Who was Better?: Tesla vs Edison

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Author: Daven Hiskey
Host: Simon Whistler
Producer: Daven Hiskey

0:00 Intro
3:38 The Myth of the Edison vs Tesla Feud (And the Many Myths Embedded)
14:48 Why Tesla Stopped Working for Edison
17:40 The Love of Tesla’s Life
19:57 War of the Currents Myth
33:20 Did Edison Torpedo Tesla’s Invention of Radar?
36:23 What Tesla and Edison Had to Say About Each Other
42:46 The Real Story of Nikola Tesla
47:25 Tesla’s Visions
55:48 King of the Castle, A Master of His Domain
1:13:53 Tesla Coil
1:15:36 Magnifying Transmitter
1:16:37 X-Rays
1:17:17 Neon Lamp
1:18:04 Earthquake Machine
1:19:27 Making Students Bright
1:20:18 Solving the Enigma of Death
1:23:29 The Thought Camera
1:24:05 The Ozone Device
1:24:25 Tesla’s Rising and Falling Fame
1:34:18 Remote Control Boat
1:36:08 Inventing Radio
1:40:56 Ending the Tour and Rocky Mountain High
1:43:20 Talking to Aliens
1:52:35 The Tesla World System
1:58:45 Tesla’s Tower and Downfall
2:11:48 A Breakdown
2:13:13 The Tesla Turbine
2:17:03 The Bizarro Years
2:23:49 Tesla vs Einstein
2:26:13 Tesla’s Peculiar Habits
2:31:23 Tesla’s Legacy
2:40:20 Thomas Edison
2:42:27 A 12 Year Old on a Mission
2:46:51 You’ll Put Your Eye Out
2:49:17 Relentless Optimism
2:52:10 The Life You Save May Be Your Own
2:55:14 Whoopsadoodle
2:57:35 First Invention and Life Lessons
3:00:35 Making a Million Dollars By Keeping His Mouth Shut
3:05:17 A Kid In a Candy Shop And The Next Great Invention
3:07:09 Edison’s Actual Greatest Invention
3:10:56 Did He Actually Invent Hello?
3:13:10 Inventing The First Device to Play Back Sound
3:18:44 The Real Story of the Lightbulb
3:26:44 His Accidental Inventions That Massively Changed the World That Nobody Talks About
3:29:21 More Power Mister Scott!
3:30:41 A Death and an Adorable Nerdy Marriage Proposal
3:35:38 The Future of Inventing
3:38:14 The Motion Picture
3:41:02 Edison the Miner
3:42:43 Electric Cars
3:46:21 Stepping Back
3:47:56 Do No Harm And More WWI
3:50:07 His Last Work and Death
3:50:59 How Much was Edison and How Much was Other People’s Work?
3:54:07 The Face of the Brand
3:54:44 Working Style and what Did Edison s Workers Think of Him?
3:57:53 Working Environment
4:01:38 Stealing Ideas Part 2
4:03:34 Parents and a Ruthless Businessman
4:08:53 The Truth About Killing Animals
4:09:39 The Elephant Killing Myth
4:12:39 The Real Story of the War of the Currents and the Animal Thing
4:16:51 The Truth About the X-Ray
4:19:17 Back to the Truth About the War of the Currents, Animal Thing, and Electric Chair
4:25:29 Summing Up the Animal Killing Thing
4:26:56 Summing Edison Up
4:29:54 Who was Greater? Edison vs Tesla

For most of history between the point Nikola
Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison were respectively
doing their things to the present day, if
you asked just about anyone which of these
men were greater, you’d likely have gotten
a response akin to “Nikola who?
…I mean, Edison of course?
He and God gave us light!”
That said, if you asked someone when both
were in their prime, you may have gotten a
more mixed answer with, contrary to popular
belief, Tesla in his day one of the most preeminent
celebrity scientists in the world along with
Edison.
Edison famed for getting things done with
perspiration, while Tesla had the reputation
for doing his thing through inspiration.
Yet very quickly after his death, Tesla became
all but forgotten, while Edison’s legend
endured…
At least until extremely modern times when
the internet masses have jumped on the Nikola
Tesla hype train and generally vilified Edison
as nothing but a charlatan, and someone largely
responsible for Tesla’s fall from grace.
But what is the truth here?
Were either or even potentially both nothing
but media hyping narcissists taking credit
for others’ work?
Were either or potentially both actually great
men of history?
What is the story between them and why are
they so often compared?
And overall, which one was actually a greater
cog in the human technological advancement
machine?
And before you go answering this in the comments
based on your current knowledge of the pair,
let us caution you because in the history
of researching and writing on all manner of
topics to the tune of over 5,000 articles
on our Todayifoundout website and over 2,000
videos here, we have never found any topic
we’ve covered more rife with widespread
and generally accepted myths when it came
to BOTH the individuals we are going to cover
today.
On this note, as for Edison, as historian
Keith Nier once very aptly stated, "He is
actually one of the least well known of all
famous people, and much of what everybody
thinks they know about him is no more reliable
than a fairy tale."
And as for Tesla?
Well, after doing a deep dive on him as well,
the consensus among our team here is that’s
even more of the case for him than Edison,
with the reality of most people’s impressions
of Tesla the man and with regards to his work
being wildly fictional, even right down to
the thing he’s most famous for.
So, dear viewers, get out your dinner and
snacks or, if you’re watching this on the
porcelain throne, prepare to have your legs
fall thoroughly asleep while others in your
household begin to wonder if you’ve died
in there, because we are going to leave no
stone unturned in order to try to rectify
the rampant misinformation on both men and
their respective life stories in our attempt
to try to clear it all up.
Let’s dive into it, shall we?
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Now, back to today’s video.
The Myth of the Edison vs Tesla Feud and the
Many Myths Embedded
First and foremost before we get into their
respective quite fascinating life stories
and compare and contrast and debunk countless
myths about both men, we should first address
a handful of the more rampant myths concerning
the two men’s supposed extreme dislike of
each other and feud.
There was no feud.
In fact, there wasn’t even any conflict
between Tesla and Edison during the war of
the currents because, contrary to popular
belief, Tesla wasn’t really involved in
this.
“But what about his innovative AC Induction
motor that changed the electric world and
gave us the power grid we have today?!?!?!
That’s why Edison lost the War of the Currents!”
Well, on this one, contrary to popular belief,
Tesla’s AC Induction motor didn’t come
into play in the War of the Currents other
than costing Westinghouse a lot of money.
It wasn’t until AFTER the war of the currents
was already lost by Edison and co that a practical,
working version of Tesla’s device was able
to be implemented and put into commercial
use.
And it wasn’t even Tesla that made said
motor actually work for this purpose.
Someone else did that work after Tesla left
the project without really making any real
progress on it, with said other individual
who solved the issues with it forgotten by
popular history, though we will rectify that
shortly.
But in the end, it was a group effort from
Tesla’s idea to the people who made it work
in a way that it could be used to make AC
power transmission more economically feasible
than it already was.
And, yes- already was.
Before Tesla’s motor.
Which, by the way, was just something someone
else had come up with before him, even giving
lectures on it before Tesla patented his version
of more or less the exact same thing.
More on this in a bit as well.
Going back to the alleged feud in general,
it’s often stated it really ramped up owing
to Edison stealing Tesla’s work.
But the reality was not only did Edison not
take any patents from Tesla, he actually appears
to have allowed Tesla to patent things he
came up with when working on projects at his
job for Edison, even though this wasn’t
typical, then or now, and it’s not really
clear why Edison allowed this in Tesla’s
case.
But because Edison did this, it was part of
the reason Tesla was able to crack on on his
own, all culminating in Tesla earning his
own fortune and worldwide fame, before very
abruptly losing both his fortune and reputation
for reasons we’ll get into.
On top of this, also contrary to popular belief,
Edison did not slight Tesla by failing to
give him a bonus causing Tesla to leave his
employ in anger.
In fact, by all appearances, both men almost
never interacted in their lives, even while
Tesla worked for Edison, as Tesla worked under
someone else while there.
And as far as the few things they DID say
about each other, it was mostly nothing but
the utmost respect and admiration for the
other’s work, with Tesla only slightly criticizing
Edison’s methods.
And, not to sound like a broken record, but
full details on this momentarily as well!
On top of this, at the height of Tesla’s
fame and wealth in March of 1895, his lab
burned down.
How, nobody knows, but rumored to be at the
time started on one of the floors below by
someone smoking.
Whatever the case- lab destroyed, Tesla would
state to a New York Times reporter, “I am
in too much grief to talk.
What can I say?
The work of half my lifetime, very nearly:
all my mechanical instruments and scientific
apparatus, that it has taken years to perfect,
swept away in a fire that lasted only an hour
or two.
. . . Everything is gone.
I must begin over again.”
Edison, hearing about what happened to his
famous former employee, sent a message to
Tesla that he was free to come use Edison’s
Llewellyn Park workshop while he worked on
finding and building up a new lab.
They clearly hated each other…
Moving on to the Nobel Prize, on November
6, 1915 thanks to a Reuters news report, with
many other outlets picking it up, the world
was briefly under the impression that Edison
and Tesla had jointly won the Nobel Prize
for Physics.
As to why Tesla was never awarded such, the
rumor mill tends to state everything from
that Edison torpedoed the whole thing to spite
Tesla or that Tesla himself refused to share
such a prize with his mortal enemy.
Thus, the Nobel Prize in physics that year
was given instead to William H Bragg and Lawrence
Bragg “for their services in the analysis
of crystal structure by means of X-rays”.
Except other than the fact that it was reported
that Tesla and Edison had won the Nobel Prize
at the time, they actually hadn’t, as the
Nobel committee would ring in on once they
heard of the report.
They stated both that they never were planning
to award either individual a Nobel Prize,
and that “Any rumor that a person has not
been given a Nobel Prize because he has made
known his intention to refuse the reward is
ridiculous.”
Further, on the note that Tesla would have
rejected such a prize, Tesla himself stated
upon hearing the report that he and Edison
had jointly won, that while he hadn’t heard
anything directly about it from the Nobel
committee, he seemed happy about it and that
"I have concluded that the honor has been
conferred on me in acknowledgement of a discovery
announced a short time ago which concerns
the transmission of electrical energy without
wires."
When he found out he hadn’t actually won,
Tesla would write one Robert Underwood Johnson
about the whole thing, shrugging it off and
stating, “In a thousand years, there will
be many recipients of the Nobel Prize, but
I have not less than four dozens of my creations
identified with my name in the technical literature.
These are honors real and permanent, which
are bestowed, not by a few who are apt to
err, but by the whole world which seldom makes
a mistake.”
One prize Tesla DID win and later accept was
the Edison Medal in 1917 awarded him by the
American Institute of Electrical Engineering,
who Tesla at one point served as the Vice
President of from 1892 to 1894.
That said, he did at first state he would
refuse such an honor, writing BA Behrend of
Westinghouse who had nominated Tesla for the
award, "You propose to honor me with a medal
which I could pin upon my coat and strut for
a vain hour before the members and guests
of your institute.
You would bestow an outward semblance of honoring
me but you would decorate my body and continue
to let starve, for failure to supply recognition,
my mind and its creative products which have
supplied the foundation upon which the major
portion of your Institute exists…"
Not dissuaded, Behrend and others on the committee
ultimately convinced Tesla to accept the now
prestigious award.
Tesla then not only showed up to accept it,
but seemed very happy about the whole thing,
though just before the award ceremony itself
he randomly disappeared, only to be found
outside in Bryan Park across the street feeding
pigeons, as was something of an obsession
for him throughout the latter part of his
life.
He did, however, come back in and delivered
a lengthy speech, among other things referring
to Edison as “this wonderful man, who had
had no theoretical training at all, no advantages,
who did all himself, getting great results
by virtue of his industry and application.”
He also started out his whole speech in an
oddly humble tone compared to his other writings…
at first at least, more on the second half
of his speech later,
“Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I wish to thank you heartily for your kind
sympathy and appreciation.
I am not deceiving myself in the fact, of
which you must be aware, that the speakers
have greatly magnified my modest achievements.
One should in such a situation be neither
diffident nor self-assertive, and in that
sense I will concede that some measure of
credit may be due to me for the first steps
tin certain new directions; but the ideas
I advanced have triumphed, the forces and
elements have been conquered, and greatness
achieved, through the cooperation of many
able men some of whom, I am glad to say, are
present this evening.
Inventors, engineers, designers, manufacturers
and financiers have done their share until,
as Mr. Behrend said, a gigantic revolution
has been wrought in the transmission and transformation
of energy.”
Speaking of his winning the Edison medal and
rumors of a Nobel Prize win, as to the myth
that Tesla somehow labored in obscurity or
the like at the time, overshadowed by titans
like Edison that some purport, going back
to his lab fire, two days later on March 14,
1895, Charles Dana of the New York Sun would
write, “The destruction of Nikola Tesla’s
workshop, with its wonderful contents, is
something more than a private calamity.
