As a society, we've come to accept things as they are without really questioning them.
But if you stop and think about it as these Redditors have, how things came to be can be a sobering discovery that will challenge your way of thinking.
To give reverence to historic trailblazers, Redditor jayytrip asked:
"What’s something that just makes you go 'who the f'k figured this out'?"
First, it starts with an idea. What follows is a lot of crazy paths that can go in unexpected directions.
Eye-Raising Origins
"Protamine sulfate is a drug used to reverse the effects of anticoagulants that are sometimes used during surgery. It was originally derived from salmon sperm." – LookWhatDannyMade
Weaving Ideas
"I saw a video of the process of making silk, and it's completely insane to me that humans somehow came up with a long list of really obscure steps to make fabric." – BallisticThundr
Preserving Sounds
"Record players. Turning microsqiggles on vinyl into perfect reproductions of people's voices and instruments? Like wtf is that witchcraft." – Gigged
Sew Impressive
"How the mechanichs under the needle on a sewing machine works to juggle the thread. That thing is just genius."
"The guy who figured out how to use addition in binary to let digital computers do subtraction." – The_Pastmaster
Frozen Images
"Cameras. How is it possible that some device is able to somehow capture the exact image it is pointed at with one click." – Upstairs-Cow2948
"I've been getting into analogue film photography and the chemistry that goes into making the films is insane. Genuinely how the f'k did they figure out which chemicals mixed in what combinations and temperatures would create the right colours."
"It's no wonder even at its peak only a handful of companies worldwide could mass produce colour films." – Elgin-Franklin
The process of ingesting things took a lot of trial and error, with a lot of error.
Wake Up Call
"There’s an Ethiopian legend that says a goat herder named Kaldi noticed his goats would become very energetic after eating the berries and that’s how humans first discovered coffee." – No_Excitement4272
"My guess is that someone was really hungry after a forest fire, found the “roasted” coffee beans, ate them, got a buzz and kind of liked the flavor, and the world has been more productive ever since." – CaptWoodrowCall
Finding Altered States
"I know the answer, but Cataloguing mushrooms. "This one killed fred, this one makes you see god for three days, and this one tastes kinda like chicken."
"The answer was a LOT of people." – Worried_Place_917
What To Eat
"Which plants and animals were edible, especially ones that are very poisonous if you aren't careful. For example, how many tries did it take to figure out that ripe ackee fruit pods are safe to eat, but that the seeds and skin are always poisonous, as are unripe ackee fruit pods? How many tries did it take to figure out how to safely eat pufferfish?" – Short-Condition-8878
Something Rotten
"Fermentation. So this vegetable rotted for a long time...smells awful, I wonder how it tastes?" – HeadFit2660
"The first person to eat a durian.... The hell you see a fruit covered in spikes, that is hard as a rock to open, that smells like a rotting corpse and you say to yourself: 'mmmmmmmmm I wonder if it can be eaten?'" – MewLalouve
These established forms of existence remain baffling concepts.
Written In The Stars
"Anything to do with astronomy. Mass of planets, distances of stars, locations of black holes. A lot of impressive brain power and technology went into all of this I'm sure." – D-Rez
The Brain Code
"Computing in general. Like the idea of converting physical stimuli into code is mind blowing to me. Like actually building a machine that is able to interpret impulses, motion, light, etc. and turn it into a language that can interpret and execute tasks is really quite amazing." – BrimfulOfLa-A
"Same. I can wrap my head around coding in an established language, and I can wrap my head about Yes and No functions doing simple operations."
"But I’ll need to read a book or five to ever understand how tons and tons of Yes/No commands can establish programming languages that eventually let me post this thought to the internet. It blows my mind." – 12345_PIZZA
Invisible Connection
"How wireless works, and radios work. I have a solid understanding of wireless, security, networking, and everything that goes with it as an IT person for the last 25 years. The fact that my computer, or cell phone can talk without any wires attached is magic. I’ve read about it, tried to understand, but how did someone figure this out??" – hooch21
Internal Investigating
"MRIs. As a med student i was (briefly) taught how these things work, and oh. my. god. how the hell did anyone think about this." – xVolt_
"As an MRI tech it’s really pretty amazing. All you’re doing is exciting water molecules in your body’s tissues with a big magnet making them point the same way, and then when you turn the magnet off, how long it takes each molecule and the chemical releases as each molecule goes back to normal determines what kind of tissue it is."
"The computer reads this and displays the appropriate tissue on your screen depending on the minuscule differences in what it detects. And no radiation!" – TriscuitCracker
Eye See You
"Contact lenses. It seems space age to me that there are these tiny flexible lenses I attach directly to my eyeballs every day to correct my vision. How the hell? Yes I know I can Google it." – AggravatingCupcake0
Fathers Of Math
"I'm an applied mathematican with a PhD from a top tier school. Holy f'k, I cannot even begin to imagine how these dudes 300 years ago cooked up math theory/tools that are commonly used now in applications that these people could never imagine. So far ahead of their time."
"Things like Fourier Series, Galois Theory, etc. Like read about Evariste Galois (super interesting). Created, as a teenager, this profound theory. Then died in a duel because he was also a trouble maker. So yeah, abnormal brains making breakthroughs that are light years ahead of peers." – chickcockgo
We may never know the thought process behind the genesis of the things we benefit from today.
But it will always remain a fascinating mystery how inquisitive people came to find their respective discoveries that forever changed the course of history.
Keith Pedersen/Facebook
