Talk:Thomas Edison/Archive 9

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"4th most prolific inventor"

It's well known that many of the patents to Edison's name were not of his own invention. This should cast some shadow on his true status as "prolific" in the field of invention, as he did not actually invent, but purchase many of the patents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrBurrows (talk • contribs) 12:02, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

What is the intended meaning of saying he would "purchase many of the patents?" If "A" patents something, then it is his patent, under his name. If "B" purchases (more typically licenses) the patent,then B cannot claim that he patented the thing, since A's name is recorded on it at the patent office. In fairness, some inventions were developed by Edison's employees, in his shop, working under his supervision.William Kennedy Dickson's work on the motion picture is an example. Edison devised the Kinetoscope, a "peepshow" movie device for individual viewing, in 1889, and paid Dickson to work on its development. Dickson and a team of workers perfected the device. Then Thomas Armat invented an improved movie projector and patented it, and it was used to exhibit Edison's movies on screens in 1896. Edison took credit for Armat's projection system, but its patent is not one in his list. Neither of these corresponds to the claims of MrBurrows. I do not see cases of him "purchasing a patent," then patenting the same invention. That seems to be nonsense. Edison (talk) 03:37, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Citation Issue

Citation #59, when you take the actual link, does not mention Edison doing any pirating. The source only mentions piracy in general. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eiuol 05 (talk • contribs) 18:08, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, Edison isn't mentioned in relation to that incident. I've removed the text entirely. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 17:50, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Edison lies

Edison takes the idea from Nikola Tesla,Thomas thought that if he took the light bulb idea and make an impact on history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.147.141.46 (talk) 17:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Any reliable sources for Tesla inventing the incandescent light bulb would be interesting. He is more often credeited with the successful AC motor, and with work on radio. Edison (talk) 03:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Edison is a jerk. We all know that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.161.146.126 (talk) 14:16, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Museums and Memorial

June 11, 2012, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed a bill to place a statue of Thomas Edison in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. Here's link to article: http://www.sanduskyregister.com/milan/news/after-long-battle-edison-take-his-place-us-capitol

Calnut (talk) 17:51, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be neutral?

Like many before me have said, some more eloquently than me, the article is very partial and prejudiced in Edison's favour. Isn't that supposed to be against Wikipedia's standards? Is it fair if a historical article on Wikipedia is purposely lied in to keep casual readers away from all aspects of his life (here, the darker ones) just so they can leave thinking that Edison was a perfect inventor who single-handedly managed to acquire over a 1000 patents?

Edison v/s Tesla YatharthROCK (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:38, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Please point out specific instances where this page does not conform to WP:NPOV. There are several ways of doing that; two come to mind immediately: 1) use the appropriate templates such as "citation needed" for unsourced controversial statements, 2) Quote the specific statements here and start a specific discussion for each. It is preferable to back up any claims with reliable sources. Also, please sign your comments on the talk page. Nczempin (talk) 13:47, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

A few points:

1. The Oatmeal is a humorous webcomic, and as such isn't a reliable source by Wikipedia's standards. While The Oatmeal does make some good points on the war between Tesla and Edison, he also exaggerates quite a bit for the sake of comedy, something he himself pointed out in his response to a Forbes piece criticizing his comic (scroll down to the end for it). Therefore, you should probably take his claims with a grain of salt.
2. Several of the controversial aspects of Edison's career are already mentioned in the article. See, for instance, the section on the War of Currents and the corresponding full article on the feud, both of which describe quite plainly Edison's live electrocution of animals to demonstrate the "dangers" of alternating current. The death of Edison's assistant due to X-rays is also plainly described in the following section. That said, within the grand scale of Edison's biography, inventions and career, these aspects are really quite trivial. Mentioning them more prominently would itself be non-neutral - see the policy on undue weight in articles.
3. Regardless of his feud with Tesla, Thomas Edison was a very prolific inventor and entrepreneur, contrary to recent popular speculation otherwise. He was an inventor who single-handedly managed to acquire over a thousand patents. This is an established, sourced, easily verified fact.