It is a misfortune to the whole world.
It is not in any degree an exaggeration to
say that the men living at this time who are
more important to the human race than this
young gentleman, can be counted on the fingers
of one hand; perhaps on the thumb of one hand.”
Alrighty, so that setup and broad overview
out of the way, let’s dive into some more
interesting details in case you don’t want
to take our word for it on any of it.
First, let’s start with the whole Edison
stealing Tesla’s patents and taking credit
for his work, while simultaneously pissing
Tesla off via a promised bonus, which all
led to the infamous quote from Edison to Tesla
of "Tesla, you don’t understand our American
humor," originally claimed in John J. O’Neill’s
1944 work Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola
Tesla.
Noteworthy here, O’Neill does not cite his
source of that quote and by all evidence,
if it did occur, it wasn’t over this matter.
To begin with, an actual Edison and Tesla
fact is that almost immediately upon arriving
in the United States, Tesla began working
at Edison’s Machine Works for a period of
about six months.
According to legend, their fictional feud
all started when Tesla was offered a $50,000
bonus (about $2 million today) if he could
improve the design of certain of Edison’s
machinery.
When Tesla successfully completed this task,
Edison’s company (or Edison himself, in
some versions of the tale) declined to pay
out.
As to the origin of this story, this one came
from Tesla later in life.
He wrote of all this,
“The S.S.
Oregon, the fastest passenger steamer at that
time, had both of its lighting machines disabled
and its sailing was delayed.
As the superstructure had been built after
their installation it was impossible to remove
them from the hold.
The predicament was a serious one and Edison
was much annoyed.
In the evening I took the necessary instruments
with me and went aboard the vessel where I
stayed for the night.
The dynamos were in bad condition, having
several short-circuits and breaks, but with
the assistance of the crew I succeeded in
putting them in good shape…
During this period I designed twenty-four
different types of standard machines with
short cores and of uniform pattern which replaced
the old ones.
The Manager had promised me fifty thousand
dollars on the completion of this task but
it turned out to be a practical joke.
This gave me a painful shock and I resigned
my position."
Now, even if true, it should be explicitly
pointed out that Edison wasn’t involved
in any of the Bonus talk, with the story simply
mentioning Tesla’s manager.
All other accounts of it, such as the supposed
quote from Edison about American humor, have
been slowly popping up in the years since
seemingly out of thin air.
But also, this story seems to have been made
up by Tesla as well, or at least highly exaggerated.
And, in fact, as we’ll get into a bit and
the sad reasons why, at this point in his
life, Tesla was making up an awful lot of
things that were, shall we say, making others
in the world, especially in the industries
he was dealing in, not just lose any faith
in the man, but also quietly begin to distance
themselves from him as mentally ill at best,
or a charlatan trying to get back some of
his former fame and hype at worst.
And maybe a little bit of both.
But on this story, even if Tesla’s manager
had made such a promise of, in modern dollars,
a near $2 million bonus, it bizarrely makes
Tesla look rather dimwitted, given his pay
at the time was only $18 per week and he would
otherwise have just been doing his job in
making these improvements.
Further, even if bonuses were offered (and,
indeed, Edison was known to give bonuses and
promotions and the like to employees who did
significant things), it certainly wouldn’t
have been for a figure like $50,000, which
would have made Tesla not only quite wealthy
overnight, but given him more money than Edison’s
Machine Works actually had at the time.
The story, thus, seems a little suspect on
its details.
This is also not documented in Tesla’s journal
around the time it supposedly happened, which,
we’re just guessing if someone offered you
the equivalent of $2 million today as a bonus
to do your normal job, you’d probably write
that crap down in your nightly written musings.
Further, you’d certainly write about it
if they then reneged on the deal.
Especially if it then made you so angry it
was the reason you quit your job, as Tesla
claims here.
What he actually wrote in his journal when
he left the company, however, was simply “Good
by to the Edison Machine Works.”
Why Tesla Stopped Working for Edison
So why did he leave, especially as in the
aftermath for a time he had to take to digging
ditches for underground telegraph cables for
Western Union?
Well, nobody knows with any certainty.
But it seems to be centered around his work
on arc lighting for Edison.
At the time, he was working on an outdoor
arc lighting system Edison had previously
patented in 1884, which Tesla did and created
a workable system.
But during this time, Edison had pivoted and
made an agreement with the American Electric
Manufacturing Company to use their arc-lighting
system for his customers seeking outdoor lighting,
IF the American Electric Manufacturing Company
would use Edison’s incandescent system for
their indoor lighting customers.
Thus, Tesla’s work was essentially thrown
out as no longer needed by the company.
It was shortly after this that Tesla made
his exit.
It has been suggested Tesla was upset about
this, so left for that reason.
BUT, his autobiography actually paints a different
picture of him seemingly just being afforded
an opportunity based on the arc lighting system
he’d come up with.
He states, “Immediately thereafter some
people approached me with the proposal of
forming an arc light company under my name,
to which I agreed.”
Noteworthy on this, again, for whatever reason,
Tesla was allowed to patent the things he’d
done for Edison and keep it as his own.
This debunks the idea that Edison was just
sitting back evilly cackling as he stole his
brilliant employee, Tesla’s, inventions
for fun and profit.
In fact, it went the other way and, for whatever
reason, he seems to have allowed Tesla to
take them, something that was pivotal in Tesla’s
first steps into his own independent work.
Tesla goes on, “Here finally was an opportunity
to develop the motor, but when I broached
the subject to my new associates they said:
‘No, we want the arc lamp.
We don’t care for this alternating current
of yours.’
In 1886 my system of arc lighting was perfected
and adopted for factory and municipal lighting,
and I was free, but with no other possession
than a beautifully engraved certificate of
stock of hypothetical value.
Then followed a period of struggle in the
new medium for which I was not fitted…”
He does not explicitly say what this work
was, but we can only assume from the timing
here, he was referring to the digging of ditches
for Western Union lines.
However, such digging all worked out for Tesla
as it was through this job that he was ultimately
connected with Alfred S. Brown, the then head
of Western Union’s telegraph service for the
New York Metropolitan District.
A few more connections later via Brown and
Tesla found his work on his motor partially
funded and with his own laboratory in the
fall of 1886, eventually incorporated as the
Tesla Electric Company.
Tesla states of all this in his autobiography,
“the reward came in the end and in April,
1887, the Tesla Electric Company was organized,
providing a laboratory and facilities.
The motors I built there were exactly as I
had imagined them.
I made no attempt to improve the design, but
merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared
to my vision and the operation was always
as I expected.”
We’ll get more into Tesla’s rather peculiar
waking visions later when we dive into his
life story in detail.
The Love of Tesla’s Life
But on a related note, going back to Tesla’s
claim here on the whole Bonus and the questionable
nature of it.
It’s at this point we should probably dive
into the fact that during this period of his
life when Tesla came up with this story, let’s
just say the formerly brilliant mind was,
very sadly, a slice of cheddar short of a
cheese sandwich, with the man himself becoming
increasingly “eccentric,” to put it kindly.
For example, beyond making wild claims about
various world changing inventions he’d supposedly
successfully made later in life that were
provably false and often wouldn’t have worked
anyway, around this time, he was also claiming
pigeons were speaking to him, one of whom
he had fallen in love with.
As he wrote, “I have been feeding pigeons,
thousands of them for years.
But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure
white with light grey tips on its wings; that
one was different.
It was a female.
I had only to wish and call her and she would
come flying to me.
I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman,
and she loved me.
As long as I had her, there was a purpose
to my life.”
Speaking of his love life, Tesla was seemingly
celebite in his lifetime, though perhaps not
from being asexual or anything of the sort,
as he would reference in his autobiography
the need to overcome such urges and even elsewhere
ponder if he’d sacrificed too much for his
work in forgoing a wife and family.
But also that he felt that doing so, and remaining
unattached and chaste, was extremely beneficial
to his work.
But going back to the bird, he also claimed
when the avian love of his life was dying,
she came to him and he saw “two powerful
beams of light” emanating from her eyes.
And that “Yes, it was a real light, a powerful,
dazzling, blinding light, a light more intense
than I had ever produced by the most powerful
lamps in my laboratory.”
It must have been love, because at a time
when he was deeply in debt and barely scraping
by on the generosity of others, he reportedly
spent about $2,000 (about $40,000 today) for
this and other bird’s care who had been
injured or were sick.
His love of caring for pigeons in his room
and feeding them from his window also contributed
to his eviction from the St. Regis in 1923,
along with the whole not paying his bills
thing.
He bounced around from here similarly until
finally Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company decided to start paying $125 per month
(about $3000 today) to Tesla, as well as paying
for his room at the Hotel New Yorker to make
sure he was reasonably comfortable in the
last decade or so of his life.
War of the Currents Myth
But in any event, let’s now dive into greater
detail with regards to our claim that Edison
and Tesla never had a conflict during the
war of the currents- AC vs DC, and that Tesla’s
motor didn’t actually play into that war
really either.
First, to be clear, the war of the currents
was not Edison vs Tesla, it was Edison against
George Westinghouse and other companies like
Thomson-Houston.
We should also start this section by debunking
very briefly the idea that Tesla invented
AC power, which is another common, and very
inexplicable, idea you’ll read on the interwebs.
He did not.
Others like Faraday and Hippolyte Pixii pioneered
that, with the latter creating an AC generator
all the way back in 1832, over a half century
before Tesla was working on his AC Induction
motor.
There was also significant AC generator and
transformer work done by various individuals
such as Sabastian Ziani de Ferranti and William
Stanley, who based their work on yet others’.
But it was Stanley, not Tesla, who arguably
won the war of the currents for Westinghouse.
It was Stanley’s complete high voltage AC
system including generators, transformers,
and high-voltage transmission lines that allowed
for AC power to be relatively efficiently
transmitted over large areas.
And it was Stanley’s transformer design
that served as the prototype for the transformers
that came after.
But lest you think Stanley deserves all the
credit, his work was, in turn, based on others’,
such as his transformer design based on the
work of Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs
before.
Further, without the work of Oliver Shallenberger
Stanley’s system would have been extremely
difficult to get to work in a commercially
viable way.
Why?
Because it was Shallenberger who came up with
a critical piece of the puzzle in the world’s
first commercially successful AC electrical
meter, which, funny enough, was the result
of an accident.
While working on a lamp, a nearby spring fell
into it, at which point Shallenberger noticed
it was rotating, which could only be by electromagnetic
force.
He quickly realized he could use this fact
to create a device that turned small wheels
proportional to the power flowing along the
lines and thus, he had found a way to measure
the usage of AC Power.
And then there was Benjamin Lamme.
Without Lammes’ work on Tesla’s motor,
it was completely worthless for this application
or, at least as the system was at the time,
and, much like Tesla himself in this case,
would have gone in the dustbin of history,
with others’ similar devices used instead.
And we do not say that lightly with regards
to Tesla in general.
Because without the success of his motor,
it seems unlikely any of the rest of his work,
even if it had still occurred, would have
garnered him any notability with the masses
or investors any more than any other brilliant
scientist or engineer working on similar things.
And speaking of all that and AC Power transmission,
almost a decade before Tesla threw his giant
brain cells into the ring, guys like Oskar
von Miller and Galileo Ferraris were also
doing their thing.
The latter, Ferraris, is not called the “Father
of three-phase current” for no reason.
A title he ultimately earned through his work
when he developed his AC motor idea three
years before Tesla invented his version of
mostly the same thing.
In fact, when thinking about more efficient
ways to do things, Westinghouse initially
debated whether to go with Tesla or Ferraris,
but ultimately settled on the former for reasons
unclear today, but may have simply been proximity
to the individual.
Ferraris was an ocean and more away in Italy.
Tesla was nearby, and holding a U.S. Patent
on such a device as Ferraris had outlined
in his previous paper that, again, was published
before Tesla applied for his patent on largely
the same thing.
On this, electrical engineer and author Laurence
A Hawkins in 1903 would write, “Accordingly,
when Tesla announced in May 1888 that he had
solved this motor problem, he at once became
one of the most prominent figures in the engineering
world.
His solution was a theory of the combination
of two or more alternating currents of different
phase to produce a resultant rotating magnetic
field.
This same theory had been published in Italy…
prior to Tesla by Ferraris in L’Elettricita
April 22 1888.
Ferraris, however, contented himself with
publication of the theory, while Tesla patented
it, and followed up his first patents with
a mass of other patents describing every conceivable
construction and more of operation that could
in any way be imagined to embody his rotating
magnetic field.
It is for this reason that the rotating field
theory is associated in this country with
the name of Tesla rather than with that of
Ferraris, although the contrary is the fact
in every other country.
The idea of a rotating magnetic field as the
resultant of two currents was not novel.
