The world’s six greatest discoveries

By Skyler Ash

Gravity

In 1664, a majestic, long-haired mathematician/physicist named Isaac Newton discovered that everything on Earth is governed by the Laws of Gravity. This rocked everyone’s perception of the world at the time, because people in the 17^th century were narrow-minded and didn’t get out a lot.

Electricity

A lot of people credit the discovery of electricity to good ol’ Benjamin Franklin, who ran around outside with a kite in a storm one day and got a shock. The truth is that a lot of different people made similar discoveries before him. For example, in 600 BC the Ancient Greeks discovered static electricity, but nobody really cared until an educated, white, European did it centuries later.

Water on Mars

Yeah, so that happened. It would have made Matt Damon’s life a lot easier if he knew about it, too. That little Wall-e rip-off NASA sent up a while ago has sent back images of deep groves on hillsides, which scientists believed to be made by flowing water. The real question here is where can I buy a bottle of Mars water?

A piece of gum at the bottom of my purse

A few weeks ago, I found a piece of spearmint gum at the bottom of my purse, still in the wrapper. I discovered it when I was rooting through my bag to find my candy necklace, which I thought I had lost, but was actually underneath five packs of travel-sized Kleenex. It was a pretty great day.

Money in an old coat pocket

In 2011, I put on my winter coat for the first time in a few months. I reached into my pockets to find a pair of gloves, an old receipt and a $5 bill. I don’t spend a lot of money, so I was pretty surprised to find that I had left it lying around so carelessly. I thought, “treat yo self,” so I bought some hot chocolate. Since then I check the pockets of all the coats in my house at the end of the year.

Leftover Halloween candy

It’s getting close to that time of year again where children dressed in disguises will come to pillage your households, demanding all the candy that you have. The discovery here is not how obnoxious the new generation is, but rather a few weeks after Halloween, when you find a couple of Kit Kats lying around, or a bag of chips under the table by the door.