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Is fire an invention or a discovery?

Is fire an invention or a discovery?

  • An Invention

    Votes: 2 5.0%

  • A Discovery

    Votes: 34 85.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 4 10.0%
  • Total voters
    40
nonpareil

nonpareil

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Some of you know where this is from. I'm just wondering what the general opinion out there is.
 
Fire is a discovery. The means of making fire are inventions.
 
So if early man accidentally found out that rubbing things together create heat which then results in fire, that is an invention too?
 
nonpareil said:
So if early man accidentally found out that rubbing things together create heat which then results in fire, that is an invention too?
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The fact that rubbing things together to create heat which then results in fire is a discovery. Things used to create heat which then results in fire are inventions.
 
How can something that occurs naturally be 'invented'?
 
fire itself is a discovery, the means to use and control fire is an invention
 
Once people harnessed fire, they generally kept it going. They didn't routinely start fires from rubbing sticks together or other means. Primative humans had special containers for carrying hot coals from one place to another. Women tended the home hearth and kept it going at all times. This was one of the important tasks done by wives.

It's theorized that the first fire harness came from natural fires. The people, obviously, decided it would be useful to tame fire for warmth and other uses.
 
samsmart said:
The fact that rubbing things together to create heat which then results in fire is a discovery. Things used to create heat which then results in fire are inventions.
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Things like matches and lighters are inventions. But for primitive people, making fire (if they even up to making it rather then just keeping it) usually consists of creating heat/spark from friction and applying it to natural fuel. None of the two - friction or natural fuel - can be said to be an invention.
 
nonpareil said:
Things like matches and lighters are inventions. But for primitive people, making fire (if they even up to making it rather then just keeping it) usually consists of creating heat/spark from friction and applying it to natural fuel. None of the two - friction or natural fuel - can be said to be an invention.
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however you could argue that using the principal of friction coupled with the concept of tinder is an invention
 
We have a tendency to grossly underestimate early man by calling him primitive. Many recent discoveries are showing us that they were more advanced and had the same brain power we do. Just remember primitive man could survive without electricity. If we lost power most of us idiots wouldn't know how to survive or start a fire on our own. Hell we couldn't plant a crop, fish, or hunt any animal either without modern conveniences that depend on electricity to manufacture.
 
spud_meister said:
however you could argue that using the principal of friction coupled with the concept of tinder is an invention
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If they were inspired to use tinder from some intuitive light-bulb moment. But most likely we started using tinder when we saw that they catch fire easily. It was more an observation (discovery) than any new concept we invented - like say x-ray.
 
EnigmaO01 said:
We have a tendency to grossly underestimate early man by calling him primitive. Many recent discoveries are showing us that they were more advanced and had the same brain power we do. Just remember primitive man could survive without electricity. If we lost power most of us idiots wouldn't know how to survive or start a fire on our own. Hell we couldn't plant a crop, fish, or hunt any animal either without modern conveniences that depend on electricity to manufacture.
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"Primitive" refers to the level of technology, not that the human back then necessarily have smaller brain. The Indians might be considered to be primitive compared to whites who has steam ships, guns and what not but that doesn't mean they are less smart.
 
nonpareil said:
If they were inspired to use tinder from some intuitive light-bulb moment. But most likely we started using tinder when we saw that they catch fire easily. It was more an observation (discovery) than any new concept we invented - like say x-ray.
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x-ray was discovered by observation
from wiki:
Physicist Johann Hittorf observed tubes with energy rays extending from a negative electrode. William Crookes investigated the effects of energy discharges on rare gases. Heinrich Hertz began experimenting and demonstrated that cathode rays could penetrate very thin metal foil (such as aluminium). In 1887, Nikola Tesla began to investigate X-rays and produced the bremsstrahlung process. In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen began observing and further documenting X-rays while experimenting with vacuum tubes.
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it started with the Hittorf bloke observing what happened with electodes, and went from there.


most inventions are made by observing a phenomena and investigating further
 
spud_meister said:
x-ray was discovered by observation
from wiki:


it started with the Hittorf bloke observing what happened with electodes, and went from there.


most inventions are made by observing a phenomena and investigating further
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I should have been more accurate and say how we apply x-ray to scanning our body. That application is a new idea that we didn't get from nature. Applying spark to tinder is not something we just thought up without seeing it in nature.
 
A discovery involves something that exists or could exist outside of the actions of man. An invention involves the creation of something which necessitates the actions of man.

Fire existed before and outside of the actions of man, so it can't be "an invention".

BTW what is this thread about?
 
Maybe women learned how to create fire, and not "man"? After all, they tended the hearth.
 
nonpareil said:
Some of you know where this is from. I'm just wondering what the general opinion out there is.
Click to expand...

I say its a discovery. Our early ancestors probably used fire when ever a lightning storm lit something on fire or where ever there was a wild fire but then eventually figured out how to make fire on their own, in which those methods used to make fire would still be discoveries like striking flint and rubbing two sticks together.
 
I don't think you can invent something that comes from nature, i.e., fire, wind, rain, Earth, certain naturally occuring chemical elements such as iron or zinc. That said, IMO, fire was discovered. Now, you can invent other ways to produce fire, such as a blow torch, but fire itself was a discovery.
 
Naturally created fire (lightning strike, sunlight focused through sap, volcanic eruptions etc) was discovered. Human-created fire was invented.

I would suspect we were using the fire we discovered - and inventing new ways to keep it burning longer - for a long time before we invented a way to make it ourselves.
 
iangb said:
Naturally created fire (lightning strike, sunlight focused through sap, volcanic eruptions etc) was discovered. Human-created fire was invented.

I would suspect we were using the fire we discovered - and inventing new ways to keep it burning longer - for a long time before we invented a way to make it ourselves.
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How? Did early man discover friction and were applying it to something else, and then one day a thought occur: why rubbing stones together cause them to be hotter, if I put some dry brush to them it might catches fire, let's try and see. Or did they come across it accidentally?
 
Neither,,,its a human right...
 
How? Did early man discover friction and were applying it to something else, and then one day a thought occur: why rubbing stones together cause them to be hotter, if I put some dry brush to them it might catches fire, let's try and see. Or did they come across it accidentally?
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Either of those are potentials, probably the first rather than the second.

It's patently obvious that fire is hot and comes out of wood. Indeed, early chemists reasoned that wood contained a substance called 'philostogen', which was released in the form of flames when the wood got hot enough. It would make sense that to try and create fire, you would try and mimic it's effects - wood, and hotness. All you need is a way to get the wood hot enough, which might of taken a bit of thought.

EDIT: Yes, I'm making all of this up as I go along (philostogen notwithstanding). It's possible, though - and I doubt anyone will ever find out the exact origins.
 
Last edited:
'Fire' is a discovery. Making fire is an invention.
 
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