Of course, if she did patent it her next problem would be to live long enough to collect any royalties on it.
@maggiek I really like your science articles but in this case Iām not fond of you jumping on the editorialized headline bandwagon.
Iām not exactly sure how this is editorializing. Marie Curie was out ahead of a current trend in science/tech where people are talking about making scientific information available broadly. I think itās pretty factual to say that she was a pioneer of open source.
Radium! What canāt it do? Makes crops glow likeā¦ sorry, GROW like crazy! Strawberries at the top, sunflowers at the bottom.
(image from http://www.gocomics.com/comic/explore/1418664/17#.U4tv0BaBQ84)
While I do agree with the nobility and selflessness of Mme. Marieās decision, Iād like to point out another (and slightly more proper) case of historical open source collaboration: Paris, c. 1900.
Several engineers like LĆ©on Levavasseur, Louis BlĆ©riot and the Voisin brothers (among several others) where involved in a highly competitive yet fairly collaborative effort to make the first heavier-than-air airplane. One product of that era is the Demoiselle, released by its creator Alberto Santos-Dumont to the public domain since he believed that āaviation would be the mainstream of a new prosperous era for mankindā.
(Interestingly enough, a few years later, the Wright Brothers started what later would be called the Patent Wars. Quoting Wikipedia: āThe Wrightsā preoccupation with the legal issue hindered their development of new aircraft designs, and by 1910 Wright aircraft were inferior to those made by other firms in Europe. Indeed, aviation development in the U.S. was suppressed to such an extent that when the country entered World War I no acceptable American-designed aircraft were available, and U.S. forces were compelled to use French machines.ā)
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