It had been produced by Bailey in 1879 with
commuted direct currents, by Deprez in 1883
with alternating currents….
But the time had not come in 1888, and the
motors described by Tesla, even if they had
been commercially efficient structures, could
not be operated on the circuits then existing.
Like Edison’s three wire system, the rotating
field must have been obvious when changed
conditions called for its application, but
in 1888 it was not what was wanted.”
He further notes of the criticism of Tesla’s
motor at the time, and why it took several
years for it to be practical in the existing
AC systems, “As Swinbourne said at the time
"Electrician Vol 21, p 342, ‘The low efficiency
is not at all the chief objection to the scheme.
The whole arrangement is impracticable, as
it demands special alternate-current generators
and leads.
Until Mr. Tesla can produce a motor which
will work on alternate current circuits as
they are, and do that efficiently even with
varying loads and without difficulty in starting,
he can hardly be said to have solved the problem.’…
The achievement of the Tesla and Ferraris
publications was not the solution of a problem
presented by existing conditions.
They assumed non-existent and, at that time,
impracticable conditions, and then applied
the obvious principle of the rotating field
of Bailey and Deprez.
Had not experience subsequently proved the
polyphase generator more efficient than the
single phase, the rotary field of Tesla and
Ferraris, like that of Bailey and Deprez,
would never have become of more than academic
interest."
And, indeed, as alluded to, it took others
a few years to figure all this out, with Tesla
barely involved.
Hawkins goes on referencing this, “But engineering
today owes Tesla no more than it owes Ferraras,
Deprez, or Bailey, for Tesla never produced
a commercially successful motor.
As the demand for polyphase motors gradually
came into existence, he worked hard to produce
a commercial motor, but it did not appear
in the market.
The motors of the so called fundamental patents
failed absolutely to meet commercial conditions.
Though the later Tesla patents describe multitudinous
modifications, Tesla himself, with practically
unlimited means at his disposal, seems to
have failed to produce a commercial self-starting
motor for power purposes.”
So, what actually happened during the War
of the Currents?
As alluded to, news of Tesla’s Alternating
Current Induction Motor eventually reached
George Westinghouse, primary owner of the
Westinghouse Company.
Both Edison and Westinghouse were already
fighting to secure dominance of the energy
markets, and the latter put his faith in Tesla’s
innovation to help his and his team’s system
win the battle thanks to efficiency improvements
over their previous system.
That said, once again, Tesla’s motor didn’t
end up coming into play in the War of the
Currents other than costing Westinghouse a
lot of money.
This is something that famously, during the
Financial Panic of 1890, allegedly saw Westinghouse
almost lose control of his company.
At the time, the Westinghouse team, which
for a time included Tesla, were still trying
to work out the kinks without Tesla’s help
as he had already stepped away from the project
before his motor could be made to work from
a practical standpoint for their purposes.
As to why he left, rumors are that he did
not work well with others who were working
on the project, but that’s difficult to
determine the veracity.
It may simply be that the contract for him
to consult on it was up before they’d actually
figured out how to make it work practically
for their specific purposes and he wanted
to use his newfound wealth to work on other
things.
However, even though they weren’t yet deploying
Tesla’s motor, it was costing Westinghouse
$15,000 per year (about $500,000 per year
today) as part of the guaranteed minimum royalty
arrangement regardless of distribution.
Westinghouse’s new lenders who were refinancing
his debts were not a fan of this and a few
other such investments that seemed to not
be needed to continue business as usual.
Thus, in 1891, Westinghouse told Tesla he
had two options.
On the one hand, he could stick with that
original agreement and Westinghouse would
have to cede control of his company to his
lenders.
The result of this for Tesla would then be
he would have to bank on getting his money
somehow from them, and potentially have a
nice legal battle over it, as Tesla had also
sold the manufacturing rights for the motor
to Westinghouse for $65,000 (about $2.2 million)
as part of the deal.
Note, the deal also paid Tesla an additional
$24,000 (about $800,000 today) for a year
to consult while they tried to deploy his
motor, though as alluded to very little came
of this other than Tesla getting a nice paycheck.
Given the lenders were pretty explicitly wanting
to cut ties with Tesla, not seeing the future
potential value of what Tesla had made given
the current state of it and their AC system
at the time, Westinghouse seemed to think
Tesla wasn’t going to have much luck there.
Option 2 for Tesla was that he could agree
to forgo those royalty payments and Westinghouse
would continue to work on potentially deploying
his motor.
While Tesla choosing option 2 is often presented
as him making an altruistic, or sometimes
stated, naive, move, Tesla was not so stupid-
obviously- nor altruistic at all when it came
to his work, being extremely litigious on
it in many other cases, as most inventors
are when they feel their work has been stolen
and being used for profit by others.
But considering his choices, agreeing to Westinghouses’
terms was probably just a good move given
the data he had at the time.
Having Westinghouse continue to push and perfect
his motor and try to deploy it at scale was
potentially a huge long term financial and
professional benefit to him beyond the royalty
payments from Westinghouse itself.
While certainly keeping both would have been
massively better, if Westinghouse was being
honest with him, which that’s not fully
clear other than that Westinghouse was definitely
in severe financial trouble at the time, and
his new lenders were wanting him to cut back
on such unprofitable spending, then it was
a prudent move.
Whether it was a smart one or not though,
who knows?
But, for what it’s worth, it all worked
out reasonably well for Tesla once the kinks
were worked out and his motor deployed, as
shortly thereafter, Westinghouse and GE jointly
paid $216,000 (about $8 million today) to
Tesla for the patent for the motor.
Had Tesla not agreed to this change in contract,
his motor would likely never have been used
here, with other’s similar work eventually
used instead.
Going back to the difficulty in deploying
the motor, Tesla explains, “In the early
part of 1888 an arrangement was made with
the Westinghouse Company for the manufacture
of the motors on a large scale.
But great difficulties had still to be overcome.
My system was based on the use of low frequency
currents and the Westinghouse experts had
adopted 133 cycles with the object of securing
advantages in the transformation.
They did not want to depart from their standard
forms of apparatus and my efforts had to be
concentrated upon adapting the motor to these
conditions.
Another necessity was to produce a motor capable
of running efficiently at this frequency on
two wires which was not easy of accomplishment.”
As to the other key figures involved in figuring
out these needed tweaks on Tesla’s motor,
it was first one Charles F. Scott who worked
on it with Tesla, and later the aforementioned
Benjamin Lamme who took over the project when
it stalled and appeared to be going nowhere.
Lamme made the practical version of Tesla’s
induction motor that would work for their
purposes given the AC system of the day, as
well as ultimately improving things on the
motor over the course of several years working
on it, long after Tesla was not involved at
all.
Granted, without Tesla’s original work,
Lamme wouldn’t have been able to do his
thing.
But without Lamme, Tesla’s device would
have had zero impact.
A prototype that simply wasn’t practical
for their usage.
It’s almost like the idea of the lone inventor
is a pure myth…
On that note, Tesla himself even noted, “The
scientific man does not aim at an immediate
result; he does not expect that his advanced
ideas will be readily taken up.
His work is like that of the planter – for
the future.
His duty is to lay the foundation for those
who are to come, and point the way.”
Speaking of pointing the way for others, Tesla
also tends to get credit today for much of
Lamme’s work after, including Lamme’s
work on the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago,
with Lamme designing many of the key apparatuses
at the exhibit, not Tesla.
To add insult to injury, Lamme also is the
one who designed the giant hydroelectric generators
at the famous Adams Power Plant at Niagara
Falls.
Today Tesla is generally given credit for
that as well and it’s sometimes even claimed
he designing the plant, despite having relatively
little to do with it other than things like
a bit of consulting work, primarily advising
Edward Dean Adams of the Niagara Falls Cataract
Construction Company that they should go with
Westinghouse and his system for the project
instead of that of Westinghouses’ competitors.
As to why Tesla is sometimes given vastly
more credit here on this, this isn’t just
because of the modern Tesla fanboys, but for
the ones that existed during his lifetime.
Attaching the famous scientists’ name to
things just sold papers, and the media was
happy to do so at every potential connection,
with reports at the time generally acting
as if Tesla had a lot more to do with the
project than he actually did, similar to what
they did during the Columbian Exposition in
Chicago in 1893 and many other things Tesla
related.
Tesla himself also vaguely gives the impression
he had a lot more to do with it in his autobiography,
where he would claim this was the fulfillment
of a childhood promise he had made to his
uncle.
Stating, “I was fascinated by a description
of Niagara Falls I had perused, and pictured
in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls.
I told my uncle that I would go to America
and carry out this scheme.
Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried
out at Niagara and marveled at the unfathomable
mystery of the mind.”
In any event, as an interesting brief little
aside here, Benjamin Lammes’ sister, Bertha
Lamme Feicht, also worked for Westinghouse
as an electrical engineer.
How did a woman hold such a position in the
late 19th century?
Well, she just so happened to be the first
woman in America to graduate with a degree
in engineering other than civil engineering,
with her focus mechanical engineering with
a speciality in electricity.
Did Edison Torpedo Tesla’s Invention of
Radar?
Moving on from there, let’s now discuss
Tesla and Radar.
During WWI Thomas Edison was sitting on the
Naval Consulting Board.
Noteworthy, Edison only agreed to consult
with the military as long as nothing he worked
on was used for offensive purposes- only for
defending the lives of Allied military members.
As for why, Edison stated, “Nonviolence
leads to the highest ethics, which is the
goal of all evolution.
Until we stop harming all other living beings,
we are still savages.”
Now, you might at this point be thinking “Wasn’t
Edison out murdering elephants and horses
for fun and profit?”
Well, if you’re generally at this point
getting the vibe that a huge percentage of
the things most people say about Tesla and
Edison are either myth or the facts altered
enough to the point they are basically myth,
well, stay tuned for the story on this one.
Because it’s par for the course.
But in any event, a common story goes that
at this point the spiteful Edison torpedoed
yet another of Tesla’s great innovations,
when Tesla proposed to the Naval Consulting
Board using a radar-like system he’d come
up with to aid in the war effort, something
that would have been truly revolutionary at
the time…
Except, no.
It is true that the Naval Consulting Board
shot down Tesla’s idea and Edison was seemingly
involved in that decision, being head of the
board.
But this was not because of any spiteful act.
Rather, simply because it was a genius idea…
that was dumb and wouldn’t have worked in
the way Tesla was trying to apply it.
And demonstrated once again Tesla’s propensity
to copy other’s work and his pretty fundamental
misunderstanding of how a lot of the things
he was working on actually worked.
Not too dissimilar to his work on wireless
electricity, or really quite a lot of his
work in general.
Now, before you go to the comments about that
last sentence, wait until you watch the main
Tesla section of this video.
But as for Radar, Tesla was proposing to use
radio waves to track submarines.
The issue was that radio waves and Tesla’s
proposed system wouldn’t have worked for
this given water was their medium.
Thus, the Navy rejected Tesla’s idea and
went with working on an alternate technology
in sonar instead, passive versions of which
had already been in use by humans going all
the way back to Leonardo Da Vinci, with active
echo-location versions leading up to the war
having been used by humans for things like
detecting icebergs and the like.
But around WWI, militaries of the world began
focussing on refining sonar systems for use
in detecting and locating submarines.
We should also briefly point out this story
has given rise to the myth that Tesla invented
radar, but this isn’t correct either.
A couple decades before this, Heinrich Hertz
very famously, and Tesla was well familiar
with this by all appearance, had already done
experiments showing radio waves would reflect
off metal objects when he was exploring the
suggestion which had, in turn, previously
been made by James Clerk Maxwell.
Further, over a decade before Tesla’s suggestion
to use the system in water, Christian Hülsmeyer
had already patented the world’s first functional
radar system, albeit a crude one compared
to what would later be developed.
One newspaper account of a demonstration of
this system, which was used on ships in one
test, even suggested what Tesla later proposed,
"Because, above and under water metal objects
reflect waves, this invention might have significance
for future warfare."
What Tesla and Edison Had to Say About Each
Other
Moving on from there, as for Edison’s thoughts
on Tesla.
About the only thing he ever seems to have
said about the man directly is, according
to Tesla, things like “this is a damned
good man” and “you take the cake!” although
whether he actually said these things isn’t
quite clear as we really only have Tesla’s
word on it, written at a time in his life
he was writing a lot of things with extremely
questionable veracity.
As for the “damned good man” one, this
incident allegedly occurred when Edison found
out Tesla had stayed up all night working
on a project he’d been assigned to and was
told so by Tesla’s manager.
In terms of what Tesla had to say about Edison,
beyond the aforementioned, “this wonderful
man, who had had no theoretical training at
all, no advantages, who did all himself, getting
great results by virtue of his industry and
application” bit of his Edison medal acceptance
speech, Tesla praised Edison in an article
he wrote for the New York Times when Edison
died, stating, “The recurrence of a phenomenon
like [Thomas] Edison is not very likely.
