Greatest Swiss contribution(s) to the world ?

[Maciamo]

This thread has for aim to establish a list of what global modern society owe to Switzerland and Swiss people ?

The most obvious to me are Swiss cheese (including fondue), chocolate (including the invention of the chocolate bar), Swiss watches (including the first analogous quartz wristwatch), private banking, Nescafé and other Nestlé products, the Swiss pharmaceutical industry (Roche, Novartis), the Red Cross, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and minor assorted inventions (Swiss army knife, Velcro, electric toothbrush, etc.).


I am waiting for other suggestions.


Related threads :

Greatest contributions of :

Ancient Egypt - Ancient Greece - Ancient Rome

India - China - Japan

Belgium - Britain - France - Germany - Netherlands - Ireland - Italy - Poland - Spain

[sparkey]

Clocks were the first thing to come to mind for me. A Swiss clockmaker, Jost Bürgi, was the inventor of cross-beat escapement and the remontoire, things which helped improve the accuracy of clocks enough to allow minute precision... effectively, he invented the minute hand.

Something that could be added but that I probably wouldn't vote for: The Swiss pike and halberd warfare of the 15th century, which proved excellent at the time for defending places.

[The_Lyonnist]

Swiss banks are from Lyon in France. They went to Switzerland during the religious wars.

[Alcuin]

The Swiss Army Knife.