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双语·居里夫人的故事 第十三章 不申请专利销售

所属教程:译林版·居里夫人的故事

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2022年06月11日

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Chapter XIII Not for Sale

THE whole world was excited! Something entirely new had come into people's everyday life, something that made them change their thoughts about many things. It was not only scientists who talked about Radium: children discussed it on their way home from school; women, who had been disappointed for long, long ages because men had made all the greatest discoveries, rejoiced aloud, that at last it had happened to a woman to discover a new and wonderful thing. But, at first, no one dreamed how wonderful Radium was going to be.

Letters came in packed masses to the two Curies from famous scholars in England, Denmark, Germany and Austria, asking for information about the new discovery. Scientists everywhere took up the study of Radium and found out more about its characteristics and those of its near relations. Two Englishmen, Ramsay and Soddy, found that it threw off from itself tiny quantities of a new gas, which they called Helium. In other words, Raduim had the capacity of becoming Helium. That was something very startling. Scientists had been accustomed to laugh at the Medieval Alchemists who believed that they could turn iron into gold. A picture of the alchemist's mysterious smoky cave was a picture of a dream of the impossible. Things, the scientists had said, were themselves, with their own chemical composition and their own atomic weight. Now they had to face the fact that Radium made Helium out of itself, and they wondered what other things might also be occupied with creating new substances. Perhaps the ghosts of the alchemists were laughing at the chemists.

At any rate, to turn iron into gold was no more remarkable a feat than the feats of which this Radium was capable. It looked like dull table salt, but it was two million times more radiant than Uranium. The rays that it gave out could go through every solid metal except lead. It was accompanied by its shadow—a spirit that was so alive and active that even when it was shut up in a glass tube, it destroyed a quarter of itself in a day. It could produce heat of itself, enough heat to melt in an hour a piece of ice of its own weight. If you shut it away from the cold, it would grow hotter than the day. If you shut it in glass, it would turn the glass mauve or violet. If you wrapped it in paper or cotton wool, it ate them. If you had no candle in the dark, it gave you enough light to read by.

One of the most wonderful things about this Radium was that it did not even stick to its own light; it handed it on to everything, that came in its way, even though such generosity was often most inconvenient.

It showed a sudden interest in human affairs in that it lent its luminosity to real diamonds, but turned its nose up at paste. Diamond buyers could use it to test the genuineness of their purchases.

Poor Marie found its interference in all her experiments most distracting. Nothing could be left near a tube of Radium without becoming radio-active; it presented its luminosity to the air, the dust, Marie's clothes, her instruments, her notebooks. Those last kept the luminosity they had not been able to refuse, long after she was dead.

Scientists probably enjoy having their ideas upset, so those early years of the baby Radium must have been happy ones for them. Not only did that strange Radium create a new element out of itself, but that new element again made something new, and so on. The radio-elements formed strange faculties in which each member was created by the transformation of the substance of its mother. But the scientists' shocks did not end there. They found that each radio-element lost half of itself in a given time, a time which was always the same, a time so long that we need not worry about finding ourselves bereft of the radio elements. Uranium, to lose half of itself, takes a few milliards of years, and a milliard is a million-million. To do the same thing, Radium takes only 1,600 years, while its spirit takes only four days and its spirit's children only a few seconds.

You could look at Radium and see it lying quite still and yet know that, while you were gazing at it; its strange children were being born, were being murdered or committing suicide, or merely colliding with one another.

Then suddenly something altogether new happened to this active stranger as if enough things hadn't happened already. Pierre, exploring still, let it burn him. The skin of his hand became red but didn't hurt. It became redder. On the twentieth day a crust formed as on an ordinary fire burn. Then a sore appeared. On the forty-second day the sore began to heal on the outside edge.

Then Marie, though she had not meant to burn herself, found that her Radium had burnt her, though it was in a glass tube and the tube was in a tin box.

Then their friend Becquerel, going home with a tube of it in his jacket pocket, was quite seriously burnt.

“Your abominable child.” he exclaimed to Marie. “What has it burnt me for? I love the thing, but I've a bone to pick with it.” Marie, too, might have had a bone to pick with the thing she loved, because the tips of her fingers hurt horribly and lost their skin.

But soon people began to look kindly on Radium's burns because they healed so well. Doctors became immensely interested in it. They set it to burn away terribly sick skin and, when the burn was healed, the illness had gone too. A wild great hope began for the world. Perhaps Radium could be persuaded to burn away cancer.

At any rate, Radium had been proved to be useful People were wanting to buy it. Marie, out of eight tons of pitchblende had made one gramme of Radium. It was worth £30,000, but it was not for sale. Marie would treasure it while she lived and leave it to her laboratory as a precious symbol of years of great work and a great triumph.

