Feynman's One Dollar Patent
Have you seen the movie "Trading Places" with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd? In it Murphy starts as a poor street-smart hustler, Billy Ray Valentine, and Aykroyd as Louis Winthorpe III, a millionaire protégé of two billionaire greedy old men. If you haven't seen the movie but still want to, be advised there's spoilers ahead.
source: Wikimedia Commons
These two old men, the successful stock brokers Mortimer and Duke, make a bet between themselves; what if these two opposites on the social ladder trade places? Could the uneducated beggar become a successful stock broker, and could the well groomed and supremely educated Winthorpe be reduced to a helpless poor beggar? The amount of the bet between these billionaires is one dollar, further illustrating that they really don't care about the two young men they unknowingly force to participate in their little "nurture or nature experiment," after framing Withorpe for a crime he didn't commit, and replacing him with Valentine. Of course, the elderly duo have no intention on keeping Valentine employed after the experiment, but fortunately the two victims uncover the scam and pay back the old creeps. At the end of the movie, they exchange one dollar in front of the old men, indicating they've had a little bet of their own, right after they ruined them completely, both financially and spiritually with the use of some trading with advance information...
What a difference a dollar makes... Another remarkable story with a leading role for one dollar, this time a real story that actually happened, is how famous scientist, theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, practically gave away "his" patent for nuclear powered engines (for aircraft and rockets, the underwater version for submarines was apparently already taken) for just one dollar. Please listen to the man himself in the video below. Keep in mind he could have become a billionaire, it's not certain, but he could have. Notice the tone in which he tells this story, how lighthearted he is about the whole episode; there's no question what this man's priorities are, and it's not money, fame, authority... none of that. I think that's beautiful and something we could all learn from, including all four main leads from the previously discussed movie, not just the two old geeks. Or that's what I think at least ;-)
Richard Feynman - Patents
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