5 World-Changing Geniuses (Who Got Robbed Of All The Credit)

5

The Father Of The Laser Got Burned Because He Didn't Understand Patents

Scientists are still people, and they can make some pretty boneheaded moves just like the rest of us goons. And there's no greater example of this than the story of Gordon Gould, the most gullible genius to have ever lived.

Union College Files He tried to pay for his Yale tuition with magic beans.

Gould started his scientific career contributing to the Manhattan Project. That should have skyrocketed his science cred, if not for his decision to marry a communist. In 1940s America. While working on projects that required government security clearance. Gould was quickly fired and blackballed.

But politics and skulduggery couldn't keep this raw genius down for long. In 1957, during a booze- and cigarette-fueled weekend, Gould wrote a nine-page thesis inventing not just a way to create light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, but also inventing its more iconic name: the laser. Realizing this was his ticket back into the fold of respectability, he immediately went to have his work notarized, which was smart. The place he decided to do it at was the neighborhood candy store, which was the opposite of smart.

After consulting his jellybean jurists, Gould was convinced by a lawyer that he needed to have a working prototype before he could get the patent for his invention. Which is patently untrue (sorry), but sure was a windfall for the private company he joined so he could have access to the materials to build said prototype. They immediately filed for a government grant to develop the laser, and the government then classified Gould's notes and booted him off the project because of, again, the communist thing.

With Gould no longer in control of his own invention, his colleague Charles H. Townes not only took over the project and claimed its patent, but also published the work without crediting Gould at all. Gould tried to stop Townes from taking credit by finally filing patents of his own, but the heartbroken scientist had to sit and watch as Townes received the Nobel Prize for Science in 1964. After 30 years of fighting, Gould did manage to at least gain the royalties, netting him a cool $30 million. Gould died rich and relatively happy in 2005, but the odds that his name will wind up in any school textbooks remain laser-thin.

4

Marcel Duchamp's Infamous Toilet Fountain Was Made By A Baroness In Philadelphia

Marcel Duchamp, famed Dadaist and inventor of that annoying hipster trend of putting mustaches on everything, is perhaps best-known for his upturned urinal sculpture Fountain. But not just anyone can put a toilet on its back and call it a work of art. And that apparently includes the guy who's credited with it.

Kim TraynorWikimedia Commons It doesn’t even have a bullseye. Where’s the art in that?

3

A Slave Invented A Revolutionary Cotton Picking Machine, But His Master Got All The Money

With enough hard work and ingenuity, you too can invent something that doesn't merely improve society, but will also make you filthy rich in the process. Or your captor, at least. This was the fate of Ned (no last name), a blacksmith and the inventor of a new machine to "scrape" cotton, taking away a lot of the backbreaking work of picking it. And Ned would know something about that, because he was enslaved on a plantation when he invented it. But like everything a slave does, Ned never got to enjoy the fruits of his hard labor, because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office only allows people to file patents -- and according to the U.S. government back then, a Ned was about two-fifths short of that benchmark.

Of course, Ned's owner, Oscar Stewart, did what his ilk does best and profited off someone else's work. Stewart tried to convince the courts that since his "property" invented something, that thing should become his property as well. The sticklers at the Patent Office saw differently, so no one was allowed to patent the cotton scraper. Undeterred, Stewart simply started selling the machine without a patent, knowing that Ned wasn't in a position to hire a lawyer and sue him.

2

The Husband Of A Famous Novelist Locked Her In A Room And Took Credit For Her Work

Henry "Willy" Gauthier-Villars, a middling Parisian writer, had to admit that his wife's writing was much better than his, and he could no longer see the point of doing it himself. But when God closes a door, he opens a window. A window Gauthier-Villars then immediately nailed shut so that his wife couldn't escape their home.

Even before his "great success," Henri had a reputation for being a plagiarist, taking full credit for all his work despite having several collaborators. But no collaborators were found when he published his first grand novel, Claudine a l'ecole (Claudine At School) in 1900, about a tough but clever 16-year-old country girl. It became a hit at whatever the 1900s Parisian book version of a box office was. Its success then spawned a whole series, and even a range of merchandising tie-ins, like Claudine perfume and Claudine cigarettes (in case you forgot this was taking place in France).

Societe d'Editions Litteraires & Artistiques The book was very popular in England until they caught the translation errors.

1

The Woman Who Cured Leprosy Was Robbed By Her College President

For a while, doctors knew that the cure for leprosy involved chaulmoogra oil ... somehow. The oil was deemed impossible to administer effectively. When rubbed on the skin it did jack squat, when ingested it caused such horrific vomiting that many preferred to just die, and when injected it would cause rotting blisters that made it look "as if the patient's skin had been replaced by bubble wrap." But in 1920, all those ghoulish side effects were made irrelevant by the Dean Method, named after chemist Arthur Dean. It was a way to administer chaulmoogra that not only negated its side effects, but also dramatically boosted its effectiveness. A true miracle cure. Just one thing: The brilliant inventor of this treatment wasn't Arthur Dean, but Alice Ball.

University of Hawaii That's the thousand-yard stare of the smartest girl in a room full of middle-aged men.