edison or tesla

[clel miller]

Edison was a liar and a thief.

 

[saturation]

Tesla's body of work was closer to science than Edison, which was closer to technology; both had a little of either : science & technology. The difference is discovering a phenomenon and characterizing it will likely last far longer than developing a technology. However, arguing the merits of either approach is moot, what needs to be done is different from what is idealized.

Who discovered the transistor? Shockley et.al. ? Or Lilienfeld, 20 years before them? Since Lilienfeld did not develop his technology [ more MOS than bipolar, far ahead of his time and its usability in the 1920s] nothing became of it. Shockley et.al happened to also be part of nascent Silicon Valley and the rest is history. There are parallels between Tesla and Edison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_transistor

Marconi takes credit for radio by also making it practical, despite Tesla showing it could be done far before Marconi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi#Patent_disputes

Most folks who succeed in business can be classified as 'ruthless' or 'a**holes' from Bill Gates to Rockefeller, Edison or Marconi, but its the nature of business. In later life, most turned their wealth into Philanthropy. A few didn't.

Its the way the game is played.

Who invented the digital computer, Mauchly at U of Penn or Atanasoff in Iowa?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer#Patent_dispute

Who invented the IC, Kilby or Noyce? Kilby won the Nobel prize for the basic science, but every IC made today is a derivative of the fundamentals developed by Noyce, who also happened to commercialize it in Silicon Valley. A reason is Kilby worked with germanium, whereas Noyce with silicon; Noyce had more patents, was financially better, but Kilby had more academic awards. Due to the stress of business, Noyce died of a heart attack at 60 while Kilby died of cancer at 80.

Marketing, crushing competition, and making practical benefits of science and technology is part of success, just because you thought of it first, is only a part of an equation for success, without the other portions it likely will go nowhere unless someone else finds it and makes it work, as Westinghouse did with AC.

 

[transistor495]

Tesla's body of work was closer to science than Edison, which was closer to technology; both had a little of either : science & technology. The difference is discovering a phenomenon and characterizing it will likely last far longer than developing a technology. However, arguing the merits of either approach is moot, what needs to be done is different from what is idealized.

Who discovered the transistor? Shockley et.al. ? Or Lilienfeld, 20 years before them? Since Lilienfeld did not develop his technology [ more MOS than bipolar, far ahead of his time and its usability in the 1920s] nothing became of it. Shockley et.al happened to also be part of nascent Silicon Valley and the rest is history. There are parallels between Tesla and Edison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_transistor

Marconi takes credit for radio by also making it practical, despite Tesla showing it could be done far before Marconi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi#Patent_disputes

Most folks who succeed in business can be classified as 'ruthless' or 'a**holes' from Bill Gates to Rockefeller, Edison or Marconi, but its the nature of business. In later life, most turned their wealth into Philanthropy. A few didn't.

Its the way the game is played.

Who invented the digital computer, Mauchly at U of Penn or Atanasoff in Iowa?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff–Berry_Computer#Patent_dispute

Who invented the IC, Kilby or Noyce? Kilby won the Nobel prize for the basic science, but every IC made today is a derivative of the fundamentals developed by Noyce, who also happened to commercialize it in Silicon Valley. A reason is Kilby worked with germanium, whereas Noyce with silicon; Noyce had more patents, was financially better, but Kilby had more academic awards. Due to the stress of business, Noyce died of a heart attack at 60 while Kilby died of cancer at 80.

Marketing, crushing competition, and making practical benefits of science and technology is part of success, just because you thought of it first, is only a part of an equation for success, without the other portions it likely will go nowhere unless someone else finds it and makes it work, as Westinghouse did with AC.

Ah..nice to meet you ya saturation, from Kwajalein, Atoll

I believe the credit goes to Kilby because Integrated Circuit was his invention regardless of Germanium/Silicon, Noyce came up with Silicon concept maybe inspired by Kilby's work perhaps later?

 

[saturation]

Hello transistor495!

No question about Kilby, he developed ICs months before Noyce, but Noyce is ultimately what we use today. So, it becomes important too how the idea is expressed to become practical both in cost, production and stability.

Noyce is credited with developing it uniquely and independently, but the question of Nobel prize and recognition was less his ken, since he was financially successful; he was also a modest man interested in solutions, rather than recognition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Noyce#Awards_and_honors

So a moral of the story, is don't assume by being smart you are owned by society to recognize your work, pat your back and give you riches and/or fame, it takes separate types of work, if not fierce competition, to make it happen. Both Edison and Tesla died past 80 years old, and today, many electr/ical/onic companies in existence still have the name Edison part of it, but only Tesla, like great physicists before him like Newton, Pascal, Hertz, or Torricelli, have a unit of electrical phenomena named after him, the magnetic flux density, tesla ... but no similar units of measure are named after Edison.

Ah..nice to meet you ya saturation, from Kwajalein, Atoll

I believe the credit goes to Kilby because Integrated Circuit was his invention regardless of Germanium/Silicon, Noyce came up with Silicon concept maybe inspired by Kilby's work perhaps later?

 

[ElectroNewby]

Tesla > Edison

 

[cr0sh]

I think saturation is closer to the truth of "who is better"; the truth being "neither, and both; all depends on how you look at it".

