“Tell me honestly, how much money do you need to be happy?”
The Little Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov
Good day, dear Take in Mind readers! Science and money; Money and science… Yep, the magic combination, although, unfortunately, that’s not always the case… How often these so important achievements of our civilization are located at completely opposite poles, unwilling to intersect, to the absolute displeasure of the influenced individuals?
The road to scientific glory is often accompanied by material deprivation; moreover, many of the greatest and most famous have experienced (and are experiencing, including their relatives) such troubles. There is, of course, a common opinion that hardships harden, but… Idealistic ladies and gentlemen, please forgive me, this is demagogy and insincerity in most cases… Moreover, the pathway to the academic top itself usually requires significant financial investments.
Hungry periods were frequent companions of many famous scientists. D. Dalton, Ivan P. Pavlov, and Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky are only a few names on a very long and respected list. Below we would like to share some historical examples in detail:
We do not know a lot about the first three years of Isaac Newton (1643–1727) at Cambridge. One of the only things we do know is that Newton was admitted to Trinity College as a subsidized person. Subsidized people were poor students who did not have the means to pay for their studies and were insufficiently prepared for participating in university courses. Subsidized students attended some lectures and had to perform the duties of servants to the richer students. In 1664 Newton became a real student, and in 1665 he received his bachelor’s degree.
A few additional facts about Newton: Despite numerous achievements and discoveries, and despite well-deserved fame in the scientific world, Newton lived in almost beggarly conditions until a very respectable age. Only in 1695, his financial state had been changed. His friend, Charles Montagu, 1st earl of Halifax became chancellor of the Exchequer.
Appointed to this office, Montagu started the issue of money clearance to remove all the counterfeit and underweight coins. To solve this complicated issue, Montagu turned to Newton, whose knowledge and authority were beyond doubt. Mainly thanks to the efforts of Newton, the difficult and intricate business of recoining was successfully completed within two years. Shortly thereafter, Newton was appointed General Director of the Monetary, with a very substantial salary of £1,500 a year, which he had held until his death.
By the way, wealth did not bring happiness to all famous scientists. Moreover, holding some “monetary” position led to a tragic end. One of the most famous examples is the participation of the French naturalist Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier in the “general ransom”, which led him to the scaffold finally. This is a very sad story, and we hope to speak about it in more detail one day, in a separate post.
Many of the future-to-be great people faced financial difficulties at the very beginning of their academic path. Brilliant inclinations had to be developed, but for that rubles, francs, or pounds were required… Oh, and what tricks the future-to-be laureates did to obtain such wished knowledge…
Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted was born into the family of a poor pharmacist. The family was very tight with money, and Hans Christian received his primary education from any possible source. The hairdresser taught him German, the hairdresser’s wife taught correct Danish, the land surveyor taught basic arithmetic, and the pastor gave him lessons in history and literature.
The future Nobel laureate Marie Skłodowska-Curie was the youngest of five children in the family of Władysław and Bronislaw Skłodowski. The girl studied brilliantly at school and dreamed of devoting her life to science. But two obstacles stood in the way of Maria’s dream of higher education – family poverty and a ban on the admission of women to the University of Warsaw. Marie and her sister Bronya developed a temerarious plan. Maria would work as a governess for five years to enable her sister to graduate medical school, after which Bronya should bear the cost of her sister’s higher education. Bronya received her medical education in Paris and, having become a doctor, invited her sister to live and study in France. In 1891, Maria became a student in the faculty of natural sciences at Sorbonne University. What happened next, you, for sure, know well.
The most difficult period (financially) of the life of Albert Einstein is nicely described by his biographers. Since his graduation from ETH in 1900 and until receiving a position in the Federal Patent Office in Bern in 1902, Einstein starved and seriously thought of starting a carrier as a street musician. However, even during this period, Einstein was actively engaged in science – the results of those studies were published in the article “Conclusions drawn from the Phenomena of Capillarity” (“Folgerungen aus den Kapillaritätserscheinungen”, Annalen der Physik 4, 513-523 (1901)).
Einstein had worked at the patent office for seven years. In the evenings, he could devote all his ardor to his own research and take the first steps toward world recognition. Twenty years later, in the divorce agreement between Albert Einstein and his first wife Mileva Marich, it was indicated that if Einstein would be awarded the Nobel Prize (he already guessed that!), the whole sum would be deposited into Mileva’s bank account. But with the condition that Marich may use only dividends, the main capital will be kept intact for children until they reach adulthood. In 1922, Einstein received the Nobel Prize, and, as promised, all the prize money went to his ex-wife.
Finally, several examples of how scientists spend their awards:
American neuroscientist Paul Greengard (The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, 2000) and German biologist Christiana Nüsslein-Volhard (The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, 1995) used the money prizes to set up foundations to help women scientists. For example, the Nüsslein-Volhard Stiftung (Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Stiftung) Foundation financially helps women scientists with childcare and housework so that they, in turn, may concentrate on scientific activities.
The American economist Franco Modigliani (1985 Nobel Prize for Economics) purposefully spent part of the Nobel award to upgrade his racing yacht.
MIT professor Wolfgang Ketterle shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics with American scientists Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman. Ketterle spent his part on buying a house and educating his children. According to some reports, Ketterle stated, “Since half goes to taxes in the US, there was nothing (more) left…”
I would like to end this post with a wish to those in power, but there is a very small chance that they read our site. Or by some wise statements such as “It is impossible to buy wisdom”. Or by a more practical approach like: “…one must always return to the same question–a stupid one, I admit, but very necessary–have you any money?” from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas. But, frankly, I don’t know! What do you, our dear readers, think?
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