Ask HN: Who are the 100 people who most changed the world?

[petenixey]

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?

[xefer]

Unsung and infamous: Fritz Haber inventor of the nitrogen-fixation process (later industrialized by Carl Bosch, which is why it is known as the Haber-Bosch process.)

At a minimum, 3 billion people are alive today because the proteins in their bodies contain nitrogen that had been fixed by fertilizers created in factories using this process. Without artificial fertilizers produced with this process it would be impossible to support a human population of more than 4 billion people even if every bit of arable land were being farmed to maximum capacity.

The Haber-Bosch process broke through the hard limit of how much plant protein could be produced through agriculture and led directly to the population explosion started in the 19th century.

Paraphrasing Vaclav Smil's arguments:

Naturally-produced fertilizers can provide approximately 200 kg. of nitrogen per hectare annually; this allows for the production of between 200 and 250 kg. of plant proteins. This places a theoretical limit on the number of people that each hectare of land could sustain. Under ideal conditions this would amount to around 15 people per hectare; in practice, the historical limit has been about 5 people per hectare.

Note: he also invented chlorine gas for use during World War I

[petenixey]

Excellent reference. A friend mentioned him to me the other day and you're absolutely right, he was a game changer

[javindo]

I would make an argument for Bill Gates. I know on HN people might snub this, but I honestly believe that for better or worse, the future was reshaped by his business tenacity.

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.

[showerst]

I'd argue that long after his business acumen is just a footnote, Bill Gates' charity work will stand him head and shoulders into the top people who've ever lived.

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.

[jvvlimme]

- Nicola Tesla, no matter how much he is praised, it's always way too little.

http://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.

[levosmetalo]

It's correct spelling is Nikola Tesla, but yes, he is the enabler of modern society and the way we live today.

[nadaviv]

The Oatmeal has a nice comic about him: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

[jcutrell]

Constantine, the first Christian emperor. This was the first time Christianity was recognized by the state; much of A.D. history (but not necessarily most) revolves around the interplay between church and state, most namely the institutionalized Catholic church and protestants.

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.

[hcho]

Not to upset any fans, but how did The Beatles shift the culture? I have the impression that culture was shifting by itself and The Beatles only lucked into being at right place at the right time.

[talles]

There's a book on this exact subject: http://www.amazon.com/The-100-Ranking-Influential-Persons/dp...

Here is the list: http://physics.hallym.ac.kr/~physics/course/a2u/evolution/im...

[AlexanderDhoore]

Very cool list. Though seeing all the religious figures at the top, makes me cry a little inside. But when I think about it, it makes sense.

It seems ancient history produced two types of people: great political and religious leaders.

Modern history mostly has: scientists, inventors, philosophers...

[joshuahedlund]

Gutenberg - printing press made the sum of human knowledge exponentially easier to transmit and expand

(random article from Google: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,36527,0...)

[tnuc]

I think the Chinese did this a few hundred years earlier.

[hga]

I wouldn't credit Kalashnikov quite so highly, the real key was the invention and wide post-WWII adoption of non-corrosive primers, which radically decreased the maintenance required after firing a gun. After that, it was the Soviet system that ensured zillions of reliable, low/no maintenance weapons would flood the world; Kalashnikov's was the later, but it was proceeded by the SKS (same round, fixed magazine fed by clips).

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.

[hga]

In between Newton and the quantum mechanics, Dmitri Mendeleev for the periodic table, a complete discontinuity in chemistry.

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.

[CurtMonash]

For starters:

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.

[CurtMonash]

If we're going for 100, I'd quickly add:

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

[timje1]

Surely Paul the Baptist was far more influential than Jesus - there were quite a few crazies wandering around in those times telling people to sell all of their things and follow them to paradise. It took quite a bit of admin and organisation to form a religion out of the stories and rumours that were left.

[CurtMonash]

Edison -- yes, way over Tesla. He drove and shaped adoption of a whole lot of technology.

Bill Gates, similarly albeit to a lesser extent, plus he has his massive charity.

[pavlov]

Akhenaten, the world's first truly radical innovator, circa 1350 BC.

As the pharaoh of Egypt, he had the power to turn his completely original vision into reality. He abandoned old gods and turned to the only power that was visible and potent, the Sun. His religious theory based on a concept of energy originating from the Sun was more scientific than anything that would be invented for almost a thousand years afterwards.

His powerful influence created a completely new art style, a new kind of poetry, all driven by a sense of individualism that was completely foreign to the ancient cultures of his era.