Given the above, after scanning through the article I have found no "lies" in the article. I'd encourage you to point them out specifically if I have missed them. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 09:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Finally, a quote from The Oatmeal, from that passage linked to above: "If you want to read pedantically-impenetrable articles about early 20th century engineers, go read Wikipedia or stroll down to the U.S. Patent Office." Which feels like a compliment to our writing as-is, really. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 09:41, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 6 July 2012

The photography of Henery Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone is a clear forgery made in photoshop. The Source of the image, has since deleted it from it's data base. I woke in design and can easily spot photoshopped works. Notwithstanding, this one is particularly bad, and even to an untrained eye looks clearly doctored.Leaving this photograph here will fool others into using it for research about Edison, misleading them.

JetLiRuleZ (talk) 15:47, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I looked through the site of the original link (404 error now) and found this: President Herbert Hoover, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone at Edison's 82nd birthday. Ft. Myers, Florida, February 11, 1929. You'll have to be a bit more specific about these forgery accusations, more than the fact that you "work in design and can easily spot photoshopped works" Nczempin (talk) 16:39, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

"Credit: Herbert Hoover Library". I'm pretty sure they didn't have Photoshop in those days. Nczempin (talk) 16:43, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm no forensic photo examiner, but it doesn't look forged to me. Closing request pending further responses, feel free to reopen.Monty₈₄₅ 00:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

There needs to be more extensive coverage of the negative aspects of Edison's life

Edison is well-known to have been a ruthless businessman who took advantage of others. Nikola Tesla is mentioned in passing in the existing article but there are others such as the French filmmaker Georges Méliès, who Edison essentially bankrupted by illegally distributing his films in the United States.

This article needs to be more balanced with more information about the darker side of the man, at present it's pretty much a panegyric. Rob Keniger (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to add reliably sourced material so that the article presents a balanced view, corresponding to the view presented in other encyclopedias and in books from university presses and other reliable publishers about his role science and technology. Spare us conspiracy blogs. The "illegal distribution" claim neglects the state of patent law regarding motion pictures in the early 20th century. Each company issued new releases every little bit, and others copied them, since a motion picture was not regarded as being equivalent to a book. If Edison copied the films of others, as others copied his, he was certainly not alone, and it may not have been against the law in the early days. Was he an unusually "ruthless businessman" and did he take atypical "advantage of others" compared to Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gould, Morgan, Thompson, Houston, Maxim, Westinghouse, Tesla and other late 19th-early 20th century industrialists? A neutral point of view requires some perspective. Edison appears indeed to have ripped off Jesse Lippincott in the financing of a phonograph company. Edison perhaps got ripped off by financiers who took away his electric company by shrewd dealings to make it into General Electric. Tesla was ripped off to the tune of about 6 million dollars by Westinghouse, who got him to waive the rights for his AC motor patents. Edison (talk) 02:26, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Could someone add to the war on currents section that Edison paid schoolboys a quarter for each dog or cat they delivered to him. Muchuchubacca (talk) 04:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like undue weight and to violate WP:NPOV to give prominence to such trivia. Edison (talk) 16:10, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Most inventors of that era were aggressive businessmen and sturggled to keep their names in the news and get money (Edison, de Forest, Tesla, Marconi all guilty of this). Ken Burns discussed this in his documentary about Radio. It's important to tread carefully here, because there is a current fad of exaggerating Tesla's achievements and villifying Edison, for example the popular but inaccurate viral message on The Oatmeal [1]. It's imporant to honor these men by reporting their lives and work accurately. DonPMitchell (talk) 19:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any...proof that The Oatmeal's presentation was inaccurate, or are you just talking out of your ass? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.7.35 (talk) 10:02, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The notion that Edison was a "bad guy" is just a popular internet meme traveling around, stirring up people who have previously never known much about Edison or his contemporaries, and mostly still don't. The meme is an example of how the internet tends to be negative and divisive. The meme attempts to educate the general public about Tesla's accomplishments, which is well deserved, but unfortunately the meme does so by exaggerating Tesla's inventions enormously (bogus inventions like his "earthquake machine") and demonizing Edison (sentimentalizing the war of currents, as if it was a struggle between good and bad instead of the 19th century equivalent of the cola wars). The meme does so with appeals to emotion and social cligues; i.e. Tesla was a cool "geek" while Edison was a ruthless elephant murderering "douche". All of which is completely unnecessary, and much of which is false. Both inventors were brilliant men who made major contributions to the advancement of technology, but Edison was the Steve Jobs of his day, Tesla the Steve Wozniak (if Wozniak was mildly insane).Walterego (talk) 20:14, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

