Monday, May 13, 2024
Tesla, Edison, and who actually fought the War of Currents?
I used to think Thomas Edison was a self-aggrandizing business man who took the credit for the inventions his employees made, and Nikola Tesla was the real deal—a genius inventor who was actually responsible for most of our technology based on electricity. But now? Having watched the 4½ hour long video “Most Everything You Know About Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison is Probably Wrong” (and yes, it's four and a half hours long!) I'm not so sure my assessment is correct. The long video goes deep into the history of Tesla, Edison, and the War of the Currents where it wasn't Tesla vs. Edison, but Westinghouse (the company) vs. Edison (the copmany).
Tesla might have been a genius, but not all this theories about physics and electronics were correct and later in life he went a bit … crazy … to say the least (he fell in love with a pidgeon and said he created incredible inventions without having actually … you know … built the incredible inventions). And Edison might have been a self-aggrandizing business man, but he credited his team and oftem times, his team didn't invent the technology, but improved upon existing designs (to the point where he learned 6,000 ways not to build a lightbulb).
And the whole thing about Edison electrocuting an elephant (or at least animals) to show how dangerous alternating current was? Eh … not exactly. And he did not invent the electric chair.
Yes, it's a long video, but if you are interested at all in Tesla and/or Edison, it's worth the time to watch. It got me to rethink how I think about Tesla and Edison.
