Greatest Spanish contribution(s) to the world ?

What is/are the greatest Spanish contribution(s) to the world?

  • Spanish food (tapas, paella, tortilla, Iberian pork, churros, etc.)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The classical guitar

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • Spanish painting (Goya, Velásquez, Dali, Picasso, Miro, etc.)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The invention of cigarettes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The epidural analgesia

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • Other (please specify)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    1

Maciamo

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Spain gives me a similarly hard time as Poland to come up with a good list of contributions to mankind and global society. There is an abundance of famous Spaniards, but when I try to think about what Spanish invention or cultural feature is part of my daily life, I am at a loss. Spain has played a major role in world history, but mostly through its colonisation of the Americas and the spread of Spanish language and the Catholic faith.

There are many great Spanish artists, from the Renaissance Goya and Velásquez masters, to the new pictorial genres developed by Dali, Picasso, Miro, or the Art Nouveau buildings of Gaudi. Unfortunately they are too scatter in time and style to fit in a single category besides "Spanish painters" (leaving out Gaudi).

Spanish-language music is one of the richest and liveliest on Earth, but belongs in great part to Latin America.

Spain is renowned for Flamenco music and dance. It is ironically is of mixed Gypsy, Spanish, Byzantine, Sephardic and Moorish origin. Too hybrid to be just Spanish.

I have made a list of the major inventions by country from the Renaissance onward, but couldn't find anything worth listing of Spanish origin (if you do know one, be sure to let me know).

Some will say that the Spaniards "discovered" the Americas, an event that changed the world and could be considered as a contribution. However, Christopher Columbus, who was the sole man behind the discovery, was almost certainly not a Spaniard (the most likely nationality is Genoese/Italian, but many other theories about his origins have been postulated, including Polish, French and Portuguese).

A Spanish achievement that undoubtedly changed the history of Europe was the Reconquista and the expulsion of Muslims from Western Europe. But this hardly qualifies as a contribution to the world.

I am awaiting your suggestions.
 
How about the spanish neuroscientist nobel prize winner , Santiago Ramón y Cajal, considered the father of modern neuroscience ?

Ramón y Cajal made several major contributions to neuroanatomy. He discovered the axonal growth cone, and provided the definitive evidence for what would later be known as "neuron theory", experimentally demonstrating that the relationship between nerve cells was not one of continuity, but rather of contiguity. "Neuron theory" stands as the foundation of modern neuroscience. He provided detailed descriptions of cell types associated with neural structures, and produced excellent depictions of structures and their connectivity.
 
Individuals don't qualify as "contributions" to the world. That would just be a duplicate of the list of famous people. Overall, Spaniards were not the pioneers or leaders in neuroscience or any other scientific field, unlike alternatively Britain, France, Germany and the USA.

Compare the 12 polls I have made about other countries and try to find suitable categories in the same line for Spain. I need at least 5 contributions to make a poll.

Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
Ancient Egypt

India
China
Japan

Italy
Germany
France
Belgium
Netherlands
Britain

Britain and France have the most categories of contributions so far (20 each), followed by Italy, China and Japan (17 each). Ancient Greece and Egypt have the least (7).
 
Spanish-language music is one of the richest and liveliest on Earth, but belongs in great part to Latin America.
I don't consider it to be representative of spanish music. It is sold and marketed as such, for tourist attraction, but it is not. Most spaniards don't listen to it, mostly in some specific areas of Andalusia and by gypsy people, and it was not even known by spaniards before the 20th century. I consider traditional spanish music to be the folk musics of the different regions of Spain : Basque, Castillian, Cantabrian, Asturian, Galician, Aragones, Catalan, etc,
 
Individuals don't qualify as "contributions" to the world. That would just be a duplicate of the list of famous people.
Well, I didn't said that Ramón y Cajal is a contribution per se, obviously, however he contributed to the world he is considered to be the father of Neuroscience, among other things :

He discovered the axonal growth cone, and provided the definitive evidence for what would later be known as "neuron theory", experimentally demonstrating that the relationship between nerve cells was not one of continuity, but rather of contiguity. "Neuron theory" stands as the foundation of modern neuroscience. He provided detailed descriptions of cell types associated with neural structures, and produced excellent depictions of structures and their connectivity.
 
Individuals don't qualify as "contributions" to the world. That would just be a duplicate of the list of famous people. Overall, Spaniards were not the pioneers or leaders in neuroscience or any other scientific field, unlike alternatively Britain, France, Germany and the USA.
This an ignorant statement. It is well known that Ramon y Cajal and the University where he was working in were pioneers in Neuroscience.

Compare the 12 polls I have made about other countries and try to find suitable categories in the same line for Spain. I need at least 5 contributions to make a poll.

Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
Ancient Egypt

India
China
Japan

Italy
Germany
France
Belgium
Netherlands
Britain

Britain and France have the most categories of contributions so far (20 each), followed by Italy, China and Japan (17 each).
If you mean petty things such as pizza or Karaoke then In top of my head I can think of the Mop or the lollipop, more serious things the radio, the telescopy, laringoscopy, the guitar, the cigarettes, the submarine, the gyroplane, the galeons, the digital calculator, the epidural anelgesia, etc
 
The classical guitar.