What we want is not to show Edison as a "bad guy", but the negative/ dark sides of his life. No-one is a saint. If it is true that every inventor during the era was a ruthless business man, then put this in the related articles! Show us how ruthless and aggressive were Tesla AND Edison during those days! 124.11.132.162 (talk) 06:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Quote after death

He died in 1931 yet the quote attributed to him is 1932. Is that a mistake? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.223.96 (talk) 08:07, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

It does look strange, but the cite is from a magazine that quoted something that he may have said at any time. Nczempin (talk) 06:24, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

It's a fair point, though; the date does seem a little ambiguous. I've added the word "edition" to help that. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 07:45, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Rquest edit

i request that the clarification is added that thomas edison did NOT invent the lightbulb, it says that he developed it, but many pepole might misinterpret that as a fact that he invented it. it would be simple to add this right after it: "(thomas edison did not invent the lightbulb. if you want to see who did, see Harold Maxim)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brayneeah360 (talk • contribs) 05:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest that Edison perfected the electric light bulb, or that he invented the first commercially viable electric light bulb. WallyFromColumbia (talk) 11:03, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The Final Years

In reviewing this section, I've noted several corrections that need to be made. For instance, while Edison did ride the first Lackawanna Railroad electric train from Hoboken to South Orange, NJ in September 1930 (not Hoboken to Dover, NJ in 1931), he only played the role of engineer as far as the end of Hoboken yard (about one mile) and not all the way to Dover (40 miles). Also, Edison had very little, if any, involvement in the Lackawanna Railroad electrification project, whereas the article states that Edison was involved in overseeing the project, which isn't true. The Lackawanna project employed the use of direct current (DC), which Edison advocated over alternating current (AC), but that was the extent of Edison's "involvement". Does anyone have any thoughts on this? WallyFromColumbia (talk) 19:28, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

More on West Orange needed

Edison spent a half-century in West Orange, but very little is said about it except in regards to Glenmont. This needs to be expanded. If nothing else but to point to the Edison laboratories there being a national historic site. WallyFromColumbia (talk) 14:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

??/

old man..ur day today...yeah...:))) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.212.54.48 (talk) 07:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

1915 Nobel prize rumor

rm'ed this section part because its irrelevant to the section title since this was a newspaper rumor, not an "award given to Edison". It also states as "fact" this was 1912, that Tesla had declined to accept the Nobel Prize in Physics, which he was to share with Thomas Edison, even though he was facing financial difficulties, and implies the Nobel committee changed the prize to Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg because of a "controversy", all of which is erroneous or just plain bogus. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Google search result

In the search result in Google the Wikipedia summary says "Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was a Douchebag who stole from Tesla American inventor and businessman". How do we change this? Theothor32 (talk) 10:34, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Blame this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weasel2000 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

The Bastard deserved it. NeoPlasmaVice (talk) 00:53, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Georges Melies

somebody please put on here that he was the sole reason for the great film maker georges melies going bankrupt because he stole his films. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.103.27.175 (talk) 09:38, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Views on Money

I included the following text in this article, under the heading Views On Money

Thomas Edison was an advocate of monetary reform. He was vocal in his opposition to both the gold standard, and debt based money. Discussing a plan put forward by American industrialist Henry Ford, he stated:

That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt. Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 -- that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.

