this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
37 points (87.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43890 readers
1486 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I was reading a post about unique things you wouldn't want, such as a nasty medical condition named after you.

That got me thinking.

What is the most unique thing.

Being the tallest person doesn't count, because there is always a tallest person...

I thought maybe units of measure, there are not really that many units named after people. Newton, Pascal, ampere etc... Turns out there are quite a few.

Next thought was atomic elements, there are 19 named after 20 people. That is fairly unique 20 people out of the ~110 billion to have ever lived, have an element named after them.

all 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Saving the world from nuclear war is a good unique one:

Vasili Arkhipov

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

These are great examples.

I knew about Petrov. Great humans both of them!

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Robert Liston performed a single surgery with a 300% mortality rate (probably).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I wonder how much is embellishment over the years.

If you sawed off your assistants fingers (hard to do with a hand saw); good chance they would also catch gangrene. Far more likely is that at the first sign of a saw hitting your finger, you move it out of the way.

The third person "died of fright", could have been heart attack. So definitely plausible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

These surgeons were moving fast, I can see it.

I was sawing wood one night and barely touched my thumb webbing, split open like a mouth. Bet you could take 3 fingers an single forward and back stroke. You can for sure with modern blades.

(If anyone is considering a new saw, get the kind with this sort of edge: https://www.amazon.com/REXBETI-Folding-Camping-Pruning-Quality/dp/B07BLQBN8X/ Those are modern day light sabers.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

These surgeons were moving fast, I can see it

Everybody was limb-fu cutting (hiya!)

Those cats were fast as lightning (hiya!)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Can confirm, I cut down an entire small tree with one of those very easily when I was younger.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Surgeons back then were basically professional limb amputaters. Note that he went through a whole leg in 2.5 minutes. He would have blown through some fingers in no time.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thomas Midgley Jr. Invented putting lead in fuel and using CFCs for refrigeration. He died when he was strangulated by the machine he invented to help him get out of bed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history"

Ouch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I have often thought about who the person with the worst carbon footprint would be if you accounted for factors like inventions/policies/war etc. This answers my question, unless there are even worse contributors.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't think Midgley really did anything to increase the amount of carbon in the atmosphere β€” just the amount of lead and CFCs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I was wrong to say carbon footprint, I suppose I'm curious about who has contributed the most to polluting the environment and damaging our climate.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Born under a bad sign? This guy is the only officially recognized person to have survived two nuclear bomb detonations.

https://www.damninteresting.com/eyewitnesses-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I remember reading about that guy a few years ago....unlucky / super lucky.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

For length there is a Smoot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot

Edit: it's 1.702 metres/ 5'7"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I love the Smoot; but for weird units of measure.... gestures vaguely in the direction of North America

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Off the top of my head though I can't think of any that are based on a persons name. Rod, Chain, Peck, Hogshead etc.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

atomic elements, there are 19 named after 20 people.

What do you mean? There's one named after two persons?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Curium is named after both Pierre and Marie Curie

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Maria SkΕ‚odowska-Curie

jk btw

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Kurva!

*Toasts with pivo in the general direction of Poland/*

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Curium is named for Marie and Pierre Curie.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Probably played some golf on the moon.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Ad hoc weapons (Vjatsjeslav Mikhajlovitsj Molotov)?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Having a species named after you, even if you're a fictional character

Testudo Aubreii

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Gary Larson has several species of animals named after him. He also named the spiked part of a stegosaurus tail in a comic (the thagomizer, β€œafter the late Thag Simmons”) and had that name adopted as the official name by paleontologists.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Absolutely fantastic people still know this and share it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I loved that story; in my imagination paleontologist 1 (P1) sees the cartoon and wonders what the official name is. Gets to work and asks old and wise paleontologist 2 (P2) what the official name is.

P2: I don't know. I'll have to ask my venerable colleague (P3) about it next time we are together.
P1: ok cool, I'll just use "Thagomizer" until we find out the official name.
P2: seems reasonable.
a few months pass...
P2: hey P3 what is the official name of the Thagomizer?
P3: um, I have no idea. I should know, I'm a steggy expert, how about we just keep it as Thagomizer!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There's a whole series of books about this lol

(Referring to Guinness)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

True.

I haven't looked at one since I was a kid.

I know they do, tallest/fastest/biggest etc... But they are all things that always exist.

E.g. the biggest pizza in the world, well before that there was also a biggest pizza it was just smaller than the current one, and before that etc....

I guess anything with a single record, not just the latest in a long string should count.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Being the first to do x, first man on the moon for example. Or be the 28th president

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The first person to be the 28th President

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

He was number 1!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

While true, I don't think it counts.

There are a huge number of firsts, that have subsequently had a lot of people do that thing.

However only 12 people have walked on the moon. So more unique than the elements.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

We're about to see the three people who have gone the furthest from earth ever

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

be the 28th president

CΓ©sar Gaviria or Salvador Allende?