One Sunday morning as Pierre and Marie were sitting at home in the Boulevard Kellerman, the postman left a letter with an American stamp for Pierre. He read it carefully, folded it, and put it on his desk.

“We'll have to talk,” he said, “about this Radium. It is going to be manufactured on a large scale. They have written from Buffalo to ask for information about it.”

“Well?” Marie was a little bored.

“Well, we can choose… We can describe quite openly and frankly all our results and methods of making it…”

“Of course,” smiled Marie.

“'Or,” went on Pierre, paying no attention to the interruption, “we can consider ourselves as the owners of our knowledge, the inventors of Radium. If we do that, before we publish our method of extracting Radium from pitchblende, we must take out a patent and draw a profit from the manufacture of Radium in the whole world.”

As he spoke, it was quite clear to them both that immense wealth was theirs for the accepting. A patent on the manufacture of Radium would give them enough money to build a great laboratory and to buy Radium for research. What things they could do if they were rich!

Marie thought for a little, and then said: “That is impossible; that would be against the spirit of science.”

Pierre agreed, but he told her to think carefully, because the decision once made could not be reconsidered. He reminded her about the laboratory they both wanted and about the future of their daughter. Was she sure she did not want to be rich?

Marie knew the great old custom of the scientists, the custom that people like Pasteur had followed, and she said: “Physicists always publish their researches. It is only a chance that our discovery has a money value. We can't use a chance like that for profit. And Radium is going to help the sick. It seems impossible to me to seek any profit from it.”

Again Pierre agreed that it would be contrary to the scientific spirit to sell their knowledge of Radium. He wrote that very night and gave the Americans all the information they wanted.

So, without a moment's regret, Pierre and Marie turned their backs for ever upon the millionaire's faery fortune. Their Radium was not for sale.

The scientific spirit had given Radium to them and to the world, and however low the spirit of the world sinks, it still loves the scientific spirit which gives all its knowledge freely to all men without price. Having chosen poverty when they might have chosen fortune, Marie and Pierre took their bicycles and went for thier ordinary ride through the summer woods to gether wild flowers for their room.

第十三章 不申请专利销售

整个世界都为之亢奋!一种全新的事物进入了人们的日常生活,改变了他们对许多事物的认知。不仅科学家们在谈论镭,孩子们在放学回家的路上也在谈论,女性,在因男性包揽了所有伟大发现而沉默了几个世纪后,终于可以大肆欢庆,因为有位女科学家发现了全新的未知事物。不过一开始,根本没人能料想到镭的真正价值。

英国、丹麦、德国和奥地利的著名学者纷纷开始给居里夫妇写信,想要了解这一项新发现的具体信息。世界各地的科学家也都开始着手研究镭,发现了该元素的更多属性,找到了更多的同类元素。两位英国的科学家威廉·拉姆赛和弗雷德里克·索迪发现这种新元素自身能释放出一种微量的未知气体,将之命名为氦。换言之,镭能变成氦。这一发现令人震惊。科学家习惯于嘲笑那些鼓吹自己能点铁成金的中世纪炼金术士。炼金术士那冒着青烟的神秘炼炉勾勒出了一幅白日做梦的图景,而科学家认为物质本身就由其化学成分和原子量决定。但如今他们面临的事实是镭元素本身产生了氦,于是他们开始思索,其他新物质中又会蕴藏着哪些元素。现在看来,该轮到炼金术士的在天之灵来嘲笑化学家们了。

不论何时,点铁成金的这种技能都无法与镭元素具有的特别能力相提并论。它看上去就像普通的食盐,但其放射性却是铀的两百万倍。除了金属铅,它的射线能穿透任何坚硬的金属。但它也有自身的缺陷——该元素如此活跃,即便是放在玻璃试管中,一天也会自我损耗四分之一。其本身可产热,一小时内就能融化一块与自身同等质量的冰。如果将其与冷气隔绝,则其自身温度会高于外界。如果将其放置在玻璃器皿中,则能使玻璃变成淡紫色甚至是紫色。如果用纸张或脱脂棉包裹它,它能让两者腐化。即便夜间不点蜡烛,该元素发出的光亮也能让人阅读。

最神奇的一点是,镭元素的光并不自有。它能将光传送给周围事物,即便这样的慷慨奉送并不总受人欢迎。

这也为人类的未来生活带来裨益,因为它的光可以让真钻发光,让赝品暴露无遗。钻石的买家可以用镭元素来测定物品的真伪。

玛丽发现镭元素对所有的实验都会产生干扰。只要被放在镭元素试管旁边,任何物质都会产生放射性。镭元素将光传播给空气、灰尘、玛丽的衣服、实验仪器,甚至是笔记本。即便是在镭元素消损后,这些周围的事物仍带着它的光亮。

