Ask HN: Who are the 100 people who most changed the world?
Norman Borlaug invented dwarf wheat and in so doing allowed the earth to support billions more people.
Mikhail Kalashnikov invented a weapon which changed the world map and the ability of the common man to fight governments (and vice versa).
In creating C and Unix, Dennis Ritchie created arguably the infrastructure for all modern computing.
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Who would be on your list of the top (perhaps unsung) people who changed massive numbers of lives for centuries and WHY?
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 71.6 ms ] threadhttp://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/10-inventions-of-nikola-...
- Henry Ford: Giving the world mass production and giving his workers (comparatively) high wages for the time.
Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed -- obviously. Similarly Marx. Socrates/Plato and Aristotle also had long-enduring influence on how people thought.
Highly effective conquerors -- Alexander and Genghis Khan come to mind first, because they punched WAY over the weight of the nations they started with.
Newton, Gauss, Darwin, Einstein -- massive and enduring influences on how science and mathematics are framed.
Bill Gates, similarly albeit to a lesser extent, plus he has his massive charity.
Pasteur -- popularized the germ theory of disease.
Florence Nightingale -- transformed health care, and also influenced statistics
Euclid, Euler, Riemann
Caesar, Stalin
Paul -- the marketing brains behind Christ's enduring success
I know that everyone involved in the entire PC movement equally played a big part, but Windows ended up being the huge unifying factor for Joe White-Collar-Worker. I think the surge in office computing in Windows was what eventually lead to the acceptance and idea of "normal people" owning computers in the home and consequently the drive towards intelligent consumer electronics in general.
Also a mention for Sir. Tim Berners-Lee, of course it was not a one man effort but he is largely attributed to the creation of the WWW which, let's face it, has already hugely reshaped society in many ways.
He'll be remembered as a business tycoon probably among the likes of JP Morgan or Carnegie, but that will fade with time. His charity work, on the other hand, might eventually work out to save _tens of millions_ of lives.
If the foundation prospers long enough to beat malaria and waterborne disease in the developing world, they'll re-shape the population of a continent. They may not only save more lives than anyone in history, but manage to save more lives than any dictator was able to end, which is a sadly astonishing achievement.
Churchill: without his resolution and ability, we very possibly would have had to start the invasion of Europe with Ireland or Great Britain, assuming it ever happened.
Right next to Hitler put Marx and Lenin, who's death toll overwhelms the former.
FDR, who right next to the above including Lenin's successor Stalin, who also completely changed the nature of his country's government and eventually the country's nature (read The Managerial Revolution). As the then most powerful country in the world, that was a very big thing.
It's also an open question if the Soviets could have held the line without all the supplies we sent them, which again depended a great deal on the U.K. still being in the war.
(random article from Google: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,36527,0...)
Thomas Alva Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Bill Gates, Marie Curie, Aryabhata, Mother Teresa, Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, John Vincent Atanasoff,Gutenberg, Hitler to name a few
Here is the list: http://physics.hallym.ac.kr/~physics/course/a2u/evolution/im...
It seems ancient history produced two types of people: great political and religious leaders.
Modern history mostly has: scientists, inventors, philosophers...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers
But using him to represent all the of the above works. I'd add John Moses Browning, history's greatest and most influential small arms designer, if for no other reason a design detail that's used in almost every semi-auto pistol today. And we are still using weapons he designed in the 1910s, e.g. the 1918 M2 heavy machine gun and the M1911 handgun, one of which I carry almost every time I walk out my door.
I'd add Jay Forrester, who's Project Whirlwind invented the physical computer as we know it; he left the field after that project, saying correctly all the really important and interesting stuff had been accomplished.
Alfred Nobel, inventor of the first stable high explosive (stabilized nitroglycerin known as dynamite).
Pick a selection from Thirty Years That Shook Physics (quantum physics), and go back some, at least to Newton and Leibniz. And, oh, Euclid.
Claude Shannon is best known as the father of information theory, but before that he wrote one of the most consequential master's thesis ever, in which he applied Boolean logic to found both digital circuit and digital computer design.
Hewlett, Packard and Shockley unintentionally founded Silicon Valley.
John Ericsson, inventor of the monitor class of warships (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_(warship) ) and how they influenced naval design following.
Tesla, for AC power, Edison's DC had strict transmission length limits.
Time for breakfast, that'll do for now.
Linus Pauling wouldn't make the top 100 because someone would have done it around that time, it was that obvious, but he was the first to apply quantum theory to chemistry.
Norman Borlaug developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties credited with saving over a billion people from starvation.
Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that it's a good idea to wash your hands before carrying out surgery.
Abraham Lincoln for ending slavery in America.
The idea that slavery is not fine did also not originate in the US.
Similarly, it follows that Martin Luther (not King), one of the vocal leaders of the protestant reformation, was influential with his 95 theses.
Jesus Christ (and the story of the man) obviously has made one of the most global and lasting impacts on culture and humanity.
I'd agree that Pauline literature largely shapes the perception of Christ and Christianity, so Paul is an important figure.
The Beatles - Shifted culture significantly, not just in the US but around the world.
Certainly Dennis Ritchie.
Vannevar Bush, who first conceptualized hypertext via the Memex in the mid-20th century.
Tim Berners-Lee.
I lightly tread and say Mark Zuckerberg, but really I mean the brainpower behind Facebook. Regardless of staying power, to have a massive enough sum of people to start saying things like "1 in 13 people on earth", it certainly is one of the most far reaching and adopted efforts in history.
Albert Einstein - the theory of relativity shapes the way a lot of modern physics are approached.
Adolf Hitler.
Let me be clear - I'm not saying they invented or caused the shift. (Which I suppose I said before.) I'm saying they were incredibly influential to pop culture, to a massive degree. (This isn't fanboy talk, so I won't be upset on this thread whatsoever.)
1. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley for the transistor.
2. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce for the integrated circuit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Lilienfeld
Also known as the father of chemical warfare so it's a mixed bag.
Rather unknown, but he invented a Method to synthesize ammonia, which is important for fertilizer. I think Wikipedia puts it quite well:
“The food production for half the world's current population depends on this method for producing fertilizer.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skanderbeg
He has been credited with being one of the main reasons for delaying Ottoman expansion into Western Europe, giving the Italian principalities more time to better prepare for the Ottoman arrival.
On October 27, 2005, the United States Congress issued a resolution "honoring the 600th anniversary of the birth of Gjergj Kastrioti (Scanderbeg), statesman, diplomat, and military genius, for his role in saving Western Europe from Ottoman occupation."
Fully understanding the importance of the hero to the Albanians, Nazi Germany formed in February 1944, the 21st SS Division Skanderbeg, with 6,491 Kosovo Albanians.
Electronic Banking turned Pay for Shit Online. Mainstreamed Electric Cars. Non-governmental Space Travel. Alternative Medium Distance Travel Concept.