There are many links between Akhenaten's radical monotheism and what formed as Judaism after his time -- some go so far as to suggest that he was the historical character who eventually became described as Moses in the Bible.

[Nick_C]

Indeed, and even if you haven't followed Egyptian history, you probably would be familiar with his wife Nefertiti (of the famous bust http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Nof... ) and his son Tutankhamun (who reversed much of Akhenaten's changes).

[danso]

Genghis Khan...his military and logistical exploits in a time before the steam engine just boggle the mind.

[xutopia]

I don't think people realize just how much he shaped his future. He essentially brought Asia and the Arab world to its knees and they were more advanced scientifically than Europe at the time. Without him the world as we know it would have power shifted eastward.

[Arjuna]

Just imagine the world of technology that blossomed from these 2 inventions:

1. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley for the transistor.

2. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce for the integrated circuit.

[kken]

Do not forget Julius Edgar Lilienfeld who invented and patented the much more relevant field effect transistor more than 20 years earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Lilienfeld

[ajmarsh]

Fritz Haber (9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German chemist, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his development for synthesizing ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives. The food production for half the world's current population depends on this method for producing fertilizer.

Also known as the father of chemical warfare so it's a mixed bag.

[PeterisP]

If you're looking literally at the definition of "people who changed massive numbers of lives" then the relatively recent leaders such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao whould be at the top:

1. Autocratic leaders individually affected more change than the comparable democratic leaders (Roosevelt, Churchill) because they had more radical actions and more direct power to change and/or take lives on a huge scale;

2. Relatively modern events affect huge amounts of people compared to older events - WW2 killed more people than were alive at the peak of Roman Empire, and directly 'affected' far more than that (~2 billion?).

3. Really recent political events are comparably tiny - events such as 'War on Terror' or Rwandan genocide are impactful, but order of magnitude smaller than the atrocities we did in 20th century.

Of course, we might rather want to glorify entirely different kind of people :)

[ddorian43]

Skanderbeg 1405 – 17 January 1468

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.

[lukeck]

Thomas Midgley Jr. Invented leaded fuel and CFCs.

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.

[smenon]

Nameless inventor of wheel Jesus Christ Alexander Fleming who discovered penicillin

[skellystudios]

"Nameless inventor of wheel Jesus Christ" - man, that guy had many talents

[gmuslera]

Take with a grain of salt some of the more known names. History is written by the victors (i.e. Edison) so your list is probably rigged by construction, and sometimes what changed history is not the person or what he really did, but the story about him (i.e. Jesus). Also, calling the "world" the line of culture that comes from greece and rome to us is dangerous, who invented gunpowder or arabic numerals? Anyway, considering that with globalization that line of culture is the prevalent now in all the world, the victor that writes the history, probably is what you can know.

[axaxs]

I have a hard time choosing, mainly because each time I come up with an answer, I think "oh wait, that wouldn't be possible without invention x". For example - the microprocessor wouldn't be possible without electricity. As such, I think I'd pick Benjamin Franklin. He did much research into electricity, and even the precursors for what became the design of modern air conditioners. Without air conditioning, our world would likely be drastically different - I wouldn't be sitting in an enclosed building working on a computer, that's for sure.

[sanoli]

well, the AC thing, your building would have big open windows and lots of fans. Not too different...

[ForrestN]

This is a confusing question if we are considering the results of someone's life mainly because of procreation. If Hitler, for example, can be thought of as being at the beginning of a causal chain that made a big difference, wouldn't his mother be even more important? She can as much claim Hitler's actions as a result of her behavior as he can the behavior of his armies and subsequent generations and so forth. She has set in motion the Hitler chain but also a number of other small irrelevant chains that nevertheless help her overtake Hitler in impact.

[sanoli]

So you're saying that the 100 people who most changed the world were the mothers of the 100 people who most changed the world?

[treerex]

From the 20th Century, definitely Adolf Hitler: the fallout from the war he started has shaped modern world. The Cold War was certainly accelerated as a result of the land grab after Germany's surrender and the US development of the atomic bomb. I would argue that Israel gained its independence from Palestine in 1948 because of the Shoah. It may have happened later, but one cannot deny that the Zionists used it to their advantage. Once Israel existed tensions in the middle east increased, forcing us to take sides and make strong enemies in the Muslim world.

[hga]

Our "strong enemies in the Muslim world" are upset at the 1942 Reconquista, which kicked the Moors out of what they still held of Spain. The end of your above history is highly revisionist and completely ignores, say, the Muslim division of the world into two parts (what they are is left as an exercise to the reader).