Who will be remembered in 1,000 years?

[hyperpallium]

It seems a safe bet that the people who have already been remembered for thousands of years will continue to be remembered for a thousand more: Jesus, Euclid, Aristotle, Socrates, etc.

But as for contemporaries, there's two big differences: a great many more people, and increasing pace of achievements and change - and both will hopefully continue. So, it's possible no one alive today will be remembered in 1000 years. Maybe things done in 100 years will push them all out of the public consciousness.

On the other hand, it's much easier to discover fundamental truths, of enduring consequence, in the early phases.

Finally, it matter how consequential the achievememt is. It's hard to know what will be used in 1000 years, and what turned out to be consequential. Perhaps we don't see its significance today.

Notable achievements might be: understanding/creating life (from scratch, not just pokimg memory locations); understanding/creating intelligence; understanding/curing physical disease; understanding/curing mental disease; inventing FTL travel; establishing a growing non-earth colony (note: who established the vikings colony on Greenland that was abandoned after 100 years?); first contact (that leads to growing trade); modifying human nature; founder of a new and better approach to community (or exposition of it); whoever blows up the world.

There's a limit to how many people can be remembered in the public consciousness. Newtom amd Einstein will be remembered by math/science historians... but will anyone else, if there are many of the above acheivements? (or ones I haven't and can't imagine...)

[joshvm]

One simple reason that we remember scientists is that we use their names for things. We use Maxwell's equations, Ohm's law, Newtonian mechanics, Euler-Lagrange, the Einstein coefficients, Avogadro's number and so on. And then there are the SI units which are mostly named after people. Perhaps we'll enter a sci-fi scenario where we've forgotten why things are named the way they are.

The general public? You learn from the high school syllabus, which has a finite amount of time and content. This is expensive educational real estate! That means you can learn the basics (mechanics, electricity, cell bio, etc), and some current state-of-the-art to add relevance and interest. Will the basics change in 1000 years? No idea. Classical equations "work" well enough to predict common phenomena, even if we come up with some unified theory in the future.

Most of the people that we think of as "scientists" were post-Renaissance. Galileo onwards. Newton, Euler, Farady, Darwin, for example: these are new people - barely 500 years old at most. It's helped that we've been increasingly good about writing things down, and science has been heavily romanticised. Quantum mechanics and relativity are babies.

A lot of recent discoveries, even Nobel winning science, go largely unnoticed because they're so niche technically that most people have no idea about them. Things like the giant magnetoresistive effect - absolutely world changing, but it's not trivial science and we're probably not going to be using magnetic media in 1000 years.

What about algorithms and mathematics? There are algorithms which are provably correct methods for doing things, named after people (e.g. Dijkstra's algorithm). Are these likely to be forgotten by computer scientists? There are lots of extensions and optimisation tweaks, but the core remains the same.

[mythrwy]

Agreed. Another limitation to contemporary people being remembered far into the future is it's currently hard to believably claim coming back from the dead or turning water into wine. And it's easy to find out if a person plagiarized an essay or harassed a co-worker. Thus the era of legendary heros may be largely over.

[PacketPaul]

Think of who is remembered from the years around 1000 AD. Basically war generals and scientist. So my top contenders are Einstein and Hitler.

[goatlover]

Famous philosophers, writers, painters, inventors, explorers, religious visionaries and rulers are also remembered over millennia, as long as something about them is transmitted faithfully to succeeding generations.

[nitwit005]

I suspect Einstein might be "remembered" due to use of his name as a word: "He's no Einstein". Already plenty of people saying his name who don't know anything about the man, or his ideas.

[adrianN]

Hopefully in 1000 years we will have augmented ourselves sufficiently that "forgetting" is not something that happens anymore.

[stordoff]

Perfect recall is not necessarily a desirable thing. Black Mirror explored some aspects of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You

[mc32]

For most people "forgetting" is a valuable phenomenon. There are lots of minor injuries and torts which are better off forgotten than recalled. Doesn't even have to be things other people did to you, but things you did yourself while learning.

[kakarot]

Okay, so then who will be remembered above all of the other noise in our heads in a thousand years?

