What do you think the best scientific discovery is?

Question: What do you think the best scientific discovery is?
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Asked by Liam to John, Laura, Luke, Rob, Ruth on 13 Jun 2016.
- Laura Finney answered on 13 Jun 2016:
  
  I think the best scientific discovery was the discovery of DNA! It helps us understand more about diseases and how to combat them and I don’t think we would be anywhere near where we are in terms of medicine today without it!
- Robert Williams answered on 13 Jun 2016:
  
  DNA fingerprinting
- Ruth Patchett answered on 13 Jun 2016:
  
  The Haber-Bosch process is pretty cool, it is a way of trapping nitrogen from air to use as fertilizer and it is estimated that 40% of the worlds population wouldn’t exist without it. It takes a lot of energy because it needs high temperature and pressure a but we haven’t actually replaced it in over 100 years! This science was also used to make explosives which is a pretty good example of how science can be used for good or bad depending on your application. BBC radio have a pretty interesting documentary about it if you are feeling keen are interested in history and chemistry: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01062gy
- John Fossey answered on 13 Jun 2016:
  
  Chiral resolution by Louis Pasteur, it seems this amazing achievement has been surpassed by more famous work of Pasteur. I imagine if he were to have only discovered resolution by conglomerate crystallisation he’d be famous for this alone.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiral_resolution
  
  http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2009/05/00/sh5092/sh5092sup1.pdf

Question: What do you think the best scientific discovery is?

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