The profound change of conditions and the
ever increasing necessity of theoretical training
would seem to make it impossible.
He will occupy a unique and exalted position
in the history of his native land, which might
well be proud of his great genius and undying
achievements in the interest of humanity.”
And as for Tesla’s criticism of Edison,
about the worst he seems to have ever said
was to take a little jab at Edison’s research
methods.
That said, even here, while it is a small
criticism, it’s also a great compliment
concerning Edison’s work ethic, persistence,
and meticulous way of tackling problems.
Tesla stated, “If he had a needle to find
in a haystack he would not stop to reason
where it was most likely to be, but would
proceed at once, with the feverish diligence
of a bee, to examine straw after straw until
he found the object of his search.”
Tesla would elsewhere expand on this, “[Edison’s]
method was inefficient in the extreme, for
an immense ground had to be covered to get
anything at all unless blind chance intervened
and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness
of his doings, knowing that just a little
theory and calculation would have saved him
90 per cent of the labor.
But he had a veritable contempt for book learning
and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself
entirely to his inventor’s instinct and practical
American sense.
In view of this, the truly prodigious amount
of his actual accomplishments is little short
of a miracle.”
And given Edison himself allegedly, but not
actually, stated, “Genius is one percent
inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration,”
but he also definitely did have the quote
“There is no experient to which a man will
not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking”
over his desk, this assessment of Tesla’s
perhaps checks out, partially.
However, to be fair, if we’re going to go
with a real Edison quote instead of the “1%
inspiration and 99% perspiration” thing
he never actually said (more on this in the
Bonus Facts later), what he did say ws "Genius
is hard work, stick-to-itiveness, and common
sense."
That latter, common sense, is an important
one, and Edison’s, through decades of work
and experience had, over the years, become
decidedly uncommon in the best ways.
Edison may not have had the depth of understanding
of one field that Tesla in his early years
did, outside of perhaps telegraphy.
But Edison’s broad, more shallow, expertise
was incredibly valuable in ability to take
ideas and knowledge from one field and apply
it to another in ways those who were only
experts in that field likely wouldn’t have
thought of.
This advantage was only enhanced by his team,
some of whom were experts in various fields,
and could thus augment Edison’s deficiencies.
In some sense, Edison had the best of both
worlds.
So there was really no miracle at all in the
prodigious amount of accomplishments Edison
and co achieved as alluded to by Tesla.
Teamwork makes the dreamwork.
Referencing this facet of Edison’s work,
with regards to the light bulb, famed British
scientist John Tyndall would comment on Edison
and his teams’ unique abilities in this
way, stating in 1879, “Edison has the penetration
to seize the relationship of facts and principles,
and the art to reduce them to novel and concrete
combinations.
Hence, though he has accomplished nothing
new in relation to the electric light, an
adverse opinion as to his ability to solve
the complicated problem . . . would be unwarranted.
. . . Knowing something of the practical problem,
I should certainly prefer seeing it in Mr.
Edison’s hands to having it in mine.”
Edison further very correctly noted, “I
never did anything worth doing entirely by
accident….
Almost none of my inventions were derived
in that manner.
They were achieved by having trained myself
to be analytical and to endure and tolerate
hard work.”
That said, he did do one thing by accident
that changed the world forever more than any
of his other work, though this is a rare case
where Edison usually isn’t given any credit
because he didn’t understand the implications
of what he’d just discovered and patented.
Someone else working for him did, however,
and his work based on Edison’s discovery
birthed the modern age of technology.
More on this later when discussing Edison’s
life and work.
But going back to Edison’s methods and Tesla’s
mild criticism of it, all of this is an important
point to explicitly highlight because the
way Edison and co were doing research was
relatively revolutionary at the time, and
is far more the way many new discoveries have
happened since.
Putting brilliant and complimentary minds
on a problem, then systematically performing
mass and very meticulous research and experiments
until they came up with a suitable solution.
To Tesla this may have seemed inefficient,
and maybe it was at times in some respects.
But it also more or less industrialized invention
and progress at whatever they put their minds
to.
Allowing them to make advancements vastly
quicker than most, and with a much higher
assuredness of success.
Not relying on anyone’s individual ingenuity
or genius or sudden inspiration, but almost
a production-line approach to invention and
innovation.
This is in some respects how invention has
always worked, with everyone building off
each other’s ideas throughout history.
Edison simply took the broad idea, and put
it in one central lab work place.
And created an efficient system within all
that for his team to tackle any problem.
And, just as importantly, via his eventual
reputation and clout with the media and ability
to intrigue the masses and investors was able
to provide ample funding for any bit of research
they wanted to tackle.
Granted, with this, much like Tesla, Edison
was well known for his pretty egregious self
promotion and broad and fantastically predictions,
just the difference between the two, and why
Edison’s legend endured and Tesla’s did
not, was that Edison and his team occasionally
actually backed up these wild claims with
revolutionary inventions and systems that
the general public was extremely well aware
of and were subsequently using.
And, with Edison as the front man, he, at
least publicly, generally got the credit.
We will dive into how much he deserved or
not when we do a deep dive into Edison’s
fascinating story.
But all that preamble, background, and myth
busting out of the way about the pair’s
relationship, let’s now discuss the two
great men’s real individual stories and
what they got up to and actually did or didn’t
do.
And we begin with Nikola Tesla.
The Real Story of Nikola Tesla
In the mid-19th century, the Austrian Empire,
which stretched for over a thousand miles
(1600 km) from Italy to Ukraine, was a place
of contradictions.
The ruling patriarch, Minister of the Interior
Baron Alexander von Bach, was on the one hand
something of a despot, abolishing public trials,
reducing the freedom of the press and imprisoning
political opponents.
Conversely, his rule also saw the relaxing
of economic laws, the demise of internal custom
duties and peasants freed from their feudal
obligations.
It was during this time, in the small village
of Smiljan, situated within the Empire’s
military frontier (now modern-day Croatia)
that Nikola Tesla was born on July 9th or
10th (with the confusion owing to the time
at around midnight), 1856, the fourth of five
children.
Tesla’s father, Milutin, was a priest, and
the family soon moved to nearby Gospić, where
his parish was located.
From the beginning, Tesla was seemingly a
rather brilliant child, though Tesla claims
his father discouraged scientific academic
pursuit, hoping Tesla would become a priest
himself someday and doggedly stuck to this
point.
Even, according to Tesla, restricting his
study, with Tesla partially attributing this
to the death of his apparently brilliant older
brother Dane, back when Tesla was 5 years
old.
Tesla writes of his brother and this event,
”In the first place I had a brother who
was gifted to an extraordinary degree — one
of those rare phenomena of mentality which
biological investigation has failed to explain.
His premature death left my parents disconsolate.
We owned a horse which had been presented
to us by a dear friend.
It was a magnificent animal of Arabian breed,
possessed of almost human intelligence, and
was cared for and petted by the whole family,
having on one occasion saved my father’s life
under remarkable circumstances…
This horse was responsible for my brother’s
injuries from which he died.
I witnest the tragic scene and altho fifty-six
years have elapsed since, my visual impression
of it has lost none of its force.
The recollection of his attainments made every
effort of mine seem dull in comparison…
Anything I did that was creditable merely
caused my parents to feel their loss more
keenly.
So I grew up with little confidence in myself.
But I was far from being considered a stupid
boy, if I am to judge from an incident of
which I have still a strong remembrance.
One day the Aldermen were passing thru a street
where I was at play with other boys.
The oldest of these venerable gentlemen — a
wealthy citizen — paused to give a silver
piece to each of us.
Coming to me he suddenly stopt and commanded,
"Look in my eyes."
I met his gaze, my hand outstretched to receive
the much valued coin, when, to my dismay,
he said, ‘No, not much, you can get nothing
from me, you are too smart.’”
It was also as a youth that Tesla first became
interested in electricity, noting while petting
his cat on a dry, winter night, “As I stroked
Macak’s back, I saw a miracle that made me
speechless with amazement.
Macak’s back was a sheet of light and my hand
produced a shower of sparks loud enough to
be heard all over the house.”
His father then told him, "Well, this is nothing
but electricity, the same thing you see through
the trees in a storm."
Tesla’s reply was allegedly, “Is nature
a gigantic cat?
If so, who strokes its back?
It can only be God.”
Another core facet of Tesla’s personality
deriving from his youth that is important
to point out was his obsession with working
hard and efficiency and a complete disregard
for sleep as far as humanly possible.
This work ethic he attributed to his mother,
noting of her, “She worked regularly from
four o’clock in the morning till eleven in
the evening.
From four to breakfast time-six am- while
others slumbered, I never closed my eyes but
watched my mother with intense pleasure as
she attended quickly-sometimes running-to
her many self-imposed duties.
She directed the servants to take care of
all our domestic animals, she milked the cows,
she performed all sorts of labor unassisted,
set the table, prepared breakfast for the
whole household.
Only when it was ready to be served did the
rest of the family get up.
After breakfast everybody followed my mother’s
inspiring example.
All did their work diligently, liked it, and
so achieved a measure of contentment.”
Tesla also credits his mother for elements
of his mental prowess, noting, “I must trace
to my mother’s influence whatever inventiveness
I possess, the training she gave me must have
been helpful.
It comprised all sorts of exercises — as
guessing one another’s thoughts, discovering
the defects of some form or expression, repeating
long sentences or performing mental calculations.
These daily lessons were intended to strengthen
memory and reason and especially to develop
the critical sense, and were undoubtedly very
beneficial.”
Going back to his mother’s own brilliance,
he states, “My mother was an inventor of
the first order and would, I believe, have
achieved great things had she not been so
remote from modern life and its multifold
opportunities.
She invented and constructed all kinds of
tools and devices and wove the finest designs
from thread which was spun by her.
She even planted the seeds, raised the plants
and separated the fibers herself.
She worked indefatigably, from break of day
till late at night, and most of the wearing
apparel and furnishings of the home was the
product of her hands.
When she was past sixty, her fingers were
still nimble enough to tie three knots in
an eyelash.”
Tesla’s Visions
Now, it’s at this point we should probably
discuss Tesla’s visions, which started in
his youth…
He states, “In my boyhood I suffered from
a peculiar affliction due to the appearance
of images, often accompanied by strong flashes
of light, which marred the sight of real objects
and interfered with my thought and action.
They were pictures of things and scenes which
I had really seen, never of those I imagined.
When a word was spoken to me the image of
the object it designated would present itself
vividly to my vision and sometimes I was quite
unable to distinguish whether what I saw was
tangible or not.
This caused me great discomfort and anxiety.
None of the students of psychology or physiology
whom I have consulted could ever explain satisfactorily
these phenomena.
They seem to have been unique altho I was
probably predisposed as I know that my brother
experienced a similar trouble.
The theory I have formulated is that the images
were the result of a reflex action from the
brain on the retina under great excitation.
They certainly were not hallucinations such
as are produced in diseased and anguished
minds, for in other respects I was normal
and composed.
To give an idea of my distress, suppose that
I had witnest a funeral or some such nerve-racking
spectacle.
Then, inevitably, in the stillness of night,
a vivid picture of the scene would thrust
itself before my eyes and persist despite
all my efforts to banish it.
Sometimes it would even remain fixt in space
tho I pushed my hand thru it.
If my explanation is correct, it should be
able to project on a screen the image of any
object one conceives and make it visible.
Such an advance would revolutionize all human
relations.
I am convinced that this wonder can and will
be accomplished in time to come; I may add
that I have devoted much thought to the solution
of the problem.”
On this latter point, he is hypothesizing
that images in the mind are literally present
in the retina of the eye as you think them,
and in his case seemingly simply representing
more strongly, perhaps because of his more
advanced intellect.
And as for his work on this, later in life
he apparently attempted to create a device
to read human thought through the eyes and
then project it on a screen.
In any event, he goes on, “To free myself
of these tormenting appearances, I tried to
concentrate my mind on something else I had
seen, and in this way I would often obtain
temporary relief; but in order to get it I
had to conjure continuously new images.
It was not long before I found that I had
exhausted all of those at my command; my "reel"
had run out, as it were, because I had seen
little of the world — only objects in my
home and the immediate surroundings.
As I performed these mental operations for
the second or third time, in order to chase
the appearances from my vision, the remedy
gradually lost all its force.
Then I instinctively commenced to make excursions
beyond the limits of the small world of which
I had knowledge, and I saw new scenes.
These were at first very blurred and indistinct,
and would flit away when I tried to concentrate
my attention upon them, but by and by I succeeded
in fixing them; they gained in strength and
distinctness and finally assumed the concreteness
of real things.
I soon discovered that my best comfort was
attained if I simply went on in my vision
farther and farther, getting new impressions
all the time, and so I began to travel — of
course, in my mind.
