I hunkered down to serious research on this summary of the boffins' greatest breakthroughs. As I'm in a quiz team called The Intellectual Dwarfs, this sort of info is the stuff we need to have at our fingertips.
The Atlantic is a journal for American intellectuals (several survive), so its views on the top doodads, gizmos, and contraptions are not to be sneezed at. They hired a team of brains who - after much to and fro-ing - rated the printing press as man's most important invention since the wheel. Electricity came next, and then penicillin.
Their list means I now have the quizmaster covered when he tells us to turn off our iPhones and answer: ''What is the 31st most important invention of all time?''
While The Intellectual Dwarfs begin their muttered debate discussing contenders like the refrigerator, the pants suit, and the fly swat, I'll calmly take the pencil and write in the correct answer. ''It's a piece of cake,'' I'll tell my co-dwarfs. ''Number 31 is Archimedes' Screw.''
''Really? But who is Archimedes, and what did he screw?''
''The chap's some sort of Ancient Greek. He screwed water.''
''But that's ridiculous. You can't screw water.''
''It turns out you could. In 250BC this bloke built a screw down the inside of a pipe, and stuck said pipe into the river. When he wound the lever, Eureka, it screwed water back up the pipe. Next thing, the world could take showers and irrigate.''
The Intellectual Dwarfs aren't small-minded. Neither are they the Millbrook golf club's 2017 quiz champs for nothing. Their numbers include a senior petrol pump attendant, a qualified home scientist, the daughter of a distinguished chook farmer, and myself, who topped the class in Primer Four. As you'd expect, this group applies rigorous discipline to all its guessing.
''Oh, you mean THAT Archimedes! But didn't he yell 'Eureka' after he'd invented the bath?'' a dwarf will quibble. ''And even if you're right, how do you know that screwing water isn't number 30, or maybe 47?''
''Don't undermine me. I'm certain of this. The Archimedes Screw is only one spot behind the Moldboard Plough, which is 30th. If you must know, number 47 is the carpenter's nail. I know all this from the studies I conduct on the internet!''
''Well for God's sake shoosh yourself. The other teams will hear the answer.''
The problem with The Intellectual Dwarfs is that they should also be shorter on confidence. Each dwarf is highly opinionated. If you don't hold your ground, another dwarf will convince you Quebec is the capital of Canada, and Lord Rutherford invented the light bulb. You must stick to your guns.
I know Wit's End readers are united in their thirst for knowledge, so we'll round out the rest of The Atlantic's Top 10. The semiconductor was fourth, then optical lenses, paper, the internal combustion engine, vaccinations, the internet, and the steam engine. Fiftieth - and last - was the combine harvester.
Much as The Atlantic is a fine publication for the brighter types, I'm afraid their experts had one brain explosion. Nowhere on their Top 50 list did they mention US Patent Number 3,653,474, a vast breakthrough which was registered in 1972.
It is an omission which is astonishing. Patent 3,653,474 changed the ability of mankind to travel. The world of modern aviation couldn't exist without the inventor of Patent 3,653, 474.
I speak, of course of the genius of Bernard D. Sadow, and the ground-breaking invention he patented as ''rolling luggage''.
Sadow was the brain who put the little wheels on suitcases. Without Sadow, the mega airport and its miles of terminals and departure gates couldn't work. You can't march 3 litres of scotch 1km to your Dubai airport departure gate if your cabin bag doesn't have wheels. Nor could the Intellectual Dwarfs' wiser halves pack seven pairs of shoes for Hawaii, if there weren't rollers on a 23kg suitcase.
Sadow made history, of course, but his Patent 3,653,474 came at a human cost. It's true there are many more wealthy chiropractors because of 23kg bags, but when did you last see an airport porter?
-John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
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Up at the Kaikorai some years ago, the pub quiz put up this poser: "How old was Hitler when he committed suicide?".
'Too young!', responded our table, as one. This was a commit on suicide, as such, not endorsement of the Third Reich.
Dwarves, or little people, were big in showbiz. A troupe of Seven toured the World in a show called 'Snow White'. These actors had been in film, and were clever, in a way only the English can be. Polite diners would pretend not to notice when 7 dwarves entered a restaurant. Bad call on the diners' part. The actors 'played up', jumping on chairs, calling 'Pinter! Bertrand Russell!', and 'London Bridge!', a soccer team.
Because, clowning is an intellectual response to a buttoned down world.