Inner fire

The internal combustion engine is the greatest invention. Not only has it changed the way that we travel, our conceptions about the earth and the universe we live in but it has been the catalyst for the explosion of development in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The engine has enabled man to push the barriers of invention and discovery. From enabling mass transport to leading to the rockets that get us to space (hopefully) . By allowing us to transport goods and people the engine has allowed us to greater specialise and pool our talents as a species which has directly led to the enormous change we saw in the 20th century.

More then electricity/steam/ and even radio it allowed to get what we needed, and meet the people we needed to.

How can anything be more important than that - of course it wasn't always used for good, but this is unfortunately the sign of a great invention rather than one which served only it's inital purpose.

All the other great inventions that have come since have relied on it in some fashion, whether directly or very indirectly , because it has enabled something, whether it be a good, a service , or a person, to a place where they were then able to come up with something else brilliant. but it is the fact that it is always present that makes it so great.

Submitted by: Howard Moore