The most important inventions and discoveries of the humanity

An American Science Community has concluded after one of its researches that Mendeleev's periodic table of elements was the most important discovery the humanity made... even more important than the discovery of iron.

The Community has published a list of 10 most important discoveries the humanity ever made. The results of this research were based on answers of a survey conducted by the community.

According to that survey:

- the second most important discovery, following the Mendeleev's period table of elements, was the discovery of iron processing (Egypt 3500 B.C.);
- transistor discovery was the invention of (John Bardeen and colleagues in 1948);
- fourth invention was declared the glass processing (circa 2200 B.C in South-Western Iran);
- fifth discovery was named the invention of the optical microscope in the 17th century;
- invention of concrete by John Smeaton was placed on the sixth place among the inventions;
- the seventh invention in the list was given to the steel processing, found about year 300 B.C. in India;
- brass processing in about 5000 B.C. on the present territory of Turkey has taken the eighth entry in the list;
- ninth position was taken by the discovery of diffraction of Roentgen rays in 1912 by Max von Laue;
- the last, but not the least, was named Henry Bessemer's iron processing technology, invented in 1856.

It should be mentioned that the entire list contained about 50 most important discoveries, among which the most important were the Gutenberg's alloy of plumb tin and stibium (used for printing-press), rubber, ceramic and dynamite invention.

This way the American Science Community named the periodic table elements the most important - the invention which was actually 'dreamt of' and some of its elements literally made up. And, as one could see, Newton didn't even get close with the apple falling on his head...