🚀 go-pugleaf

jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
[...discussion of Hahn/Meitner...]
>
>Not nearly as clear-cut a case as in the DNA story, where Rosalind (?) 
>Franklin actually made the measurements and the correct interpretation 
>of the measurements.  The excuse there is that she had died by the 
>time the award was made, and was thus not eligible, but begs the 
>question of why others who did not make the real discovery were 
>considered eligible! 

There is certainly a case to be made that Franklin, if she had lived,
should have shared the Nobel Prize with Crick, Watson and Wilkins.
This would have given the Nobel Committee serious problems since the 
award is restricted to no more than three individuals.  As jac says,
no award is made posthumously, but to say that the three who got the
award did not make the real discovery is utter nonsense.  As in much of
science, no one person deserves the credit.

Robert Langridge			Phone: +1 415 476-2630, -1540, -5128
Computer Graphics Laboratory		               FAX: +1 415 476-0688 
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