Was the George Foreman Grill The Best Invention of the last 50 Years?

(This post was inspired by  George Foreman, who passed away March 21, 2025, at the age of 76.)

About 10 years ago I asked my class

What is the best invention or tech advance of the last 50 years?

Here are the answers I got NOT ranked.

1) The internet. We can look things up so easily! (see my post on one aspect of this here). Young people reading this blog have no idea what the world was like before the internet. Here is a short story that shows how much has changed.

At MIT in 1982 I saw Anil Nerode give a great talk about Recursive Mathematics: using recursion theory to show that some theorems whose proofs were not effective could not be made effective (e.g., there is a computable 2-coloring of pairs of naturals with no decidable infinite homogeneous set, so the proof of Ramsey theory on \(K_N\) has to be non-effective). The talk got me interested in the topic, so that day I went to the math library (ask your grandparents what a library is) and found the paper journals that had some of the articles he talked about (Journals used to be on paper? See my post here about that.) I then copied the articles on the copy machine (ask your grandparents what a copy machine is) and read them. A few years later Anil Nerode asked me to write a survey of recursive combinatorics for a collection of articles in recursive mathematics. He was one of the editors of a joint America/USSR project (ask your parents what the USSR was) which I was happy to do. The book was delayed when the USSR fell apart (ask your parents about that important historical era), but was eventually published. The survey is 131 pages and is here. The book, Handbook of Recursive Mathematics, is in two volumes. Its available on Amazon Volume 1 and Volume 2. I've also sometimes seen it available for free download though I don't know if it really is or if thats some kind of scam (if your grandparents try to download it warn them that it might be a scam).

2) Advances in medicine. You can have an operation and be home that night (this is partially medical advances and partially the insurance companies forcing you to have short stays). I asked the question pre-COVID. If I asked it again, I may have some people saying vaccines. 

3) VCR/DVD/DVR/Streaming so we have a lot more control over our entertainment (Is this really on a par with medical advances? Yes- you can watch TV of your choice while you recover.)

4) Easy Pass for Toll Booths. The students said that it was always a pain having to bring change to toss into a basket at the toll booth. And sometimes they missed. 

5) The George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine. The student really liked using it and said that burgers were tastier and healthier. I asked him if he really thought George Foreman got to be the heavyweight champion of the world (twice!) because of the grill. He didn't know George Foreman had been a boxer, he thought that George Foreman was a pitchman.  Which is true but inomplete. Whether he is a pitchman or a boxer or an ex-boxer, does he really know about enough about  healthy eating so that you should  take his advice? Note also that he has a financial incentive to  belief that the grill  produces tasty and health food.  See here for a blog post on the illogic of advertising. 

6) The Cell phone. It would be rude to, at a party, go into a corner and read a newspaper. But it is socially acceptable to go into a corner and read the news (or anything else) on your phone. I discussed this, though about laptops, as part of a post here. On the one hand, maybe it was good to be forced to talk to people. On the other hand, I can check my mail without being at home or the office!

7) THE CELL PHONE!!!!!! See Lance's post here.

8) Caller ID. The Cell Phone makes it possible to call anyone, anytime. Caller ID makes it possible to avoid talking to anyone, anytime. Symmetry!

9) ChatGPT was not on the list 10 years ago but might be now. And other AI things will be also.

But for now I ask: What do YOU think were the greatest tech advances of the last 50 years? If you prefer thinking on a full stomach then grill some burgers and eat them before answering. 

BILL to LANCE: Anything you want to add?

LANCE:

9) GPS - First launched in 1978 and now you never get lost, even at sea.

BILL: Some people trust their GPS to much, see here, though I think these stories happen less and less over time. 

10) CNN - Watching wars play out in real time was a game changer.

 BILL comment on CNN: In 1991 I was on a cruise. In the time I was gone their was an attempted cue against Gorbachev. I didn't hear anything about it until the cruise was over. CNN existed but it was not-a-thing to have it wherever you go. The next time I went on a cruise was 2022. While on that cruise, Gorbochev died and I heard about it right away. Two points here:(a) How fast we got news anytime-anywhere has changed a lot, and (b) For the sake of the Gorbachev family I should stop going on cruises. 

11) Cloud Computing - Enabled small startups to do big things.

BILL Sometimes very small, like one person. New word: Solopreneur