The most important invention in the past two thousand years? In
my opinion it is the invention by Otto von Guericke in 1660 of a
machine which produced static electricity. This device was the
primitive tool which unlocked our understanding and application
of electricity. Modern power generation, communication,
computation, and almost all of our most important analytic
devices stand on the foundation of von Guericke's machine. A
long line of basic intellectual formulations from
electromagnetism to the bioelectric properties of brain
mechanisms owe a debt to this invention. When we discover how
the human brain creates the covert models of its own inventions,
the structure and dynamics of the brain's own electrical
activity will undoubtedly be an essential aspect of the
explanation.