The sad part of the whole "Tesla vs Edison/Edison vs Tesla" saga is that, had fate been a little kinder - they could've been the Apple of their day, had they stayed amicable and worked together. But for a few choice words, pride, and temper (from both); ah, what could've been (Tesla probably would've immediately understood what was going on with the "Edison Effect" - and that alone would've pushed things forward immensely). Tesla could've greatly profited from Edison's business sense (ruthless as it was); Edison would've profited from Tesla's knowledge and methods (had he not been so prideful and struck with "not invented here" syndrome - staying stuck with DC). Indeed, had they both been open to the possibilities that maybe DC had a place and use, and so did AC - as we now know today; history could have been much different.

I tend to wonder what we are missing out on today because of similar "splits" amongst people and their philosophies...

 

[saturation]

Yes, that is a very important point. Consider your Apple example from the 1990s, in one hand they were suing each other over a GUI that really was born at Xerox that Xrox gave away; yet on the other hand Apple relied heavily on uSoft for Office, which was very popular with the Mac, and so didn't alienate uSoft that much. All's fair in love and war.

Today, Apple OSX run in Intel boxes, clearly they didn't alienate Intel despite its long history with Motorola.

Don't:

End up like Edwin Armstrong vs RCA and jumping out a window

End up like Robert Kearns vs Ford and the variable wiper: 20+ years of litigation, lost his wife, family, and home; finally got millions in restitution but ended up senile and cancer ridden before he could spend it well. So what good is the money or recognition without the health to enjoy it? Well, his family got it on the estate settlement, so in the end they triumphed but neither Ford or Chrysler admitted to his original claim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns

I think saturation is closer to the truth of "who is better"; the truth being "neither, and both; all depends on how you look at it".

The sad part of the whole "Tesla vs Edison/Edison vs Tesla" saga is that, had fate been a little kinder - they could've been the Apple of their day, had they stayed amicable and worked together. But for a few choice words, pride, and temper (from both); ah, what could've been (Tesla probably would've immediately understood what was going on with the "Edison Effect" - and that alone would've pushed things forward immensely). Tesla could've greatly profited from Edison's business sense (ruthless as it was); Edison would've profited from Tesla's knowledge and methods (had he not been so prideful and struck with "not invented here" syndrome - staying stuck with DC). Indeed, had they both been open to the possibilities that maybe DC had a place and use, and so did AC - as we now know today; history could have been much different.

I tend to wonder what we are missing out on today because of similar "splits" amongst people and their philosophies...

 

[AnalogKid]

Edison was very smart, but in an intuitive way rather than as a scientist. Good botanist, outstanding machinist. And that's the key. Motion picture camera - mechanical. Phonograph - basically a small, high precition lathe. Lightbulb - well..... First, it was in distribution in England 10 years earlier, and that guy sued Edison over the patents. He was going to win, so Tommy made him a partner in his British company. Second, the concept of an electric light was over 70 years old at the time. Granted, it was an arc light, but the idea that electricity could break the millenea-old bond between fire and light was already old. To seal the deal, what Edison did was figure out a way to seal the bulb (after it had been evacuated) without letting a little bit of air creep in. That's it. What he invented was a production line fixture, and he won the race. The clue is in his boast that he tried over 200 (some say 2000) materials for the filament before settling on carbonized cotton thread. In other words, zero knowlege of chemistry or metallurgy. He rejected tungsten as a filament mateial because it lasted too long (he was a fanatic about money), so that guy took the idea to Westinghouse, who used it to clobber Edison in the market.

Edison's only real "electrical" invention was DC power distribution, and for a while it make him hugely rich because it was the only game in town. When Westinghouse showed up with Tesla's AC system (loooong list of advantages), they took over the game, Tommy lost, and DC distribution died. There's a parallel here to geeks vs. jocks.

And finally, the ultimate indication of his tech non-prowess: he ordered research into what was called "The Edison Effect" be stopped because it had no commercial value. 20 years later, Flemming patented the vacuum tube.

I'm a hardware design geek, and my handle (and license plate) are ANALOG for a reason. The first biography I ever read was of Edison, and I appreciate what he did for technology and for society. But I also recognize the limits of his work, and why. If you want to start a real war, present Edison as the 19th century's version of Steve Jobs.

ak

 

[cr0sh]

If you want to start a real war, present Edison as the 19th century's version of Steve Jobs.

I'm not sure you read my last post, or if you did, it basically flew past you. My intent wasn't to "start a war", but simply to speculate on the idea that Edison:Tesla::Jobs:Wozniak, with the exception, of course, that such a partnership didn't blossom (indeed, they were almost mortal enemies). If only it had, though...

 

[transistor495]

Edison was a liar and a thief.

So what?

It is easy to make such comments though, we should not forget his commitment and will power and without Edison we would experience a go in a time machine around 50 years backward now.

Just think about this.

 

[nsaspook]

How about some guys that actually helped create modern radar/communication electronics and whose spinoff companies today produce the equipment that makes solid-state electronics possible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_and_Sigurd_Varian
https://www.cpii.com/history.cfm

 

[AnalogKid]

I'm not sure you read my last post, or if you did, it basically flew past you. My intent wasn't to "start a war",

My bad for being unclear. I wasn't saying anything about your post (you're correct, I did miss it). I was responding directly to samina, the originator of this thread. Addressing the thesis paper, and playing on the polarization that follows Jobs everywhere, I was suggesting that the paper could be more thought-provoking than a straight history lesson if it drew some parallels.

ak