Mental real estate is very expensive, and our ability to forget is what allows us to remember the things that are important to us.

[abootstrapper]

Forgetting can be a wonderful blessing.

[electic]

It's a bit simpler than this article outlines. How much you are remembered is based on what your accomplishments/stores/press/etc are recorded in.

For example, if you were a world renowned inventor and everyone wrote and communicated about you via clay pots then your memory is only carried on as a function of how many clay pot readers there are. Since all clay pot readers are dead and the medium itself is dead, your memory is dead. This is assuming no one transcribed the text from clay pots to whatever new communication medium came next.

[mc32]

I think they mean remembered in the public consciousness rather than remembered at all --as in having a record of the person [as in the Sayers example].

Now, it's true that we might have some more people in our consciousness if some of those people had been recorded in more durable media --or that they had a written medium at all.

[alexasmyths]

Ramses was probably only recorded on stone tablets for quite some time, they stopped that a while back and he is still remembered :)

[collyw]

You reckon the human race will make it that far?

[firefoxd]

Why not?

[amriksohata]

The sheer ignorance of the title is astounding as if to suggest we will know, entire cultures have been wiped out in the last 1000 years so who knows what would happen in the next 1000, couple nuclear wars would wipe out remembering many names mentioned above.

[ukulele]

I'd argue that the best chance for anyone reading this to be remembered in 1000 years is to be the first person to do X on Mars, where X is probably "set foot".

That'd get you in the history books for anything related to space travel for generations to come.

[baddox]

Maybe not, if humans have set foot on a bunch of other celestial bodies in 1000 years. In that case, perhaps only Armstrong would be in history books as the first human to set foot on a body other than Earth.

[uoaei]

I have a long-term plan to start a pizza chain on Mars that delivers with rockets and capsules.

[sunstone]

Trump will be remembered as prominent political figure? Surely not. Not him and not Bush. He'll sink beneath the waves of history in less than 3 decades unless he gets impeached and has to resign.

[jeff_petersen]

Bush and Trump both will be remembered for a long time. We’ve only had 45 presidents, the English learn about god knows how many insignificant kings in school, so the notion that two of your least favorite presidents will be forgotten in short order seems to be wishful thinking.

[nitwit005]

Probably only Washington, and possibly Lincoln will be remembered by anyone but historians.

There are far too many world leaders in 1000 years for anyone to care, unless it's some pivotal point in history.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Trump will be remembered as prominent political figure? Surely not.

Nixon is remembered, so far. It's not always a good thing.

[abritinthebay]

Depends what you mean by remembered. History will record rulers but is that really remembered? Feels like it’s more a footnote.

I’d argue that remembered means something... more.

[foobaw]

"Simple" solutions: build a time machine or cure every cancer. Name these devices after your name. With all the money you'll gain, name a bunch of cities and islands after your name.

[thirstysusrando]

Mathematicians are immortal.

[TheGrassyKnoll]

Yes, if there's any kind of educated people left, guys like Pythagoras, Euler should be known.

[scotty79]

I'd say Freud. Because he's still remembered and cited despite immense stupidity of his ideas about how human mind works.

I believe stupidity can last thousand years.

[platz]

We'll all be blown to smithereens by then, my friend

[saasdev]

I think the only ones you can safely say are Biblical figures who have already stood the test of time for thousands of years.

[kwoff]

Probably valueable to consider who will be remembering at that time, since that impacts who is remembered.

[leashless]

Stallman.

[forkLding]

Yeah, that does make sense, I think even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates will be remembered in the same manner as Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie where the name is familiar but doesn't ring a bell whereas a contemporary of that time, a modern-day Mark Twain will still be remembered.

[louithethrid]

Why would somebody remember Nelson Mandela? South africa is a legacy of ashes. Martin Luther King, yes. Gandi, yes. But the ANC saw to this ones monument deteriorating.

[howdy999]

Kardashians

[Semiapies]

Judging by the "great men" of the past we remember?

Mass-murder a lot of people.

[aisofteng]

A moments reflection shows this to be hyperbolic and cynical.