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Asked by anon-382329 on 1 Jan 2024.
Question: What is your favourite discovery
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Carl Peter Robinson answered on 1 Feb 2024: last edited 1 Feb 2024 5:10 pm
In general science terms, I like the discovery of oxygen by Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier, supplanting the previous theory about an element called phlogiston that was thought to exist in the air. I mainly like this because of the way the story was told by Jim Al-Khalili in a BBC science documentary (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qbq7f).
I also like the story of how Steve Jobs “discovered” the invention of the mouse and email when he visited Xerox PARC, and how that helped revolutionise the personal computer industry back in the 1980s. To be clear, it was the researchers and scientists at Xerox PARC who made these discoveries and innovations. Jobs “utilised” them during his early days at Apple. If you’re interested, you can read more about things like that in these books, both of which I highly recommend:
– Dealers of Lightning
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1101290.Dealers_of_Lightning?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=k26ujWygrz&rank=1– Accidental Empires
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27652.Accidental_EmpiresComputer history is sooo cool!
Comments
Lisa R commented on :
My favourite discovery was the identification of a new change to the genetic code in the cells of patients with a blood cancer called leukaemia. This discovery has led to a completely new treatment approach for these patients.