Every night (and sometimes during the day),
when alone, I would start on my journeys — see
new places, cities and countries — live
there, meet people and make friendships and
acquaintances and, however unbelievable, it
is a fact that they were just as dear to me
as those in actual life and not a bit less
intense in their manifestations.”
He would further state this ability was key
for his scientific advancement as it allowed
him to picture new devices extremely vividly
in his mind, as well as create, and test them
until they worked, thus ensuring whatever
he made would work the first time exactly
as it had in his head…
“I needed no models, drawings or experiments.
I could picture them all as real in my mind.
Thus I have been led unconsciously to evolve
what I consider a new method of materializing
inventive concepts and ideas, which is radically
opposite to the purely experimental and is
in my opinion ever so much more expeditious
and efficient.
The moment one constructs a device to carry
into practise a crude idea he finds himself
unavoidably engrost with the details and defects
of the apparatus.
As he goes on improving and reconstructing,
his force of concentration diminishes and
he loses sight of the great underlying principle.
Results may be obtained but always at the
sacrifice of quality.
My method is different.
I do not rush into actual work.
When I get an idea I start at once building
it up in my imagination.
I change the construction, make improvements
and operate the device in my mind.
It is absolutely immaterial to me whether
I run my turbine in thought or test it in
my shop.
I even note if it is out of balance.
There is no difference whatever, the results
are the same.
In this way I am able to rapidly develop and
perfect a conception without touching anything.
When I have gone so far as to embody in the
invention every possible improvement I can
think of and see no fault anywhere, I put
into concrete form this final product of my
brain.
Invariably my device works as I conceived
that it should, and the experiment comes out
exactly as I planned it.
In twenty years there has not been a single
exception.
Why should it be otherwise?”
This all is particularly noteworthy to explicitly
point out when discussing the fact that later
in life Tesla frequently claimed to invent
things and have working models that he simply
did not.
And, in fact, could not have worked the way
he described or even sometimes at all even
if done a different way.
Thus, it’s been conjectured that he may
not actually have been making it up, at least
as far as he was concerned.
He may have simply invented and got the device
to work in his head.
And, thus, assumed it would work in reality,
even though for the last few decades of his
life he was not only, again, seemingly a slice
of cheddar short of a cheese sandwich for
a portion of that, but also operating on a
pretty fundamental misunderstanding of certain
facets of science, more based in late 19th
century ideas, than advancements made since,
many of which he largely rejected, occasionally
in part precisely because some principal contradicted
things he’d supposedly invented and got
working….
But because of his confidence in his ability
to run experiments and invent things in his
head, it perhaps explains why he may have
felt the devices later in life he claimed
to have invented would have worked, even though
they simply wouldn’t have in the real world.
You might at this point wonder what caused
Tesla’s visions, which, as noted, were not
just confined to imagining inventions, but
if you read through his autobiography could
get pretty, shall we say, interesting, to
put it kindly.
Well, even physicians today aren’t sure,
though it’s been conjectured by some, particularly
as some of his more noteworthy often accompanied
times of extreme exhaustion and complete mental
breakdowns by Tesla, that they may have been
the result of extreme sleep deprivation.
You see, Tesla claimed for much of his life
he only slept a couple hours per night.
If this is accurate, then such hallucinations
very well could have been triggered by such,
and this may also have strongly contributed
to his mental decline as he aged.
Of course, it’s also been suggested that
Tesla may simply not have been aware of how
much he was actually sleeping.
As there are accounts from hotel employees
who looked after his room that they regularly
found him just standing or sitting there in
silence, seemingly in some sort of trance
and fully oblivious of anything in his surroundings,
including their presence as they went about
their duties.
Thus, some hypothesize that during this time,
he may have been misinterpreting this half-asleep
like daze and the dreams they produced as
vivid waking visions, when he was, in fact,
just completely exhausted and partially, or
fully asleep and dreaming.
Or perhaps it was all a quirk of his brain
to go into these types of trances and have
such visions during them.
Whatever the case, regardless of how much
he was actually sleeping compared to what
he claimed, his issues with sleep and work
routine were already manifesting at a young
age, with his professors at university writing
his father and warning the young man was headed
for an early grave.
On this, he states, “during the whole first
year I regularly started my work at three
o’clock in the morning and continued until
eleven at night, no Sundays or holidays excepted.
As most of my fellow -students took thinks
easily, naturally enough I eclipsed all records.
In the course of that year I past thru nine
exams and the professors thought I deserved
more than the highest qualifications.
Armed with their flattering certificates,
I went home for a short rest, expecting a
triumph, and was mortified when my father
made light of these hard won honors.
That almost killed my ambition; but later,
after he had died, I was pained to find a
package of letters which the professors had
written him to the effect that unless he took
me away from the Institution I would be killed
thru overwork.”
And speaking of his academic quirks at this
time, he states, “I had a veritable mania
for finishing whatever I began, which often
got me into difficulties.
On one occasion I started to read the works
of Voltaire when I learned, to my dismay,
that there were close on one hundred large
volumes in small print which that monster
had written while drinking seventy-two cups
of black coffee per diem.
It had to be done, but when I laid aside the
last book I was very glad, and said, ‘Never
more!’”
King of the Castle, A Master of His Domain
Going back to his father allegedly not wanting
him to pursue academia, he states, “My father
had a large library and whenever I could manage
I tried to satisfy my passion for reading.
He did not permit it and would fly into a
rage when he caught me in the act.
He hid the candles when he found that I was
reading in secret.
He did not want me to spoil my eyes.
But I obtained tallow, made the wicking and
cast the sticks into tin forms, and every
night I would bush the keyhole and the cracks
and read, often till dawn, when all others
slept and my mother started on her arduous
daily task.”
It was during this reading that he claims
he began to become a master of himself and
his impulses, noting, “On one occasion I
came across a novel entitled ‘Abafi’ (the
Son of Aba), a Serbian translation of a well
known Hungarian writer, Josika.
This work somehow awakened my dormant powers
of will and I began to practise self-control.
At first my resolutions faded like snow in
April, but in a little while I conquered my
weakness and felt a pleasure I never knew
before — that of doing as I willed.
In the course of time this vigorous mental
exercise became second nature.
At the outset my wishes had to be subdued
but gradually desire and will grew to be identical.
After years of such discipline I gained so
complete a mastery over myself that I toyed
with passions which have meant destruction
to some of the strongest men.
At a certain age I contracted a mania for
gambling which greatly worried my parents.
To sit down to a game of cards was for me
the quintessence of pleasure.
My father led an exemplary life and could
not excuse the senseless waste of time and
money in which I indulged.
I had a strong resolve but my philosophy was
bad.
I would say to him, ‘I can stop whenever
I please but is it worth while to give up
that which I would purchase with the joys
of Paradise?’
On frequent occasions he gave vent to his
anger and contempt but my mother was different.
She understood the character of men and knew
that one’s salvation could only be brought
about thru his own efforts.
One afternoon, I remember, when I had lost
all my money and was craving for a game, she
came to me with a roll of bills and said,
‘Go and enjoy yourself.
The sooner you lose all we possess the better
it will be.
I know that you will get over it.’
She was right.
I conquered my passion then and there and
only regretted that it had not been a hundred
times as strong.
I not only vanquished but tore it from my
heart so as not to leave even a trace of desire.
Ever since that time I have been as indifferent
to any form of gambling as to picking teeth.
During another period I smoked excessively,
threatening to ruin my health.
Then my will asserted itself and I not only
stopt but destroyed all inclination.
Long ago I suffered from heart trouble until
I discovered that it was due to the innocent
cup of coffee I consumed every morning.
I discontinued at once, tho I confess it was
not an easy task.
In this way I checked and bridled other habits
and passions and have not only preserved my
life but derived an immense amount of satisfaction
from what most men would consider privation
and sacrifice.”
Beyond overcoming such impulses, he also notes
he was lucky to make it to adulthood.
Stating he was “rendered by illness a hopeless
physical wreck and given up by physicians.
More than this, thru ignorance and lightheartedness,
I got into all sorts of difficulties, dangers
and scrapes from which I extricated myself
as by enchantment.
I was almost drowned a dozen times; was nearly
boiled alive and just mist being cremated.
I was entombed, lost and frozen.
I had hair-breadth escapes from mad dogs,
hogs, and other wild animals.
I past thru dreadful diseases and met with
all kinds of odd mishaps and that I am hale
and hearty today seems like a miracle.
But as I recall these incidents to my mind
I feel convinced that my preservation was
not altogether accidental.”
He elaborates, “An inventor’s endeavor is
essentially lifesaving.
Whether he harnesses forces, improves devices,
or provides new comforts and conveniences,
he is adding to the safety of our existence.
He is also better qualified than the average
individual to protect himself in peril, for
he is observant and resourceful.
If I had no other evidence that I was, in
a measure, possest of such qualities I would
find it in these personal experiences.”
Not just a genius, able to construct devices
in his head that would always work perfectly,
able to survive fantastical scenarios thanks
to his intellect, and in complete control
of all his impulses, he also states he was
incredible with a bow and arrow and sling.
Noting, “My arrows, when shot, disappeared
from sight and at close range traversed a
plank of pine one inch thick.
Thru the continuous tightening of the bows
I developed skin on my stomach very much like
that of a crocodile and I am often wondering
whether it is due to this exercise that I
am able even now to digest cobble-stones!
Nor can I pass in silence my performances
with the sling which would have enabled me
to give a stunning exhibit at the Hippodrome.
And now I will tell of one of my feats with
this antique implement of war which will strain
to the utmost the credulity of the reader.
I was practicing while walking with my uncle
along the river.
The sun was setting, the trout were playful
and from time to time one would shoot up into
the air, its glistening body sharply defined
against a projecting rock beyond.
Of course any boy might have hit a fish under
these propitious conditions but I undertook
a much more difficult task and I foretold
to my uncle, to the minutest detail, what
I intended doing.
I was to hurl a stone to meet the fish, press
its body against the rock, and cut it in two.
It was no sooner said than done.
My uncle looked at me almost scared out of
his wits and exclaimed "Vade retro Satanas!"
and it was a few days before he spoke to me
again.”
As for his physical prowess, he states even
into older age, “A short time ago I was
returning to my hotel.
It was a bitter cold night, the ground slippery,
and no taxi to be had.
Half a block behind me followed another man,
evidently as anxious as myself to get under
cover.
Suddenly my legs went up in the air.
In the same instant there was a flash in my
brain, the nerves responded, the muscles contracted,
I swung thru 180 degrees and landed on my
hands.
I resumed my walk as tho nothing had happened
when the stranger caught up with me.
"How old are you?" he asked, surveying me
critically.
"Oh, about fifty-nine," I replied.
"What of it?"
"Well," said he, "I have seen a cat do this
but never a man."
About a month since I wanted to order new
eyeglasses and went to an oculist who put
me thru the usual tests.
He lookt at me incredulously as I read off
with ease the smallest print at considerable
distance.
But when I told him that I was past sixty
he gasped in astonishment.
Friends of mine often remark that my suits
fit me like gloves but they do not know that
all my clothing is made to measurements which
were taken nearly 35 years ago and never changed.
During this same period my weight has not
varied one pound.”
And as for his overall opinion of himself,
he sums up, “We are all meat machines and
it happens that I am a much more sensitive
machine than other people and I receive impressions
to which they are inert, and I can both understand
and interpret these impressions.
I am simply a finer automaton than others.”
A Turning Point
Going back to his academics, his father’s
stance on all this changed markedly thanks
to Tesla nearly dying of cholera.
He states, “I contracted the awful disease
on the very day of my arrival and altho surviving
the crisis, I was confined to bed for nine
months with scarcely any ability to move.
My energy was completely exhausted and for
the second time I found myself at death’s
door.
In one of the sinking spells which was thought
to be the last, my father rushed into the
room.
I still see his pallid face as he tried to
cheer me in tones belying his assurance.
‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘I may get well if
you will let me study engineering.’
‘You will go to the best technical institution
in the world,’ he solemnly replied, and
I knew that he meant it…
I came to life like another Lazarus to the
utter amazement of everybody.”
Following his miraculous recovery, allegedly
a pacifist, he went into hiding among the
mountains in order to escape conscription
into the Empire’s military.
Then, in 1875, Nikola enrolled at the Imperial-Royal
Technical College in Graz, where he did very
well initially.
However, by his third year, for reasons that
are still debated, he was struggling, and
he left without graduating, leaving behind
a rumour that he’d drowned in the Mur River.
What he actually did was cross the border
into Slovenia without telling anyone, not
even his family it appears, and took a job
as a draftsman.
However, ultimately Tesla was deported from
Slovenia for failing to get a residence permit,
and he thus returned home just in time to
see his father die a month later at the age
of 60 in 1879.
Tesla brushes over this period in his life
in his autobiography, simply vaguely alluding
to the fact that he “realized that my parents
had been making too great sacrifices on my
account and resolved to relieve them of the
burden” by leaving school.