(I wouldn't give too much credit to Columbus for the discovering of America, btw)
 
I don't consider it (latin American music) to be representative of spanish music.

Neither I... :wary2:

It is sold and marketed as such, for tourist attraction, but it is not.

:LOL:

Surely the people hear "Music in Spanish" and immediatly think "Spain".

... Well I am waiting for examples of "true Spanish Music", which of course will not be Flamenco (that you despise as "Gipsy Music")... however, I warn you that I will not accept (personally) traditional Irish music as an example of "Spanish Music" :D :D :D

+++++++++++++++++++++++

But after all... we all copy from foreign styles...

I will dedicate a 1880s Mexican Walz, to celebrate the post of Wilhelm... (probalby you have never heard it before... was written by an Amerindian)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwZsorNDvLY&p=6121B29B08BE0357
(The Author: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juventino_Rosas )

Best Regards.
 
the Mop or the lollipop, more serious things the radio, the telescopy, laringoscopy, the guitar, the cigarettes, the submarine, the gyroplane, the galeons, the digital calculator, the epidural anelgesia, etc
 
the Mop or the lollipop, more serious things the radio, the telescopy (sic), the submarine , Digital calculator... etc

I thought only Argentinians had such kind of delusions...
 
Surely the people hear "Music in Spanish" and immediatly think "Spain".

... Well I am waiting for examples of "true Spanish Music", which of course will not be Flamenco (that you despise as "Gipsy Music")... however, I warn you that I will not accept (personally) traditional Irish music as an example of "Spanish Music" :D :D :D

+++++++++++++++++++++++
Some examples of Folk spanish music :

Basque :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ8WEUiGoKc&feature=player_embedded

Cantabrian :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_PFQm-A8To&feature=related

Galician :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY9XoM0SWGs

Catalan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BjfzN01Ic0

Castilian :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNKOf0OpqZM
 
I thought only Argentinians had such kind of delusions...
Radio :
Julio Cervera was a Spanish engineer, pioneer in the development of radio,

Telescopy :

El telescopio podría ser invento de un español y no de un holandés como hasta ahora se creía, según una investigación realizada por el historiador británico Nick Pelling, que publica la revista "History Today".
El holandés Hans Lipperhey, patentó en octubre de 1608 su telescopio que pronto se difundió por toda Europa. Sin embargo, según la investigación de Pelling, el primer telescopio podría ser obra de un óptico español llamado Roget, que podría haber vivido en la provincia de Gerona o Barcelona.
El historiador británico toma como base para su teoría una investigación realizada en 1959 por el investigador español José María Simón de Guilleuma, quien encontró las primeras menciones al aparato en testamentos realizados en Cataluña en 1593.
Esta teoría es confirmada por el reciente hallazgo del legado de Pedro de Carolona, que se hizo efectivo en 1593 en Barcelona a favor de su viuda, y en el se incluía un telescopio de latón decorado entre los bienes heredados.

The submarine :
En 1887, el teniente de la Armada e Ingeniero Isaac Peral diseñó y construyó el primer submarino de la historia (sin embargo, oscuros intereses dentro de la Armada Española hicieron que los altos estamentos desecharan el invento y dijeran que era un fraude y que un vehículo así no podía valer para nada). Este, ya tenía todas las funcionalidades básicas que se pueden observar en submarino militar moderno (motores eléctricos, sistema de navegación, torpedos capaces de alcanzar a un buque de superficie, periscopio, etc...), y supuso un avance científico y militar sin comparación para la época. Peral, vilipendiado y humillado, enfermó de cáncer, que se complicó con una meningitis que le produjo la muerte con 44 años, sin haber recibido ningún tipo de reconocimiento.


Digital Calulator :

Leonardo Torres-Quevedo dedicó grandes esfuerzos a estudiar las nuevas posibilidades que ofrecía la electromecánica. Comprendió que las máquinas podían desarrollarse mucho más de lo que se suponía, con la integración de diversas técnicas, para alcanzar fines totalmente novedosos. En 1914 escribió una obra fundamental en el campo de la Automática, palabra que él mismo introdujo en España. Esta obra, publicada tanto en nuestro país como en Francia, se tituló “Ensayos sobre Automática”, y en ella Torres-Quevedo entroncaba con los importantes trabajos de Charles Babbage (el verdadero precursor de la computadora).
Desde el punto de vista práctico, nuestro Leonardo diseñó una máquina de calcular capaz de almacenar dígitos decimales, realizar operaciones binarias y comparar cantidades. Esto lo hacía gracias a elementos electromagnéticos, y estaba controlada por medio de un programa de sentencias fijas. Este programa estaba almacenado sobre un conjunto de regiones conductoras en la superficie exterior de un cilindro rotante. Esta “memoria”, tal y como la podríamos denominar hoy, incluía la primera formulación mundial de la aritmética de coma flotante. Con esta invención, Torres-Quevedo se adelantaba veinte años a la computadora digital electromecánica. Otro derivado de sus estudios fue un aparato que se conoce como “jugador automático de ajedrez”, que pasó por varias versiones y se considera la primera contribución al campo de la inteligencia artificial. En un sentido menos ambicioso, en 1920 se construyó en Francia una máquina de calcular, a la que se llamó “Artimómetro electromecánico”. Consistía en una máquina de escribir eléctrica mediante la que se introducían los números y las operaciones a realizar en el orden en que iban a ser ejecutadas. Cuando el cálculo terminaba, la máquina de escribir tipografiaba el resultado automáticamente. Capaz de realizar operaciones aritmético-lógicas, el “Aritimómetro electromecánico” es la primera calculadora digital que se conoce.

