://ultimaker.com/learn/the-complete-history-of-3d-printing