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.
Saving the world from nuclear war is a good unique one:
It happened twice!
These are great examples.
I knew about Petrov. Great humans both of them!
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.
Most isolated person https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Worden
atomic elements, there are 19 named after 20 people.
What do you mean? There’s one named after two persons?
Curium is named after both Pierre and Marie Curie
Maria Skłodowska-Curie
jk btw
Kurva!
*Toasts with pivo in the general direction of Poland/*
Curium is named for Marie and Pierre Curie.
Having a species named after you, even if you’re a fictional character
Testudo Aubreii
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, “after the late Thag Simmons”) and had that name adopted as the official name by paleontologists.
Absolutely fantastic people still know this and share it.
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!
Being the first to do x, first man on the moon for example. Or be the 28th president
The first person to be the 28th President
be the 28th president
César Gaviria or Salvador Allende?
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.
We’re about to see the three people who have gone the furthest from earth ever
Ad hoc weapons (Vjatsjeslav Mikhajlovitsj Molotov)?
There’s a whole series of books about this lol
(Referring to Guinness)
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.