Two years after this, Tesla began working
for a man named Tivadar Puskás at The Budapest
Telephone Exchange in Hungary.
Impressing his superiors, they soon promoted
him to the position of chief engineer, where
the young scientist made several improvements
to their equipment.
There are a few noteworthy things about his
time in Budapest that are significant to point
out as to how they affected his life and work
beyond..
First, he suffered from an occurrence of one
of his many mental breakdowns, presumably
owing to extreme exhaustion.
To give a taste of what these episodes were
like for him, he states “It was here that
I suffered the complete breakdown of the nerves
to which I have referred.
What I experienced during the period of that
illness surpasses all belief.
My sight and hearing were always extraordinary.
I could clearly discern objects in the distance
when others saw no trace of them.
Several times in my boyhood I saved the houses
of our neighbors from fire by hearing the
faint crackling sounds which did not disturb
their sleep, and calling for help.
In 1899, when I was past forty and carrying
on my experiments in Colorado, I could hear
very distinctly thunderclaps at a distance
of 550 miles.
The limit of audition for my young assistants
was scarcely more than 150 miles.
My ear was thus over thirteen times more sensitive.
Yet at that time I was, so to speak, stone
deaf in comparison with the acuteness of my
hearing while under the nervous strain.
In Budapest I could hear the ticking of a
watch with three rooms between me and the
time-piece.
A fly alighting on a table in the room would
cause a dull thud in my ear.
A carriage passing at a distance of a few
miles fairly shook my whole body.
The whistle of a locomotive twenty or thirty
miles away made the bench or chair on which
I sat vibrate so strongly that the pain was
unbearable.
The ground under my feet trembled continuously.
I had to support my bed on rubber cushions
to get any rest at all.
The roaring noises from near and far often
produced the effect of spoken words which
would have frightened me had I not been able
to resolve them into their accidental components.
The sun’s rays, when periodically intercepted,
would cause blows of such force on my brain
that they would stun me.
I had to summon all my will power to pass
under a bridge or other structure as I experienced
a crushing pressure on the skull.
In the dark I had the sense of a bat and could
detect the presence of an object at a distance
of twelve feet by a peculiar creepy sensation
on the forehead.
My pulse varied from a few to two hundred
and sixty beats and all the tissues of the
body quivered with twitchings and tremors
which was perhaps the hardest to bear.
A renowned physician who gave me daily large
doses of Bromide of Potassium pronounced my
malady unique and incurable.
I clung desperately to life, but never expected
to recover.
Can anyone believe that so hopeless a physical
wreck could ever be transformed into a man
of astonishing strength and tenacity, able
to work thirty-eight years almost without
a day’s interruption, and find himself still
strong and fresh in body and mind?
Such is my case.
A powerful desire to live and to continue
the work, and the assistance of a devoted
friend and athlete accomplished the wonder.
My health returned and with it the vigor of
mind.”
Another important thing to point out here
is that in Budapest at this time the world’s
first AC transformers were created in the
late 1870s, not long before Tesla’s arrival
there.
While Tesla himself never seems to have made
mention of studying these, given his work
at the time and interests then, as well as
later in life, it’s generally thought he
likely did observe these and became familiar
with how they worked.
Speaking of AC power, it was also at this
point, in 1881, that Tesla claims he had a
vision and suddenly saw how to create his
later famed AC induction motor.
He elaborates,
“I was enjoying a walk with my friend in
the City Park and reciting poetry.
At that age I knew entire books by heart,
word for word.
One of these was Goethe’s "Faust."
The sun was just setting and reminded me of
the glorious passage…
As I uttered these inspiring words the idea
came like a flash of lightning and in an instant
the truth was revealed.
I drew with a stick on the sand the diagrams
shown six years later in my address before
the American Institute of Electrical Engineers,
and my companion understood them perfectly.
The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and
clear and had the solidity of metal and stone,
so much so that I told him: "See my motor
here; watch me reverse it."…”
He goes on, “The pieces of apparatus I conceived
were to me absolutely real and tangible in
every detail, even to the minute marks and
signs of wear.
I delighted in imagining the motors constantly
running, for in this way they presented to
mind’s eye a more fascinating sight.
When natural inclination develops into a passionate
desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league
boots.
In less than two months I evolved virtually
all the types of motors and modifications
of the system which are now identified with
my name.”
And that, while it would take him several
years to actually make the motor, “The motors
I built there were exactly as I imagined them.
I made no attempt to improve the design, but
merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared
to my vision, and the operation was always
as I expected.”
We should at this point point out that it’s
only Tesla’s word that any of this actually
occurred, and if he truly had invented such
a thing at that point, and knowing the work
on AC power that was presently being done
in Budapest, it seems odd he didn’t at least
patent it at this point or pursue it in any
way other than in his head.
Normally we’d not be so skeptical, but as
you’ll soon see as a running theme with
Tesla and his work, given so many people were
working on the same things at the same time,
including his most famous invention of the
AC Induction Motor as previously noted, Tesla
had a propensity to claim publicly when he’d
come out with his own version of something
that he’d already done or thought up whatever
thing years before and only now was getting
around to telling the world about it, thus
making it appear he was the true inventor,
even if someone else beat him to the punch
on a working device.
But the thing is, he never once provided any
evidence backing up a single one of these
claims we could find.
We just have his word he did…
But going back to his day job, in 1882, his
boss at the telephone exchange ultimately
recommended Tesla for another job, this time
in Paris, working for none other than the
Continental Edison Company, installing indoor
electric lighting across the city.
Once again, Tesla impressed his employers
by improving designs, and he began to be sent
on troubleshooting missions to other Edison
utilities.
Next came a big step for the young engineer.
Tesla’s overseer, Charles Batchelor, one
of Edison’s chief lieutenants so to speak,
was recalled to New York City, and decided
to invite Tesla to also make the trip at some
point if he so chose.
Of this journey and decision in it, Tesla
would write of yet another place he was allegedly
promised a large bonus that went unpaid, “One
of the administrators had promised me a liberal
compensation in case I succeeded, as well
as a fair consideration of the improvements
I had made in their dynamos and I hoped to
realize a substantial sum.
There were three administrators whom I shall
designate as A, B and C for convenience.
When I called on A he told me that B had the
say.
This gentleman thought that only C could decide
and the latter was quite sure that A alone
had the power to act.
After several laps of this circulus vivios
it dawned upon me that my reward was a castle
in Spain.
The utter failure of my attempts to raise
capital for development was another disappointment
and when Mr. Batchellor prest me to go to
America with a view of redesigning the Edison
machines, I determined to try my fortunes
in the Land of Golden Promise.
But the chance was nearly mist.
I liquefied my modest assets, secured accommodations
and found myself at the railroad station as
the train was pulling out.
At that moment I discovered that my money
and tickets were gone.
What to do was the question.
Hercules had plenty of time to deliberate
but I had to decide while running alongside
the train with opposite feelings surging in
my brain like condenser oscillations.
Resolve, helped by dexterity, won out in the
nick of time and upon passing thru the usual
experiences, as trivial as unpleasant, I managed
to embark for New York with the remnants of
my belongings, some poems and articles I had
written, and a package of calculations relating
to solutions of an unsolvable integral and
to my flying machine.
During the voyage I sat most of the time at
the stern of the ship watching for an opportunity
to save somebody from a watery grave, without
the slightest thought of danger.
Later when I had absorbed some of the practical
American sense I shivered at the recollection
and marvelled at my former folly.”
Upon his arrival in America, he was decidedly
unimpressed, noting he thought, "Is this America?
… It is a century behind Europe in civilization."
That said, five years later, he switched completely,
noting, “I became convinced that it was
more than one hundred years AHEAD of Europe
and nothing has happened to this day to change
my opinion.”
But going back to shortly after his arrival
in the U.S., he almost immediately began working
at Edison’s Machine Works and got to meet
the man himself, stating “The meeting with
Edison was a memorable event in my life.
I was amazed at this wonderful man who, without
early advantages and scientific training,
had accomplished so much.
I had studied a dozen languages, delved in
literature and art, and had spent my best
years in libraries reading all sorts of stuff
that fell into my hands, from Newton’s ‘Principia’
to the novels of Paul de Kock, and felt that
most of my life had been squandered.
But it did not take long before I recognized
that it was the best thing I could have done.
Within a few weeks I had won Edison’s confidence
and it came about in this way.”
He then goes on to recount the story of the
S.S.
Oregon as previously described.
He also states here, “At five o’clock in
the morning, when passing along Fifth Avenue
on my way to the shop, I met Edison with Batchellor
and a few others as they were returning home
to retire.
‘Here is our Parisian running around at
night,’ he said.
When I told him that I was coming from the
Oregon and had repaired both machines, he
looked at me in silence and walked away without
another word.
But when he had gone some distance I heard
him remark: ‘Batchellor, this is a damn
good man,’ and from that time on I had full
freedom in directing the work.”
He also claims Edison would later state, "I
have had many hard-working assistants but
you take the cake."
Of course, as covered, this employ was not
to last terribly long, approximately a mere
six months, after which he did his arc lighting
and ditch digging thing, and officially gave
the world his AC Induction Motor.
Tesla Coil
Fastforwarding to after Tesla’s AC patents
had made him a relatively wealthy man, this
gave him the opportunity to pursue further
inventions of his own.
Working from various spaces in Manhattan,
over the next few years Tesla worked on a
number of fascinating projects such as the
now-famous Tesla Coil.
In a nutshell, this is a device that produces
high-voltage, high-frequency, low-current
AC electricity and, among other things and
most noteworthy for our story today and how
Tesla utilized it to wow audiences, can cause
arcs of electricity through the air in quite
dazzling displays, as well as cause fluorescent
bulbs close enough to light up without being
connected to anything.
That said, despite today often being touted
as revolutionary, the Tesla Coil was actually
just evolutionary, as with pretty much all
inventions ever created by man.
For example, among other things, the Tesla
coil was building off the Ruhmkorff coil invented
almost a half century before Tesla got around
to his advancement.
And even the Ruhmkorff coil wasn’t wholly
original, building off others’ work.
In particular the likes of Charles Grafton
Page and Nicholas Callan who independently
invented the induction coil back in 1836,
and then improved upon by others.
On top of that, while Tesla was doing his
thing on the Tesla Coil, patenting it in 1891,
others were doing experiments with very similar
devices, even none other than Elihu Thomson
who co-founded General Electric with Thomas
Edison, as well as co-founded the aforementioned
Thomson-Houston company that was Westinghouse’s
chief competitor in the AC power transmission
front during the war of the currents.
This is not to knock Tesla’s work so much
as to just explicitly point out once again
that nobody comes up with things on their
own.
And generally multiple people come up with
something similar all around the same time.
Which is an incredibly important point when
talking about Edison and Tesla and their respective
contributions to the world.
Magnifying Transmitter
Moving on from the Tesla Coil, we should probably
mention Tesla allegedly created an adaptation
of this in his Magnifying Transmitter which
could, among other things, allegedly light
a field of fluorescent bulbs anywhere in the
world if properly tuned…
Of this invention, Tesla would write, “I
feel certain that of all my inventions, the
Magnifying Transmitter will prove most important
and valuable to future generations.”
As to how it worked, this is something of
a mystery and you’ll find no shortage of
varied explanations online about it.
But if you thought “It didn’t”, you’re
probably right.
But for those that purported it did, it allegedly
worked by creating standing waves of energy
in the Earth, which then could be picked up
elsewhere or used by devices tuned or designed
to resonate with the right frequency.
Of course, there are many other explanations
to what this could do and how it worked, and
Tesla’s own accounts muddy the waters quite
a bit there, including even referencing the
use of x-rays at one point.
But whatever the case as he, and many Tesla
enthusiasts, often cite this as his greatest
invention, we thought we should at least mention
it.
X-Rays
Speaking of x-rays, something he did actually
create was his Shadograph, which was essentially
one of the early examples of an x-ray image.
Tesla claims he invented this before anyone
else, though allegedly lost evidence of it
in his lab fire…
After Wilhelm Rontgen published his own use
of x-ray film technology in 1895, Tesla would
shortly thereafter come out with his own and
did obtain some of the early images of the
human body utilizing x-rays with remarkable
quality compared to what others were doing
at the time.
But, in the end, while it’s always possible
he was the first, surviving evidence more
just has Tesla as a pioneer in the use of
x-ray technology, rather than the inventor,
contrary to many internet rumors.
Neon Lamp
As for some other interesting work he did
during this time, Tesla also is often credited
with inventing the neon lamp, allegedly demonstrating
this at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
However, This isn’t actually correct owing
to the tiny fact that neon wasn’t discovered
until 5 years later in 1898.
The real first neon lamp was made by George
Claude and presented at the Paris Motor Show
in 1910.