If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. ... It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,00 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer, and the other helps the people. ... It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious values of gold.

—New York Times, December 5, 1921[76]

It was summarily deleted by binksternet with the reason "Edison's opinion about money was never taken seriously by economists or the public."

1. my contribution is easily verified as true. Thomas Edison did indeed say this.
2. There existed then, and exist now, a great many people with the same opinion as Edison.

My change does not fall under any speedy deletion criteria, and binksternet did not follow any normal protocol (Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution) by attempting to improve my contribution, neither did he, in making a contentious change by deleting my contribution, attempt to discuss it here on the talk page, or elsewhere.

As an interesting and verifiable element that speaks to the character and thought process of the man, my contribution should be included in the "summary of accepted knowledge" on him. The contribution should stand. I am adding it back, with comments directing binksternet to the talk page for discussion.

Haxwell (talk) 05:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution is a further step that is not needed yet. The method of working together after the first removal of text is indicated at WP:BRD. You were bold, I reverted, now we discuss. Binksternet (talk) 18:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

---

Okay, so once I got over my indignation, I could see that binksternet was right, and Edison's economic proposals did not gain any traction in his day. So, I did some more research and rewrote the section to include binksternet's point. I hope it is allowed to stand.. Haxwell (talk) 06:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about causing your indignation; that was not my intent. I just wanted to make sure the article free from soapboxing and original research.

What I like about your new version is that it does not rely completely on your analysis of lengthy Edison quotes, taken from the New York Times article from December 6, 1921. It concludes with the scholarly Willis/Hammes piece in the Journal of the History of Economic Thought. That is a big improvement! However, there are still outstanding concerns.

You wrote "famously" in front of Edison's quote about interest and Satan. I would challenge that description as an overstatement. Has it been quoted or reprinted here and there? Yes, somewhat.[2][3][4] Is it recalled along with Edison as central to his life? No, not at all.

Another note is that Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Linking recommends that we remove the wikilink to interest from inside the direct quote. Interest can be wikilinked in some other manner.

Unaddressed is the antisemitism inherent in the Edison and Ford position on the gold standard. Ford thought that an overreliance on gold helped bring about World War I. He thought Jewish bankers were at fault. A non-gold money standard that was in control of the US government was preferable, he thought. Edison's position was not so widely known as his friend Ford's. Rutgers professor Paul Israel, a prominent Edison biographer, says that the degree to which Edison agreed with Ford's antisemitism is subject to debate. Biographer Max Wallace gives the question a fair treatment. (Our Wikipedia biography is completely silent on this issue.) Author David Boyle treats the Edison/Ford money proposal as a foil against Jewish control, but Ford's stance is the defining one, not Edison's.

Author Warren Sloat in 1929 describes in greater detail the negative response to Edison's proposed money standard. On page 273 he says that it is likely that Ford and Edison killed the immediate approval of the Muscle Shoals water power proposal (later built as Wilson Dam) with their tangential rant about the gold standard. Jewish banker and industrialist Otto Hermann Kahn raked Ford and Edison over the coals, saying that they were unrealistically seeking Utopia. US Mint director George E. Roberts wrote against the Ford/Edison proposal in The Independent: "The Fiat Money Peril", January 28, 1922.

Finally, I think it would be of greater value to the reader to put into this context Edison's early exposure to the instability of gold as a money standard. At the age of 21 he was in charge of the gold ticker during Black Friday (1869). Edison saw how gold was vulnerable to wild speculation; he saw how it led to ruin for many. Frank Lewis Dyer discusses this in Edison His Life And Inventions, page 50. Edison was leery of gold from early manhood. Binksternet (talk) 18:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Edison's Personality and War of Currents

I think the section on War of Currents should be broadened [[5]] . see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kemmler/> cantikadam (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Article structure

The structure and organization of the article headings defies logic. There is allot of stuff under "Menlo Park (1876–1881)" that doesn't seem to have anything to do with Menlo Park. The section also covers events outside the stated date range (like Sprague). Material on electric lights is not under "Electric light" or appears in duplicate. Cleaned up the sectioning and trimmed back the often told "Tesla tale". Also lost a few duplicate Edison pictures in the edit, they could be put back to match WP:IMAGE.Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 17:02, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

just so you know he uses feirys and is a wizard — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.11.189.158 (talk) 17:32, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

"Long lasting", "practical"?

