He may have lied about the mannequin, but he was telling the truth about the dummy.
While it’s not an invention, I submit
**Long-Delayed Sculpture Arrives At Denver Airport
A long-delayed sculpture of a mustang by the late Luis Jimenez has arrived at Denver International Airport.
Jimenez died in his Hondo, New Mexico studio in June 2006 after he was pinned under a section of the piece that came loose from a hoist. Work continued under the direction of his family.**
As for Dr. Atkins, he became very ill and his body bloated up with water it couldn’t dump. Hence, in his final terminal coma-like state he was pretty heavy and yucky. There was a rather dishonest mortician or something who weighed his post-death body counting all the excess fluids and “proved” the diet to be false. Pretty gruesome way to cheat on an argument.
Have you seen that godawful thing? It’s hideous. I wonder whether Jimenez’ death wasn’t an attempt at divine intervention.
He’s still alive, but chances are pretty good that David Hahn, aka The Radioactive Boy Scout, will suffer from radiation exposure while building a fast breeder reactor in his parent’s back yard.
He was arrested last year for stealing smoke detectors (presumably for their radioactive components) and he looks terrible in the mug shot.
And I suspect that’s exactly the documentary and neuroscientist Cecil had no luck with in the very column cited in the linked thread:
And note that the story can be judged probably apocryphal not because there’s necessarily anything biologically impossible about it. The grounds for doubt are because no-one repeating it ever seems to be able to provide historical evidence about Lavoisier for it being true.
It was probably pneumonia rather than frostbite, but the circumstances are well attested. There’s even a letter dictated by Bacon on his deathbed reporting that the experiment was otherwise a success. (A case of publish and perish?)
As an aside, Terry Gilliam now lives in the house on the site of the one in which he died. The appropriately Pythonesque touch to the story is that’s there’s the very dubious legend that the Highgate village green, across the road from the house, is haunted by the ghost of the chicken.
wasn’t there a fellow named Petard…something involving a hoist?
And then he went and called a mulligan!
OK
There is that guy who built a robot to kill him. Does that count?
Then there is that bear suit guy who’s invention didn’t quite work.
If only we knew who invented stupid, we’d know the biggest killer of all time.
You’d think the guy would have had enough foresight to find a nearby bridge and try a water landing first. He would have lived, although he would have been clearly in Seine.
You should be punished for that.
It’s like a real life version of The Onion Horoscopes; “You will make a big impression today. Unfortunately, you’ll make it with your head. In the tarmac.”
Snopes says the rumors of the causes of the death of Dr. Atkins is “undetermined.” The direct cause of his death was slipping on the ice and hitting his head. Whether the condition of his body had anything to do with it has never been determined. Would he have died if he hadn’t been following the diet? Who can tell?
So he’s just full on crazy now, eh?
Your diet doesn’t have much to do with either causing or recovering from blunt force trauma.
If you want to bring up fictional inventors a main protagonist in Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut was killed by his own invention Ice Nine.
Depends how messy an eater you are.
But it might affect your sense of balance, and maybe make your bones more brittle.
I believe that a special place in Hell has already been reserved, thank you.