Thales and Pythagoras’ origination of modern mathematics
Descartes’ launch of modern analytic philosophy
Newton’s mechanics and calculus
Darwin’s theory of evolution
Mendeleev’s periodic table
Einstein’s special and general relativity
Probability theory
Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism
If I must pick one, it would be Mendeleev’s periodic table.
The reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages
Some might be surprised by what I’m going to say, given I’m passionate towards this topic, but: I genuinely do not think the reconstruction of PIE is anywhere close to other achievements in the list. The reconstruction itself has more holes than a sieve, like:
the weird */e o e: o:/ vowel system (it’s just annotation nowadays, nobody knows their phonetic nature)
the weird set of stops: unvoiced, voiced, breathy voiced. Yeah, I’m not sold on it.
the actual nature of the so-called “laryngeals” (nobody knows it)
the reason behind s-mobile
the actual phonetic, phonemic or morphemic nature of ablaut
My picks from this list:
If I must pick one, it would be Mendeleev’s periodic table.
Some might be surprised by what I’m going to say, given I’m passionate towards this topic, but: I genuinely do not think the reconstruction of PIE is anywhere close to other achievements in the list. The reconstruction itself has more holes than a sieve, like:
and so goes on.