There has been a myriad of amazing accomplishments by folks much more innovative than I, and I’m thankful for their ingenuity, creativity, and desire to make our world a better place (or just make a boatload of money).

What inventions come to mind (these suggested from Popular Mechanics)? Take a walk back in time with me to some of the greatest inventions of the past 50+ years:

KEVLAR (1965)

BYPASS SURGERY (1967)

FIBER OPTICS (1970)

ELECTRIC AUTOMOTIVE IGNITION (1972)

MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGINE (MRI) (1973)

SUPERCOMPUTER (1976)

PERSONAL COMPUTER (1977)

GPS (1978)

SONY WALKMAN (1979)

MICROSOFT WORD (1983)

DNA FINGERPRINTING (1984)

PROZAC (1987)

WORLD WIDE WEB (1989)

PHOTOSHOP (1990)

DVD (1996)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (1998)

BLUETOOTH (1999)

PLAYSTATION 2 (2000)

FACEBOOK (2004)

GOOGLE MAPS (2005)

IPHONE (2007)

LARGE HADRON COLLIDER (2008)

BITCOIN (2009)

SIRI (2010)

OCULUS RIFT (2016)

METAL 3D PRINTING (2018)

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE (2022)

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There are so many astounding inventions that have brought us to where we are today that it’s naturally difficult to attempt to narrow it down to just one, but since that’s the nature of our prompt today, I’ll go ahead and do my best.

Whether we’re talking the James Webb Space Telescope, the iPhone, the Ocular Rift, or the World Wide Web, there seems to be a common thread (or precursor) to each of these amazing creations. The ability to compute and create ideas from our own imagination and ingenuity.

Without the Supercomputer and the technology that sprang from it (and the computing inventions that pre-date it), I don’t think we’d have many of the items that came later on this list.

We wouldn’t be as connected and knowledgeable without the introduction of the amazing powers that have resulted from the medical, technological, educational, wonder-inducing, entertaining, life-altering as well as life-saving advances and inventions we’ve been fortunate to experience in our lifetime in the 21st century.

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What is your vote for the most important invention in your lifetime? Add a note in the comments.