h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having just watched a documentary on Richard Feynman (uk centric)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p016d3kk/The_Fantastic_Mr_Feynman/

It set me thinking:

How does one leave a lasting legacy? An impression on history?

How will one be remembered?

And does one want to be remembered and if so, how?

There are those who are remembered positively, those remembered, and some who may be should have been remembered but have been lost in obscurity.

Will you be remembered? And if so, how?

I doubt I will be, but history has a weird way of preserving things.

I wonder!

MMF

You'll need to do something very very good or something very very bad or something so clever that only one in ten million understands it.

Nevertheless, write up your life so far - you never know.

The truth is that you can't really leave a lasting legacy. Or it might be better to say that you can leave a lasting legacy, but you'll still be forgotten. You play the fiddle, for example. You could live on in the form of one of those old airs that every fiddle player knows, but nobody knows the origin of.

I would like to leave a good impression. I don't want to be remembered for something awful.

Realistically? I'd like my ashes to be mixed with garden soil. I'd like an oak sapling to be planted there,so *something* would benefit from what is left of me.

The problem is people remember the bad guys. Only a few of the good ever make it.

Choose where to leave your graffiti carefully and use a chisel, not a spray can. I've seen graffiti from Roman soldiers on Hadrians Wall and from 13th Century Vikings in a Scottish cave.

"Kilroy was here."

http://www.google.ca/search?q=kilroy+was+here&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=cIaXUfaCMqTg0QH9tIHoAg&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=679


~jwf~

Graffiti was found on a bathroom wall in the ruins of Pompeii. "Kakavi bene" were the words. The author was a high-ranking aide to one of the emperors.

Will I leave a lasting impression? It depends on how high up they drop me from.

In fairness to MMF in the OP it should be noted
that many people have left lasting impressions
by creating works of art, music, literature and
by inventions and innovations and ideas as well
as waging wars or discovering new territories.
All these require much more effort than graffiti
scrawled on a wall somewhere.
For example:
The impression left by Columbus in 1492 is still
reverberating. The impression left by Elvis is...
whatever it is doing.

~jwf~

If this site lasts 1000 years you have all left a lasting impression already.

At least it will make someone laugh as they look back at how backward we were... clucking be!!.... that's the same time gap as the one between us and the Venerable Bede, and I have read his book. I need a

Why would anyone want to leave a "lasting impression". Such notions smacks of religion ... or does it

>> How does one leave a lasting legacy? An impression on history? <<

The victors and usurpers write the history

"Why would anyone want to leave a "lasting impression". Such notions smacks of religion ... or does it"[Stone Aart]

Galileo left a lasting impression, and he was severely out of favor with the religious leaders of his time. Heck, if you were a "religious" figure, you were not immune from crucifixion or getting stabbed in the Forum. I think that would tend to put a damper on anyone *wanting* to be a religious figure. Unless you were Jim Jones. he took the same purple Kool Aid that his followrs took.

Define "lasting"?

The way my life is set up, I imagine I'll be largely forgotten within ten years of my death. This does not bother me.

Feynman is well remembered, but he's only been gone a few decades. He did some good stuff, but he won't be remembered as long as Einstein, Darwin or Copernicus.

I suspect Mohammed will probably still be remembered well into the future.

So long as there's a Jew drawing breath I suspect we'll never be allowed to forget Hitler.

And Neil Armstrong's name may be one of the last human names to be forgotten.

There are three methods for effective immortality:
1. Do something world-changingly clever.
2. Be a world-class, industrial-grade a4$ehole.
3. Be lucky.

So far Einstein is the most recent example of (1), and Hitler is the most recent example of (2). Sorry, Pol Pot, Osama, Margaret Thatcher, George Bush - massive a4$eholes though you were, you didn't cut it.

It's harder to predict (3), because it's hard to know whether anyone's going to get fossilised, and who they are. And I mean that literally as well as metaphorically - there are examples in British museums of people buried accidentally or otherwise who got dug up tens of thousands of years on and put on display. It's immortality of a sort, although nobody knows their names.

On a more sombre note: Feynman did leave a lasting impression, along with Einstein and a whole bunch of other people. He left a lasting impression on Hiroshima.

The poinsettia is a plant indigenous to Mexico and central America. It was given its common name by the first US minister to Mexico, Joel Robert Poinsett. In Turkey the plant is commonly known as Ataturk's flower, named after the founder of the modern state of Turkey. In the politico-economic field we have Reaganomics and Thatcherism. In physics we have Einstein's constants, Feynman diagrams and Galilean transformations.

Some people consider their children to be their legacy. There are even series of descendants with the same name e.g. there is a Henry F. Schaefer, III, while some are given their fathers name with Junior appended.

Will I leave a lasting impression? Absolutely not and I will be forgotten in a nanosecond. I prefer it that way

I will remember you doc .

Even a gravestone is a legacy of sorts. The Egyptian pyramids are merely very expensive gravestones.

I think that Margaret Thatcher is an example of luck. Female prime ministers have been so rare that people would remember her as an exception. If female prime minsters become commonplace in the future, she may still be remembered as the first one in modern times.

I would like to leave a lasting impression, but it's not going to ruin my day if I don't. A lot of people remember me from the days when I worked at the reference desk in a library. There are other people who remember the songs I wrote and sang at outreach concerts. There are also people who remember me from my visits to the community swimming pool I go to. I tried to get a book published in 1997. I had hoped that that would get me a writing career, but it didn't pan out.

I can't say I am fussed about making a lasting impression, I'd like to be remembered mostly fondly but honestly by those who have known me