科学家喜欢看到自己的想法被颠覆,所以早些年刚发现镭元素的时候,一定曾令科学家们兴奋不已。因为不仅镭元素本身能创造出新元素,而且新元素本身又会产生新物质,如此类推。母元素的物质发生转变,产生新的放射性元素,而这些新元素又具有不同的属性。但镭带给科学家们的震惊还远不止于此。他们发现在特定的时长内,每一种放射性元素都能自我损耗将近一半,而这段时长是固定不变的,这段时间很长,长得足以让人们觉得无须担心会失去这些放射性元素。铀元素要想全部耗尽需要几十亿年。镭元素仅需一千六百年,而它的子元素仅需四天,子元素的子元素仅需要几秒钟而已。

镭元素静静地躺在那里,当你望向它的时候,它还在不断地产生新的子元素。镭元素本身和新元素都在不断消耗,或者相互碰撞。

突然间,这种新元素又表现出了一种新属性,好似之前表现出的特性都不足为奇一样。皮埃尔仍在苦苦研究时,被镭元素灼伤了。他手上的皮肤发红,但并没有疼痛感。随后颜色越来越红,第二十天的时候,伤口就像普通灼伤一样开始结痂,然后出现溃疡。到第四十二天时,皮肤表面的溃疡痊愈。

玛丽一开始并没料到会被镭元素灼伤,但却突然发现自己也被灼伤了,尽管镭元素装在玻璃试管里,且存放在锡盒里。

随后是他们的朋友贝可勒尔,他将盛着镭元素的玻璃试管放在自己的夹克口袋里,在回家的路上也被严重灼伤。

“这个可恶的孩子,”他向玛丽抱怨道,“它灼伤我做什么?我多么珍视它,但现在可对它充满怨气。”而现在,玛丽对这个一直视为掌上明珠的新元素也颇有怨言,因为她手指尖被伤得很重,都脱皮了。

然而很快,人们就能正确认识镭元素的灼伤性了,因为伤口愈合得很好。医生对这一现象颇感兴趣。他们用镭射线去除坏死的皮肤,伤口愈合后,疾病也就消除了。全世界都燃起了希望。也许镭射线可被用来治愈癌症。

这至少证明了镭元素的价值。人们都等待着它的销售。玛丽从八吨沥青铀矿中提炼出了一克镭。这些镭价值三万法郎,但不外售。玛丽将其视若珍宝,打算在她有生之年精心保管,并把它留在了实验室,作为勤奋与成功的珍贵象征。

某个周末的早晨,皮埃尔和玛丽坐在凯勒曼大道的家中,邮差送来了一封贴着美国邮票的信给皮埃尔。他仔细看完信,折好放在书桌上。

“我们得谈谈,”他说,“谈谈镭元素。要批量生产了。他们从布法罗寄了封信来,询问有关镭元素的信息。”

“嗯?”玛丽有些不耐烦。

“嗯,不过我们还有选择权……我们可以将自己的研究成果及提炼方法公布于天下……”

“当然。”玛丽微笑道。

“或者,”皮埃尔继续说道,丝毫没在意自己被打断,“我们也可将自己视为这项成果的主人,镭元素的发明者。这样的话,在公布从沥青铀矿中提炼镭元素的方法以前,我们就要申请专利,之后便能从世界各地镭元素的生产中获利。”

皮埃尔的话清楚地表明,只要接受专利申请,便有一笔巨额财富等待着他们。

镭的生产专利能给他们带来足够的财富,建造一座宏伟的实验室,购买镭元素来进行研究。如果有钱了,还能做好多好多的事!

玛丽沉思了一会儿,随即说道:“这不可能。这样有违科学精神。”

皮埃尔完全同意,但他让玛丽仔细考虑,一旦做出决定就不能反悔。他提醒玛丽也要考虑两个人都梦寐以求的实验室,考虑考虑女儿的未来。她真的确信自己不想成为富人吗?

玛丽熟知科学家的惯有约定,像法国化学家巴斯德这样的伟人都会遵守的约定,她说:“物理学家经常发表研究成果,我们的发现能谋利只是机缘巧合。镭元素能治病救人,我觉得不能从中谋取私利。”

皮埃尔也同意,靠镭元素的知识赚钱有违科学精神。他当晚就写了回信,将镭元素的所有研究信息毫无保留地告诉了美国人。

于是,皮埃尔和玛丽放弃了成为百万富翁的良机,但丝毫不后悔。他们不会对镭元素申请专利并借机谋利。是科学精神将镭元素带到他们面前,并呈现给世人。不论当今社会如何世风日下,他们仍然崇尚这种将知识无私奉献给全人类的科学精神。在财富与贫穷面前选择了后者之后,玛丽和皮埃尔又骑上了自行车,像往常的假日一样,到夏季的树林里为家中采集野花。

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