What Tesla did do was make some improvements
on fluorescent lighting over the course of
his work on wirelessly lighting up such bulbs.
Key here for the typical idea of a neon lamp
most of us have, is that in all this he also
created fluorescent light signs via bent tubes.
However, also important to note was that such
lights Tesla demonstrated in 1893 were not
only not neon, but not commercially viable
at the time either.
Earthquake Machine
Yet another device Tesla supposedly invented
was a so-called “Earthquake machine” based
on his Tesla Oscillator.
A relatively small device that, according
to a 79 year old Tesla, tuned correctly could
tap into the resonant frequencies of the makeup
of buildings and topple them with fairly little
energy needed.
For example, Tesla claimed he’d previously
used this device once at his 46 East Houston
Street lab.
This resulted in the police being called when
he shook the building and neighboring buildings
relatively violently.
As for the Empire State Building, he claimed
his small, 7 inch, 2 lb steam powered oscillator
that, to quote him, “you could put in your
overcoat pocket”, could take down this building
with a mere 5 pounds of air pressure.
He also noted the oscillator could be used
to vibrate the ground as well and thus facilitate
communication over any distance one wanted
via these vibrations.
Another good use he proposed was to use it
to help locate various minerals under the
earth.
There was a danger, however, as he claimed
that it was entirely possible to use the device
to, to quote the man himself, “split the
earth like an apple,” At this same event,
because of all these amazing uses, he claimed
that he expected within 2 years the device
would earn him somewhere in the ballpark of
$100 million…
As ever with so many of his claims, no evidence
was offered to back up any of it.
It is technically possible to make such a
device that could shake a building to an extent
in some cases, but not to demolish it and,
as you might expect, many are skeptical this
shaking of the building story ever happened.
Making Students Bright
Moving on from there, Tesla also explored
using AC current to help stimulate intelligence
in students “by saturating them unconsciously
with electricity”.
He elaborated on all this in Popular Electricity
Magazine in 1912, noting he would wire the
walls of a classroom “saturating [the schoolroom]
with infinitesimal electric waves vibrating
at high frequency.
The whole room will thus, Mr. Tesla claims,
be converted into a health-giving and stimulating
electromagnetic field or ‘bath.’”
In the end, his hypothesis was that his device
would stimulate the student’s brains and
make them smarter somehow.
Leveraging his famous name, he managed to
get the superintendent of schools in New York,
William H. Maxwell, to agree to allow him
to conduct such an experiment on a classroom
of unsuspecting students.
However, for whatever reason, Tesla never
actually did this.
Probably for the best…
Solving the Enigma of Death
Some other of his life’s work, for a time
at least, also included, to quote him “solving
the enigma of death” though he eventually
abandoned this work after a rather strange
experience during one of his mental breakdowns.
He states,
“Ever since I was told by some of the greatest
men of the time, leaders in science whose
names are immortal, that I am possesst of
an unusual mind, I bent all my thinking faculties
on the solution of great problems regardless
of sacrifice.
For many years I endeavored to solve the enigma
of death, and watched eagerly for every kind
of spiritual indication.
But only once in the course of my existence
have I had an experience which momentarily
impressed me as supernatural.
It was at the time of my mother’s death.
I had become completely exhausted by pain
and long vigilance, and one night was carried
to a building about two blocks from our home.
As I lay helpless there, I thought that if
my mother died while I was away from her bedside
she would surely give me a sign.
Two or three months before I was in London
in company with my late friend, Sir William
Crookes, when spiritualism was discussed,
and I was under the full sway of these thoughts.
I might not have paid attention to other men,
but was susceptible to his arguments as it
was his epochal work on radiant matter, which
I had read as a student, that made me embrace
the electrical career.
I reflected that the conditions for a look
into the beyond were most favorable, for my
mother was a woman of genius and particularly
excelling in the powers of intuition.
During the whole night every fiber in my brain
was strained in expectancy, but nothing happened
until early in the morning, when I fell in
a sleep, or perhaps a swoon, and saw a cloud
carrying angelic figures of marvelous beauty,
one of whom gazed upon me lovingly and gradually
assumed the features of my mother.
The appearance slowly floated across the room
and vanished, and I was awakened by an indescribably
sweet song of many voices.
In that instant a certitude, which no words
can express, came upon me that my mother had
just died.
And that was true.
I was unable to understand the tremendous
weight of the painful knowledge I received
in advance, and wrote a letter to Sir William
Crookes while still under the domination of
these impressions and in poor bodily health.
When I recovered I sought for a long time
the external cause of this strange manifestation
and, to my great relief, I succeeded after
many months of fruitless effort.
I had seen the painting of a celebrated artist,
representing allegorically one of the seasons
in the form of a cloud with a group of angels
which seemed to actually float in the air,
and this had struck me forcefully.
It was exactly the same that appeared in my
dream, with the exception of my mother’s likeness.
The music came from the choir in the church
nearby at the early mass of Easter morning,
explaining everything satisfactorily in conformity
with scientific facts.
This occurred long ago, and I have never had
the faintest reason since to change my views
on psychical and spiritual phenomena, for
which there is absolutely no foundation.
The belief in these is the natural outgrowth
of intellectual development.
Religious dogmas are no longer accepted in
their orthodox meaning, but every individual
clings to faith in a supreme power of some
kind.
We all must have an ideal to govern our conduct
and insure contentment, but it is immaterial
whether it be one of creed, art, science or
anything else, so long as it fulfills the
function of a dematerializing force.
It is essential to the peaceful existence
of humanity as a whole that one common conception
should prevail.”
The Thought Camera
In any event, going back to his inventions,
another of his slightly out there inventions
was the aforementioned thought camera, which
Tesla claims he first experimented with in
1893.
Later in life he would elaborate, “I became
convinced that a definite image formed in
thought must, by reflex action, produce a
corresponding image on the retina, which might
possibly be read by suitable apparatus…
If this can be done successfully, then the
objects imagined by a person would be clearly
reflected on the screen as they are formed.
and in this way every thought of the individual
could be read.
Our minds would then, indeed, be like open
books.”
The Ozone Device
Yet another slightly oddball thing Tesla attempted
to make and market was via his 1900 Tesla
Ozone Company, which sold a device that could
be used to pass ozone through oils, which
could then be sold for therapeutic purposes.
He also tried to market a version of this
device to be used to sanitize hospital rooms,
though neither of these things went anywhere.
Tesla’s Rising and Falling Fame
We’ll get into more of his inventions in
a bit, but shortly after Tesla’s rise in
prominence thanks to his AC Induction Motor
and related patents, he went on a sold out
lecture tour from New York to London and Paris,
putting on a show that wowed his audiences
and the media, primarily with his Tesla Coil.
Anyone who’s seen a Tesla Coil in action,
not just for its abilities at shooting electricity
through the air, but illuminating certain
types of bulbs wirelessly and a variety of
other things like this, can imagine how not
only is it incredible to see and hear even
to modern eyes, but to a late 19th century
audience, this must have seemed pure magic.
On this and his initial work on wireless lighting,
he states, “If my memory serves me right,
it was in November, 1890, that I performed
a laboratory experiment which was one of the
most extraordinary and spectacular ever recorded
in the annals of science.
In investigating the behaviour of high frequency
currents I had satisfied myself that an electric
field of sufficient intensity could be produced
in a room to light up electrodeless vacuum
tubes.
Accordingly, a transformer was built to test
the theory and the first trial proved a marvelous
success.”
As alluded to, Tesla would spend quite a lot
of time and investor money pursuing this form
of wireless lighting, but never managed to
come up with anything commercially viable.
Going back to his demonstrations and articles
in the papers where he discussed his work
here, while the masses were extremely impressed
and some in the industry intrigued, not everyone
was so enthusiastic, as reported in the English
Journal Industries, “We think, however,
that anyone who has read many of Mr. Tesla’s
articles must have difficulty in understanding
the frequent vague and idiomatic statements
with which they abound.
We do not think it too much to ask an electrician
occupying such a prominent position as Mr.
Tesla has gained for himself in America to
omit passages that may detract from his reputation,
and to allow us to admire him even more.
If Mr. Tesla could keep phantom ideas about
the electromagnetic theory of light and Hertz
and Dr. Lodge out of his work, we feel sure
he would make his interesting experiments
more clear.”
The London Electrical Review would go on of
the demonstrations themselves, “If a few
quantitative determinations of current, voltage,
or even of frequency, had been given in the
lecture it would have had a definitive scientific
value.
To reduce even one out of the 50 experiments
to a complete research would be worth all
the other 49 brilliant and suggestive demonstrations.
We have no desire to pick out weak points
in such an interesting lecture, but we think
that any one who read Mr. Tesla’s articles
must have had great difficulty in understanding
his repeated idiomatic statements…
We hope Mr. Tesla is correct when he surmises
that the future light may be produced by vacuum
tubes, but we believe the subject has been
thoroughly searched out… by many inventors
without a result which has been very promising.”
The aforementioned Electrical Engineer Laurenc
A Hawkins would further writes of this lecture
series of Tesla’s, “After Tesla’s apparent
failure in motor production” -note here
he’s referencing Tesla’s inability to
get his motor working on the existing power
service at the time and walking away from
it to let others figure it out- “he turned
to more promising fields.
In 1891, he burst upon the electrical world
with the first of a series of the most remarkable
lectures ever delivered before a scientific
audience.
The experiments shown were fairly startling.
Lamps and motors were operated on open circuit
with a single-line wire.
Lamps were made to burn brightly when short-circuited
by a heavy copper bar, while exhausted tubes
were brought to incandescence without any
wire near them.
Tubes were lighted by merely approaching them
with the hand.
Beautiful flames of varied appearance were
made to leap from many objects, even from
the hand of the lecturer himself.
Before the eyes of the startled spectators
Tesla touched both terminals of a 200,000
volt transformer, with no more serious results
than the production of the flames aforesaid.
Throughout the lecture vague hints were offered
of the tremendous possibilities exposed by
the experiments- possibilities of obtaining
unlimited light and power anywhere on the
earth’s surface, not by means expensive, but
by taking the energy directly from the earth
itself or from the circumambient ether.
The public was astounded.
Popular opinion, ever ready to ascribe the
most impossible attributes to the vaguely
understood force, electricity, hailed the
lectures as disclosing a new era of wonders
and Tesla as the last and greatest of electrical
wizards.
Even the eye of science was dazzled by Tesla’s
brilliant flames, and the most extravagant
tributes were poured upon him.
As stated in the London Electrical Engineer,
‘No man in our age has achieved such a universal
scientific reputation in a single stride as
this gifted young electrical engineer.’
It was asserted that similar effects to those
shown by Tesla had previously been produced
by Crookes, Hertz, Rayleigh, Spottiswood,
Lodge, Dr La Rue, Kennedy and Thomson, some
of those effects having been patented nine
years before the first Tesla lecture.
But Tesla had made his experiments more spectacular
by the use of higher voltages and higher frequencies,
and the difference in degree passed for novelty
in kind.
It is true that the lectures abounded in fallacies
and absurdities, as, for instance, Tesla’s
favorite theory of magnetic screening, his
misconception of harmonics, his inexplicable
statement regarding Arago’s experiment, and
even a gross misunderstanding of the fundamental
law of physical science- the conservation
of energy, but all were overlooked or forgiven….
No attempt at any commercial adaptation of
the Experiments is described, but, instead,
Tesla’s vague hints at possibilities won him
the reputation of prophet of the new era.
Today as we look back on those lectures of
ten years ago and the development since then,
it is hard to understand the scientific enthusiasm
Tesla aroused.
Have any useful results ever come from those
famous experiments?
Instead of Tesla’s high frequencies, the tendency
has been steadily to lower frequencies.
Instead of using static effects for power
transmission, the chief problem on modern
long-distance lines is to diminish those very
effects.
The electrostatic light is still a laboratory
toy, while wires and a filament are still
used in commerce.
Central stations still produce their power
and distribute it through their mains.The
prophecies of those lectures and articles
are still unfulfilled, and their suggestions
forgotten or disregarded.”
Just as a brief aside which is important to
the real story of Tesla, Hawkins goes on about
much of Tesla’s conduct as a scientist.
Much like any scientist with time and money
available and widespread interest, Tesla was
constantly jumping on new advancements related
to his field and doing experiments on whatever
thing.
But, Tesla also had a propensity, as we’ve
already alluded to and found in spades in
our own research on him, to imply, or often
even just outright state, he’d invented
the thing before, but without providing any
evidence.
As Hawkins himself observed in 1903, “In
the succeeding years each new idea or fad
in the electrical world was eagerly seized
upon by him and made the pretext for rushing
into print, at first in the technical papers,
and later, as the engineering press began
to regard his effusions askance, in the non-technical
daily papers, the adoption of the latter medium
being accompanied with increase in sensationalism.
When X rays were holding the popular attention,
he dabbled in them and published his results.
