‘Which simple item is a masterpiece of ingenious engineering?’ – 21 everyday things that are being incredibly clever right under your nose

13.

‘A ridiculous amount of thought and engineering has gone into aluminium beverage cans. It is one of the most produced objects in human history, and anything that can be done to shave a fraction of a cent off production cost, without sacrificing its important features, would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year. You can be sure that even the tiniest detail in its design has significant reasons behind it.’
–Mooshington

14.

‘Penicillin – grow some mould, enable progress.’
–kossuk

15.

‘Multidirectional suitcase wheels.’
–uniquejustlikeyou

16.

‘The BIC lighter. I could rant about it for dozens of paragraphs, but just think about it in a purely historical context.

It takes entire chapters of survival books to explain how to light a fire in an emergency. Fire was THE most consequential discovery in human history and was arguably what sets humans apart from every other species. If you’ve ever tried to light a fire using anything other than a lighter, you know how insanely hard it is.

But yet, anywhere on earth I can walk into a store and for about $1 purchase a BIC lighter that reliably makes fire with nothing more than a flick of a thumb. Show that to someone in literally any other era of human history and they’d lose their mind at how simple and elegant it is at producing the single most fundamental tool for human survival.

And yet at its core, the BIC lighter still uses the fundamental concept of “Rub two rocks together to make a spark” to light, a concept that humans figured out 10,000 years ago.’
–bbbbbthatsfivebees

17.

‘It isn’t actually engineering, but one of the best decisions ever made was to make email addresses non-case sensitive. It would have been a nightmare without that feature.’
–Throw13579

18.

‘Corrugated cardboard box. Inexpensive, ubiquitous, relatively durable, water resistant and transports most consumer goods at some point.’
–bimontza

19.

‘The standardised shipping container. Shipping and trade before was all bespoke and custom. Much less effective, now you can take it right off the ship and put it on a train or on a truck and get it just about anywhere in the world on a scale unseen in human history.’
–cutstep

20.

‘The watch. Measures somethings so important yet abstract. Can be $25 to $250k and does essentially the same thing. Brings us all together for the right moment from all over the world… except for my buddy who’s always 45min late.’
–mccarthybergeron

21.

‘I’m going to go off the beaten path and say “Legos”. They have extremely demanding tolerances and Legos from decades ago with still fit perfectly with Legos made today. Were they a crucial invention for modern day living? Of course not. But they are still an incredible marvel of engineering.’
–MobiusOcean

Source r/AskReddit Image Screenshot