jimmuller 

You can believe everything you read on the interweb. I read that on the interweb.

("She's the soup that made the Kale run in less than 12 parsnips.")

TheHen

Antibiotics were clearly discoveries, not inventions. In fact, we still aren't really doing much in the way of inventing new ones, just making derivatives of Mom's originals.

downtube42

thermonuclear weapons
television

ModeratedUser150120149

Interesting answers. I offer for your consideration two:

1. The jet engine. It wasn't until the advent of the jet engine that large, reliable, economical airplanes were practical. As a result of those airplanes we are able to move goods and services from place to place relatively cheaply and reliably. This reliable time machine has affected just about every aspect of our lives and global culture. My dinner tonight was made possible by air transport of food from far away places, for example.

2. The fibre optic cable. It wasn't until the method of constructing and maintaining the fibre optic cable was current communication possible. We had all the essentials of world wide rapid communication before the fibre optic cable but the technology prior to the fibre optic cable was neither fast enough nor had enough capacity. Remember the old microwave towers that used to dot the landscape? What we are doing on this forum would not be possible without fibreoptic cables.

My candidates.

locolobo13 

How about velcro?

s5fskzfv

The fact that doping silicon creates a semiconductor is a discovery. Making a transistor is an invention.

The fact that a mold prevents bacterial growth is a discovery. Making a medicine from it fit for human consumption is an invention.

ModeratedUser150120149

Hmmmm....isn't there a structural difference between a "web" and a "net"? In short, even though both have interconnections in their peripheral structure a web has a central point where a net does not. Assuming you are just trying for a play on words about the internet.

ModeratedUser150120149

Guess there is a difference between engineering and invention. Before nuclear or thermonuclear weapons the principles had already been discovered. Weaponizing those principles was the big engineering thrust. That was carried forward as technology allowed smaller and more reliable devices.

Steve B.

The Thermos

You put cold liquid into in the morning, leave it in the sun on a hot summer day, open it at noon and you have cold liquid.

Or, you put hot liquid in the AM on a cold day, open at noon and you have hot liquid.

And you ask your self "How does it know ?".

teachme

Shifters on the hoods.

sdold

AFAIK they're all just protocols using the internet.

John E

electric starter for automobile engines
MOS transistor

Artkansas 

Yeah, without that, people would be more likely to walk and less likely to hop in the car to go two blocks to McDonalds.

ModeratedUser150120149

interweb=internet=internet protocol? that is a new one for me.

Gravity Aided

Hybrid Grains
The Internut

sdold

The web is a bunch of documents served up by servers running a particular protocol that uses the internet. Interweb is meaningless, it's one of those layman-friendly terms, like microchip.