Try "incandescent". Tesla invented the first "fluorescent" electric light bulb (much more efficient, too). Of course, Tesla's electric light required ballast transformers, which only work on Tesla's patented AC power system. Incandescent electric lighting works on both DC and AC. Tesla never tried to commercialize this particular invention, however, and even if he had wanted to, Edison's General Electric would have made it very difficult for him to do so, even with the help of George Westinghouse.

Edison's DC systems were anything but long lasting. Terminals (even on incandescent light bulbs) were subject to electrolysis and corrosion, besides resistive losses that greatly reduced their practical power distribution network range to just a few miles. Danshawen (talk) 22:35, 10 March 2013 (UTC)danshawen

That would be true except for the fact that Tesla did not invented the first fluorescent light bulb and, at 1200 hours, Edison's incandescent light was practical compared to the short life and low resistance of its contemporaries. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 21:10, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

New York Con Edison only cut off the last of their DC customers at the end of 2007, so you could say it lasted for 125 years. (Tesla spent the last few years of his life in a DC powered hotel.) --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to the longevity of Edison's incandescent bulbs compared to fluorescent, not his power systems. It is true that Tesla is not credited with inventing fluorescent lights, but Tesla's experiments with high-voltage, high-frequency AC transformers means he discovered the effect that makes them possible. He described the lighting of gas-filled tubes near his "Tesla Coils" long before the lighting of Edison's first successful vacuum-filament incandescent bulb.

Con Edison did indeed keep DC power service running to customers until 2007, but it is doubtful that Edison's original system would ever have passed modern National electrical codes for home or industry. Buried rough-hewn wooden insulation was only one issue. The fact that the surrounding buildings use rectifiers to operate antique DC elevator motors possibly only impresses antique collectors. The man whose technicians electrocuted dogs, cats and even an elephant to try and make the case that DC was a safer technology impresses no certified electrical engineer educated beyond 3rd grade, as Edison was. There's no mention in this article about Edison's "concrete furniture", fiasco, either. Danshawen (talk) 13:53, 15 March 2013 (UTC)danshawen

The house I grew up in wouldn't pass today's code, either. The building I'm sitting in now probably doesn't meet *today's* electrical code. If we'd waited for HDPE cables to be invented, we'd still be lighting our houses with kerosene. Ferranti used layers of paper to insulate his feeders. What was Tesla's distribution scheme, again? You forgot to mention Edison's fiasco at iron ore production - spent a fortune on R&D with no payback. You might also comment on Edison getting booted out of his own company after GE was formed; mind you, Tesla's business acumen is no model, either.

