No, it was sparks of genius, revelatory moments: you don’t work hard expecting to twig weird stuff like gravity or the 4th dimension.
Obviously this is just a semantic dispute, but I don’t agree with this at all.
My father is a scientist. He’s reasonably successful in his chosen field, and has a few times in his career shown up on TV and on newspapers discussing discoveries he (or projects he has worked on) have made.
I suppose it’s possible that he might be involved in some research which ended up leading to the rare scientific discovery that really catches the public eye, and he might become well known because of that. He’s certainly not seeking that or angling for that, but one can imagine it happening. And if that did happen, it would be ridiculous and insulting to say that he had become well known “by accident”.
And sure, there’s en element of right-place-right-time in just about any important scientific discovery. But the same is true of just about anything. Do we claim that J K Rowling is only famous “by accident” because she happened to be lucky enough to hit the zeitgeist in accidentally the perfect moment for the Harry Potter books to be runaway successes? Do we say that Bill Gates is only rich “by accident” because he happened to be lucky enough to be at the right time and place to make a deal with IBM to write the OS for their new PC? Of course not.
Well, not really, though. I mean, look at this guy. Started out as a major fuck-up, kind of coasted through college, then, by accident, he discovered one of the most useful tools in history, and almost everybody has heard of him, whether or not they can spell his name right.
Some non-trivial fraction of scientific and technological advancements have an unexpected point of inflection. Probably even fire.
What guy? Your link doesn’t work.
Why not just post his damned name?
Sent from my XT1635-02 using Tapatalk
Works for me. Name: Wilhelm Röntgen. (And if that doesn’t display right for you, you need to get some better software. In particular, something that doesn’t have that inane tapatalk signature.)
Sure. And I think we’re getting into agree-to-disagree territory here, but I still see a MASSIVE gulf between Abraham Zapruder, and the extent to which it was a total accident that he ended up recording one of the most viewed bits of film in American history, and any of dozens or hundreds of scientists whose discoveries or adventures were to some extent due to a fluke. The guy who invented the microwave oven may have just gotten lucky to notice that a chocolate bar near some experimental apparatus was melting, but it still took an enormous amount of imagination and engineering know-how to turn that into a functional consumer product. Alexander Fleming may have gotten “lucky” to discover penicillin, but it still took plenty of work and expertise to go from “hey, this mold from my fruit seems to do something” to a practical medicine that can be administered to human beings.
The Australian version of this, Stuart Diver
Noel Santillan , the guy who got lost b/c of his confused GPS
Because Christopher Columbus was trying to find India and accidentally bumped into a few islands in the Caribbean.
If I could bring back the person in history who would probably be most amazed at their level of fame, Anne Frank would be second on the list First place would go to Vincent Van Gough (and I’d take him to a Don McLean concert!). Third would be William Shakespeare, who would be jaw dropping astonished that his plays are still being performed.
That is actually nerdily hilarious. Tapatalk is escaping the escape code, making the url invalid. What a piece of junk. Even a blah browser is handier for forums than that thing.
And that is why I keep the shitty Tapatalk signature at the bottom of my Tapatalk posts.
My spelling, grammar and punctuation (editing) can be problematic on a phone. As can linkage to other sites, as I find out now apparently.
How about Saint Valentine? From what little I know about him, I think he’d be astonished at what happens every February 14.
Pontius Pilate. Here’s some random civil servant just doing his job for the state. Fast forward 2000+ years and everyone still knows who he is. Heck, he’s in the Nicene Creed, spoken by billions of people throughout the ages.
I really, really do not think so. Not a chance in hell. I bet the majority of my friends and none of my older relatives know who that is. I only have the vaguest memory of him.
I dunno. I feel like he’s in a somewhat different category. He was the prefect of Judea, which I assume is approximately similar to being a governor. So it’s not like he just just joe sixpack in his day.
I don’t think this really satisfies the OP’s intent. CC set out to become famous for reaching one continent, and through an inadequate appreciation of global geography became famous for reaching another.
We might equally well argue that Hitler qualifies (Godwin!) because he set out to become famous for winning the Second World War, but ended up being famous for losing it.
Lorne Grabher He supposedly had an “offensive” personalized licence plate.
Ignoring your restrictions on “waking up and suddenly becoming famous”, the best accidentally-famous people are almost all hereditary royalty. They did not seek the fame associated with their posts; they had it thrust on them as an accident of birth. They didn’t, in general, suddenly become famous unless it was something they actively sought though.
As for an actual contribution: Alfred Dreyfus - Wikipedia - this was a pretty big deal, and the guy did nothing to deserve all the attention. Famous for Emile Zola’s “J’accuse” headline at the least.