The gyroplane


Invented by the Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva to create an aircraft that could safely fly at slow speeds, the autogyro was first flown on 9 January 1923, at Cuatro Vientos Airfield in Madrid


 
... Well I am waiting for examples of "true Spanish Music", which of course will not be Flamenco (that you despise as "Gipsy Music")... however, I warn you that I will not accept (personally) traditional Irish music as an example of "Spanish Music" :D :D :D

You're perfectly free to be an ignorant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmp_Jqn4dJA

This is a piece from "Cantigas of Alfonso X" (The songs of Alfonso X), from the Middle Age.

Image1.gif

A picture of Alfonso X of Castille.

Regards.
 
The classical guitar.

(I wouldn't give too much credit to Columbus for the discovering of America, btw)

Yeah, Columbus - bad sense of direction - thought he had actually made it to India when he landed in the Bahamas and then Hispanola. No wonder the Portuguese crown declined to fund his voyage.
 

All the music proffered is very much Atlantic Facade in style; found abundantly from Spain and Portugal to the Orkney Islands.
 
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the Mop or the lollipop, more serious things the radio, the telescopy, laringoscopy, the guitar, the cigarettes, the submarine, the gyroplane, the galeons, the digital calculator, the epidural anelgesia, etc

I will remember the cigarettes and epidural analgesia; although I doubt that the former is praiseworthy.

- Gyroplane : ok, but not very famous

- Galleon : unclear origins, possibly Portuguese like the caravel. The French, English and Dutch also invented their own kind of galleons.

- Mop : seems to be an American invention (patent by Jacob Howe in 1837)

- Lollipop : Wikipedia writes that it is an American invention - anyway is it worth mentioning ?

- Telescope, digital calculator, laryngoscopy and submarine : many developments by numerous scientists from different countries.
 
So far I am planning to list the following in the poll :

- the classical guitar
- Spanish painting (Goya, Velásquez, Dali, Picasso, Miro, etc.)
- cigarettes
- epidural analgesia
- Spanish food (tapas, paella, tortilla, Iberian pork, churros, etc.)
 
- Galleon : unclear origins, possibly Portuguese like the caravel.
The galleon is genuinly spanish :
El comercio y la guerra impulsaron el desarrollo náutico en el siglo XVI. A mediados de ese siglo surge en España el galeón, un buque mayor que una galera pero igualmente maniobrable que ésta. Los primeros galeones tenían una eslora de unos cincuenta metros y
un desplazamiento bruto de más de trescientas toneladas. La arboladura constaba de tres palos, con velas cuadradas y latinas. Con el paso del tiempo, el galeón adquirió mayor envergadura, llegó a desplazar hasta casi mil toneladas y se le incorporó un cuarto palo. Sus bodegas eran aprovechables al máximo, pues se rellenaba todo el espacio disponible de modo que la carga estuviera bien compensada. La vigencia del galeón se extendió a lo largo detodo el siglo XVII, aunque fue evolucionando hacia navíos mayores, menos ornamentados, de superior eficacia y con más cañones.

- Mop : seems to be an American invention (patent by Jacob Howe in 1837)
No. I have different sources :
http://www.libertaddigital.com/soci...ifica-que-la-invento-manuel-jalon-1276356438/


- Telescope, digital calculator, laryngoscopy and submarine : many developments by numerous scientists from different countries.
Laryngoscopy :

In 1854, a Spanish vocal pedagogist named Manuel García (1805–1906) became the first man to view the functioning glottis and larynx in a living human. García developed a tool that used two mirrors for which the Sun served as an external light source.[5][6] Using this device, he was able to observe the function of his own glottic apparatus and the uppermost portion of his trachea. He presented his findings at the Royal Society of London in 1855

Submarine :

The first fully capable military submarine was the electrically powered vessel built by the Spanish engineer and sailor, Isaac Peral, for the Spanish Navy. It was launched on September 8, 1888. It had two torpedoes, new air systems, hull shape and propeller and cruciform external controls anticipating later designs. Its underwater speed was ten knots. When fully charged it was the fastest submarine yet built with performance levels (except for range) that matched or exceeded those of First World War U-boats. In June 1890 Peral's submarine launched a torpedo under the sea. It was also the first submarine to incorporate a fully reliable underwater navigation system. However conservatives in the naval hierarchy terminated the project despite two years of successful tests.
 

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