"Tracelessly"? How's that supposed to work? The wheel is basic. You take it away, and most of modern life goes with it.

Hope you're a fan of growing your own food, digging your own well and and porting your own water, living without electricity (and HOW will you power up your Internet?) wearing clothes made from the skins of stuff you killed and shoes made out of tree bark, pooping in a compost pit, storing your garbage forever, and patching up your shelter with whatever you've got on hand, because when the wheel goes all those things go too. No wheels means no mass farming, no water portation, no electrical generators, limited textile production, no plumbing and filtration, no land transportation beyond horseback-riding, no air transportation at all, no ceramics, limited glassmaking and thus no optics, and hence no chemistry or astronomy and way more limited naval science, and thus no industrialization . . . oh, and sho' nuff, thus no computer age, and thus no Internet.

Sorry . . . but the fact that you think the Internet is nifty doesn't make it a condender for "greater invention than the wheel."

I'm sorry, but your request to have no smart notations is ignorant. You cannot discuss which is the greater invention without reviewing it's importance on human history. With that said, the wheel, as of now, is hands down more influential than the internet. In 100 more years we will have another discussion, but the wheel has influenced humans and can be said to be our first experimentation with "machines".

What is more useful is the wheel. We could have lived without the Internet and still can. The Internet is a matter of habit, the wheel isn't. The wheel is the workhorse of the world...not so with the Internet. The Internet is the convenience of the world.

One more thing: gears are essentially very complex wheels. No watches, no mechanical devices (including boats!), and no power- so no internet.

Sorry; originally read "One more thing: gears are essentially very complex gears. No watches, no mechanical devices (including boats!), and no power- so no internet." Typo.

The wheel has allowed for civilization to exist for thousands of years; the internet has allowed people to argue and watch porn and instantly communicate for the last ten, twenty years. I think the answer here is pretty clear.

There's really no question on this one, is there? The wheel is a basic machine, essential to building more complex machines. After firebuilding and planting, it's probably the single most important development in human civilization. Most of humanity's most basic technology would not exist without it.

The Internet has functioned as more of a revolution in first-world convenience than one in technology. For most people who have access to the Internet, it's is basically a good library, accessible through a computer. It has probably revolutionized information storage and retrieval -- but it's certainly not up there in importance to human history with fire, planting, or wheels. I'm sure that in computer tech fields the underlying technology for the Web has been influential, but a few tweaks to whatever's coming out of Silicon Valley is hardly a comparable impact to the massive influence that the wheel has had on technological development in almost every possible field of human endeavor.

Pottery and spinning were among the early uses of the wheel. Rounded whetstones followed not too long afterward. Transportation, of course, was totally revolutionized by the move from sleds to wheels. Later civilizations used water and wind wheels to generate power -- including power for paddle-wheeled ships, allowing for military and cultural expansion. Eventually basic wheel-gears were developed that, ultimately, allowed for the creation of a huge range of machines from simply pulleys to stealth planes. There is very little about our world today that would have been possible without wheels.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. The wheel helped many early civilizations flourish and really jump started the human race. Imagine life without any wheels. We would have no cars, buses, bicycles, or trains. To get around, we would need to travel by horse (which is slow), by foot (even slower), or by boat (which is not helpful when traveling across land).

Also, without the wheel most buildings would not exist and we'd all be living in shacks and huts. Forget about huge skyscrapers without the help of cement trucks, wheelbarrows, and cranes. We'd never be able to use much metal due to the weight.

On the other hand, we've been living with the internet for some time, but most of us can see a world without it because we either lived in that time or know someone who has.

The wheel paved the way for all later inventions. Where would we have gotten without the wheel?

first of all the internet is not an invention. it is something that no one could take recongnition for.thats like saying fire is an invention. and the wheel was the start of how do i say this uhm........the start of how thinking about things could be more efficient instead of the only things you have is what you get.

The wheel because without wheels there are no cars or bikes,motorcycles etc...

You can drive from San Fransisco to Sacramento because of wheels. you'd have to walk everywhere. There are other ways in life than Internet like letters.

I love the Internet, no doubt about it, but although the wheel was probably easier to invent, I think it is more useful.

They are both great inventions :)

Yeah, but gears are basically wheels, as are pulleys. If you take away wheels, I'm pretty sure those would count.