Edison didn't adhere to DC out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Recall that AC motors were still unavailable when Pearl Street was built, so there was no chance to do combined lighting and power systems with AC at that point. This was critical to the economics of a central generating station; you could not sell enough lighting alone to get an ROI on expensive plant, you had to have load during the day, too - that meant motors, and street railways. (This was one of the reasons we wound up with a single power frequency - it was too costly to have 133 Hz for arc lights and 16 2/3 Hz for traction, when you could pick 60 or 50 Hz and eventually run everything around the clock). Also recall that early transformers were lamentably inefficient, and Edison was intending to make money by relacing gas with electricity; he knew very well that he could not afrod to throw away even 10% of his relatively costly kilowatthours at each transformation step, because that would make the cost of a lumen-hour too high to compete with gas (yes, cleanliness and convenience and improved quality of light...but easy to price yourself out of the market altoghther). Oh, and it's nice to be able to bill for your kwh - one of Edison's important inventions was an electricty meter; there was no AC kwh meter in 1882. Edison wasn't building lights for zillionaires, he was after affordable lighting every building in a city. DC, from an 1882 perspective, was the way to do that. He might have had only a Graade 3 formal education, but he had a master's-level understanding that the key duty of a professional engineer is to make sure you get paid. If not, you're a hobbyist, not a professional. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it was always important for Edison to get paid. He evidently didn't want to pay anyone who worked for him (like Tesla, who increased the efficiency of his dynamo by adding a field winding, and got stiffed for the bonus money he was promised by Edison). Variants of Tesla's three phase AC electric motors have been moving diesel locomotives for quite a while, too. The US should stop educating its children to believe Edison was a genius and Tesla was some kind of nut case. The rest of the world knows better. Danshawen (talk) 14:33, 15 March 2013 (UTC)danshawen

Transformers solve all sorts of power distribution problems that Edison could not even begin to understand. Do you suppose that Edison was perfectly OK with the frictional losses and extra maintenence required of his DC commutators (like electrical brushes)? Danshawen (talk) 14:42, 15 March 2013 (UTC)danshawen

Engineering is the art of doing what you can with what you've got, where you are. Without AC motors and meters, there was no way to get a return on investment on AC distribution in 1882. Arguably Edison had a little more inertia than he might have displayed wehn AC technology finally caught up to commerical needs, but that's not unusual. You'll notice the "long waisted Mary Anne" style of machine was a peculiarity that died out after Pearl Street, too. Edison was acutely aware of the problems of losses in feeders and did some power system modelling to figure out the most economical system; this really spurred mathematical analysis, which was a little cheaper than physical model tests. Tesla's biography speaks for itself; you don't have to read very much about his later life before feeling great pity for him. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:16, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Engineering is the art of building things that don't break easily through the magic of distributed load (and that is true of all kinds of engineering, including internet engineering). If all an engineer has to work with is sticks, stones, and a 3rd grade education, the results will be predictable. It is Edison I pity. Tesla is the engineer to thank for gifting us the modern world and the most enduring inventions that are in it. The fact that he was able to do so without seeking excessive profit or cheating people who supported or worked for him, torturing and killing animals in order to do so speaks volumes about his character, and also about his arch-nemesis, who is the subject of this article. Danshawen (talk) 13:28, 17 March 2013 (UTC)danshawen

Politically, this article lives up to what I have come to expect of Wikipedia, but consider for a moment what the facts of Edison's life as presented here actually means to a young engineer who may be reading it. It says he doesn't need very much education to be successful, rich, respected and revered. Is this really the message we want to convey, or is a more balanced presentation of Edison's so-called life called for? What about his fear of X-rays after one of his technicians (Daley) died of radiation exposure? Instead of trying to research what it was that killed him, Edison started making a habit of staying out of his lab. This is what a 3rd grade education does for you. Whatever knowledge does not provide, fear does. Madame Curie he was not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danshawen (talk • contribs) 13:52, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

That would be true except for the fact that:

• Tesla charged an excessive profit of $2.50 per AC horsepower produced per every induction motor using his patent.
• Tesla used "sticks, stones, and college dropout education" i.e. he discounted modern physics as bogus and used the same trial and error method Edison used, just with a higher level of education.
• Tesla did not "gift" the modern world and the most enduring inventions that are in it. Most of what Tesla worked on was also being developed by other people at the time and we are using their inventions, not Tesla's.

This is all a little off topic because Edison and Tesla were never rivals, one ran a company, the other tinkered in a lab. Their paths only crossed once. Also this talk page is not here for a debate. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:25, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

They were very much rivals, both when Tesla worked for Edison, and afterward. Are we rewriting history in Wikipedia now? Nonetheless, amen to those last words, and peace, all. Danshawen (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2013 (UTC)danshawen