Car Comes In Second; Is Gas Back at Spot 17 to Blame?

Automotive Manufacturing & Production, May, 2000

In case you missed it, as part of National Engineers Week this past February, the National Academy of Engineering announced its list of the "20 Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Century," which we're assuming is last century because neither Yahoo! nor eBay is on the list.

Nominations for the list were submitted by 20 professional engineering societies and were rated by a prestigious panel. First-man-on-the-Moon Neil Armstrong announced the rankings (which, perhaps, helps explain why Space Exploration is at number 12, ahead of the Internet. Had Al Gore made the announcement[ldots]).

Anyway, for your edification and/or amusement, here's the list:

1. Electrification

2. Automobile

3. Airplane

4. Safe and Abundant Water

5. Electronics

6. Radio and Television

7. Agricultural Mechanization

8. Computers

9. Telephone

10. Air Conditioning

11. Interstate Highways

12. Space Exploration

13. Internet

14. Imaging Technologies

15. Household Appliances

16. Health Technologies

17. Petroleum and Gas Technologies

18. Laser and Fiber Optics

19. Nuclear Technologies

20. High Performance Materials

Question: Do you think anything you're working on will make the list 100 years from now?