Asklemmy

43856 readers

2015 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

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

Open-ended question
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.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

What is the most unique thing a person has done or is? (lemmy.nz)

submitted 1 month ago by absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

49 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 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.

[–] Subtracty@lemmy.world 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.

[–] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] Subtracty@lemmy.world 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.