The Genius Duo: Tesla & Edison Juxtaposed
In the awakening of the digital age, more and more light has come to shed on Nikola Tesla vs. Thomas Edison debate, one that seems to carry more controversy than fact. For example, who was the better inventor of the two? Did Edison steal all his ideas about the lightbulb from Tesla? Was Tesla as ambitious of a genius as some media outlets have made him out to be? The facts are posted below, and we were as surprised as you might be to discover what really set these two brilliant men apart...and what brought them together.
In Tina Ghose’s LiveScience analysis, she quotes W. Bernard Carlson as follows: “They're different inventors, but you can’t really say one is greater.” In other words, society needs both the Edisons and the Teslas.
While Tesla had a brilliant memory to build 3D prototypes with very little blueprint, Edison had more of an analyst’s mind, with a greater number of sketches and prototype drawings. Edison’s inventions are more well known and was well known throughout most of his life up to the point of his death, while Tesla died in an obscure fashion and has only recently seem to have been recognized for the work he had done while living.
Perhaps even more fascinating are all the misconceptions that still exist about Edison and Telsa, to this day. A few of them appear as flat-out lies.?
For example, the great aversion Edison had towards alternating current as a means of conducting electricity (as opposed to direct current, deemed safer). Was this strong aversion really enough to make him a douchebag or an all-out jerk as some would have us believe? Not even likely. Edison knew the power of AC and the fatal results should it be handled improperly, while DC had little hazard to its process. Edison held a similar viewpoint of the X-Ray, after losing his assistant in an accident involving this type of radiation. He refused to talk about the subject due to his deep fear of it; we can’t say that we blame him. And this may seem obvious, but Edison didn’t really invent the light bulb, either. While it still demanded hard work, Edison merely developed a more efficient light bulb prototype and then was able to sell the heck out of it.
Another bizarre claim journalists have made is that Tesla’s pitch to use radar for the U.S. Navy was maliciously overturned by Edison. This is anything but true; while it was true that Edison was on the Naval Consulting Board during World War I, and that Tesla’s idea was turned down, but there was a reason: Tesla pitched for radar as a use for tracking submarines, but because of the water factor, it would be a practically useless application because of how weak the signals would become for tracking purposes. That’s when the board made the decision to use sonar instead, which is still used to this day.?
As for Tesla, on the other hand, while his ideas are just as mind-blowing and invigorating as Edison’s, he didn’t actually invent a way of wirelessly transmitting power, a claim that he loved to make; at least, he wasn’t able to pull it off? in a successful way that we know of. The reason: there is no evidence. Another claim he made in his lifetime was that he had observed cosmic rays moving faster than the speed of light. Scientifically speaking, they cannot, and once again, such claims have been proven unfounded.
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Long story short: Edison and Tesla were both brilliant men, each with his own respective triumphs and failures, good moments and weak ones alike. So how do you compare the two? The answer is: You can’t. Neither was a bad person as people made him appear, nor a god as admirers believe. They were both humans with wonderful minds who made mistakes. However, you can’t deny the value that each of them brought to the table.?
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2 年Thanks for sharing, Marie! I agree. Especially after considering over the last few years the increasing amount of people who tend to demonize Edison and turn Tesla almost into a martyr figure I have witnessed online (I highly believe the reason for this was the aura of 'mad scientist' Tesla had.) It is always refreshing to remember history is a complex phenomenon that goes beyond the concept of "good people vs. bad people".