When the Wehnelt interrupter attracted the
interest of scientists, Tesla immediately
leaped into notice.
As the London Electrical Review says ‘Tesla
lets himself out on the Wehnelt interruption…
[and that] he invented this device two or
three years ago.
This belated publication in our contemporary
would not, according to the generally accepted
code, secure to Tesla the credit of being
the inventor; but Tesla evidently does not
regret this, since he considers there is not
merit in the invention.’
And again ‘Tesla has expressed a somewhat
ungenerous contempt for the Wehnelt break,
which has recently given such remarkable results
in the hands of experimenters here and abroad.
Its inferiority to Tesla’s break appears to
be known as yet only to Tesla; in simplicity,
at least, it is certainly superior."
Hawkins goes on, “When the efforts of Marconi,
Lodge and Slaby brought their first achievements
in wireless telegraphy before the world Tesla
had nothing but pity for their puerile efforts.
When Marconi was ready to send a signal a
few hundred miles, Tesla was ready (in the
papers) to transmit thousands of horsepower
the same distance.
When Marconi was attempting to signal across
the Atlantic, Tesla had already (in the papers)
received a signal from Mars.
(New York Sun Jan 3, 1901).
Before the enthusiasm over the Spanish War
had had time to cool, Tesla had published
a description of his torpedoes, which would
revolutionize warfare.
(New York Sun November 21, 1898)…
It was of this torpedo boat invention that
Tesla said (Criterion November 19, 1898) ‘Had
I nothing else to show for a life-work, this
would put the laurels of everlasting fame
on my head.’
It was of this same invention that Prof Brackett,
of Princeton, said "Electrical Engineer Vol
26, 491) "The shortest, most correct and most
complete criticism which I can make in reference
to this bold boast is that, what is new about
it is useless, while that which is useful
had all been discovered by other scientists
long before Tesla made this startling announcement."
It was of this invention that Prof Dolbear,
of Tufts College, said "Electrical Engineer
Vol 26 p 491) ‘…During the last six years
he has made so many startling announcements
and has performed so few of his promises that
he is getting to be like the man who called
‘Wolf wolf!’ until no one listened to
him.
Mr. Tesla has failed so often before that
there is no call to believe these things until
he really does them.’
…as for the message from Mars (New York
Sun" January 3, 1901) must be passed by with
merely the comment made by Prof Fessenden
"Electrical World" Vol 37, p 165 that "only
the crassest ignorance could attribute any
such origin" to the so-called signals.”
Hawkins sums up, “Ten years ago, if public
opinion in this country had been required
to name the electrician of greatest promise,
the answer without doubt would have been ‘Nikola
Tesla’.
Today his name provokes at best a regret that
so great a promise should have been unfulfilled.
In ten years the attitude of the scientific
press has passed from admiring expectancy
to good natured banter and at last to charitable
silence.”
Remote Control Boat
All that said, Hawkins’ criticism on one
thing Tesla had done in his “torpedo”
idea was, at least, premature in writing it
off, though how this would ultimately be achieved
could not have been done by the way Tesla
understood things.
Nevertheless, his vision was correct.
Specifically, in 1889, Tesla made one of his
most famous demonstrations, using a system
which he named ‘Teleautomatics’ to remotely
control an iron hulled model boat across a
small indoor pond made for this demonstration
at Madison Square Garden.
Tesla stated of the demo, "When first shown…
it created a sensation such as no other invention
of mine has ever produced.”
And you can see why.
Not just lighting up a tube wirelessly, this
time he was controlling something in relatively
complex ways, and making it appear even more
complex than it actually was.
You see, the demo wasn’t just to show that
he could control the boat without touching
it, but to illustrate the idea of an independent
automaton in general, all of which showcased
Tesla’s abilities to wow an audience.
For example, at one point he had the audience
ask questions of the boat, in particular in
one case “What is the cube root of 64.”
In response, Tesla subtly had the lights on
his boat flash four times, seeming to imply
the boat had heard the question, done the
calculation, and produced the answer.
While the device wasn’t illustrating anything
new in the way of scientific principle, it
was, nonetheless, a brilliant application
of the technology available.
And from this, there is a reasonable argument
to be made that Tesla is the father of remote
control vehicles.
Ever the visionary, Tesla predicted great
things for this technology, even for its potential
to end all wars.
Imagining a world in which all manner of vessels
and machines were not just remotely controlled,
but fully independent automatons.
He elaborated to one reporter of the potential
of devices like this, "You do not see there
a wireless torpedo, you see there the first
of a race of robots, mechanical men which
will do the laborious work of the human race."
Inventing Radio
On this note of Radio transmissions, we’ll
get into this more later when discussing Tesla’s
famous tower, but for now very briefly, it’s
often said that Tesla once again got credit
stolen him by another when Guglielmo Marconi
got not only the Nobel Prize but also general
credit today for inventing radio transmissions.
First, it should be noted that as ever, others
had previously done work on this, such as
Russian physicist Alexander Popov, who had
previously made a radio receiver before Marconi
or Tesla, etc. etc.
Again, none of this was happening in a vacuum.
But as for the specific claim here of Tesla,
rather than Marconi, being the “Father of
Radio”, it is true that Marconi used some
of Tesla’s patents in his revolutionary
work, such as a Tesla oscillator.
The problem is, outside of his claims, Tesla
does not actually ever seem to have built
a working radio or, at least, not in this
sense and what we are talking about here.
As noted by famed author and Electrical Engineering
Professor Dr. Paul J Nahin in his The Science
of Radio,
“Tesla was, without question, very skillful
at generating large, noisy sparks with the
aid of step-up transformers tuned to resonance
(the famous Tesla coil) and he seems to have
really believed that, since Marconi used sparks
in his wireless work, then he too must be
a wireless pioneer.
There is, however, not a shred of credible
evidence that Tesla did anything more than
just talk about radio (in 1901, for example,
he claimed that two years before he had received
radio signals from Mars), and nothing in the
historical record supports his grandiose claims.
It is clear, in fact, from what he did write,
that Tesla actually had only the slightest
(if that) understanding of electromagnetic
radio physics; he claimed, for example, that
‘his’ electric waves were both immune
to the inverse-square law and that they traveled
faster than light.
Tesla does appear to have sincerely believed
his own outrageous statements; he lived in
a delusional world of self aggrandizement
that became increasingly cut off from reality.
His only human joy seems to have been feeding
the pigeons of New York City, where he died
in a hotel room a lonely, bitter man.
Modern biographers of Tesla (none of whom
have any technical training) continue to muddy
the historical record, however, and so let
me be quite clear: Tesla did not invent radio,
although his flowery talk about it no doubt
inspired many youngsters at the start of the
20th century to become interesting in ‘the
new wireless’.”
As to the whole signal from Mars thing, Professor
Nahin goes on, “This claim was not taken
seriously by many (who argued convincingly
that if Tesla was receiving anything it was
certainly of terrestrial origin), but it did
not pass without some lasting literary impact.
HG Wells noticed it, and mentioned Tesla’s
supposed Martian contact in his novel The
First Men in the Moon published that same
year in 1901.
In Wells story one of the characters sends
wireless telegraphy Morse code from the Moon
back to Earth.
Ironically, Tesla’s own words (in his patent
application of 1897) show that he was really
not thinking of true radio at all, but rather
of a conducting system.
The most recent explanation for what Tesla
claims to have heard is that he was detecting
electromagnetic radiation caused by the magnetic
field of Jupiter.
This is speculation that at best seems pretty
far fetched for an 1899 radio receiver, an
objection that Tesla advocates have anticipated.
Their response is not unexpected-Tesla’s 1899
radio was a super advanced design that nobody
else’s on Earth had even dreamed of.”
Going back to the idea that Tesla is the true
“father of radio”, it is often pointed
out, largely because of what Tesla himself
claimed, that Tesla had previously already
also created a device in 1895 that could transmit
supposed radio signals over 50 miles.
As to why he never demonstrated this device,
unfortunately this was one of the supposed
victims of his famous 1895 lab fire…
That said, Tesla did ultimately sue Marconi
for patent infringement in 1915, but this
didn’t go anywhere.
Or, at least not until 1943, shortly after
Tesla’s death.
In this one, the U.S. Supreme Court went ahead
and upheld Tesla’s radio patent 645,576.
Because of this, many go back to giving Tesla,
not Marconi, the credit here as the “father
of radio”.
However, beyond missing an awful lot of historical
context of events and a misunderstanding of
how the technology works compared to what
Tesla proposed and made, as Dr. Nahin alluded
to, this also misses the context that at the
time the Supreme Court finally got around
to upholding Tesla’s patent, the Marconi
Company was suing the U.S. government for
use of its patents during WWI.
By the Supreme Court upholding Tesla’s patent
on this case, it sidestepped the issue for
the U.S. government.
And while the Supreme Court is supposed to
be unbiased in such things, it certainly made
it convenient for the government.
And either way, noteworthy also, as we’ll
get into when we get to talking about Edison,
the court system and judges with legal, instead
of scientific backgrounds, aren’t exactly
well suited for determining the validity of
a given patent over another for some technology.
Ending the Tour and Rocky Mountain High
Going back to Tesla’s rising celebrity and
the lecture tour that propelled this to even
greater heights, he ultimately ceased touring
after getting sick.
He states of this, “I fled from London and
later from Paris to escape favors showered
upon me, and journeyed to my home where I
passed through a most painful ordeal and illness.
Upon regaining my health I began to formulate
plans for the resumption of work in America.
Up to that time I never realized that I possessed
any particular gift of discovery but Lord
Rayleigh, whom I always considered as an ideal
man of science, had said so and if that was
the case I felt that I should concentrate
on some big idea.”
His big idea was widespread and ubiquitous
global communication and cheap wireless power
everywhere.
Something he claimed he could do with a device
he’d come up with.
But first he had some work to do in Colorado
to test his hypotheses.
With the help of various individuals including
one Colonel John Jacob Astor, who gave Tesla
$100,000 (about $3.7 million today) to fund
the project, Tesla got to work.
That said, we should also point out here that
as was also a theme with Tesla, he didn’t
always do with investor money what he claimed
he was going to work on with it.
In this case, it appears that Astor had originally
thought Tesla was going to use the money to
advance his wireless lighting systems, when
instead Tesla was far more interested in wanting
to test some of his ideas on electrical transmission
through the high atmosphere and through the
Earth.
Thus, he moved to Colorado and got to work
on his experimental station near Pikes Peak,
with his facility here ultimately housing
the, at the time, largest Tesla coil ever
made, some 15 meters in diameter.
This was something of a prototype for the
eventual so-called magnifying transmitter
in his later Wardenclyffe Tower.
As for what he intended to accomplish here
overall, he told reporters he was going to
transmit signals from Colorado all the way
to Paris with it.
What he actually accomplished here, if anything,
is partially shrouded in mystery and further
muddied by Tesla hyping what he’d done,
some of which he definitely could not have
done in reality given a modern understanding
of electricity.
Whatever the case, one thing he did do, or,
at least, it seems an odd thing for him to
make up if it didn’t actually happen, is
he apparently accidentally caused a power
outage.
In 1917, Tesla explains, “As an example
of what has been done with several hundred
kilowatts of high frequency energy liberated,
it was found that the dynamos in a power house
6 miles (10 km) away were repeatedly burned
out, due to the powerful high frequency currents
set up in them, and which caused heavy sparks
to jump through the windings and destroy the
insulation!”
Talking to Aliens
It was also during this time that he allegedly
received his signal, to quote him, “from
another world”.
Tesla would elaborate on this in the February
1901 Collier’s Weekly article “Talking
with Planets”, which is a rather fascinating
piece that also illustrates Tesla’s flare
for captivating and inspiring speech and,
in particular, makes an argument for widespread
life of the universe.
In it, he states,
“The desire to know something of our neighbors
in the immense depths of space does not spring
from idle curiosity nor from thirst for knowledge,
but from a deeper cause, and it is a feeling
firmly rooted in the heart of every human
being capable of thinking at all…
But in this age of reason it is not astonishing
to find persons who scoff at the very thought
of effecting communication with a planet.
First of all, the argument is made that there
is only a small probability of other planets
being inhabited at all.
This argument has never appealed to me.
In the solar system, there seem to be only
two planets — Venus and Mars — capable
of sustaining life such as ours: but this
does not mean that there might not be on all
of them some other forms of life.
Chemical processes may be maintained without
the aid of oxygen, and it is still a question
whether chemical processes are absolutely
necessary to the sustenance of organised beings.
My idea is that the development of life must
lead to forms of existence that will be possible
without nourishment and which will not be
shackled by consequent limitations.
Why should a living being not be able to obtain
all the energy it needs for the performance
of its life-functions from the environment,
instead of through consumption of food, and
transforming, by a complicated process, the
energy of chemical combinations into life-sustaining
energy?
If there were such beings on one of the planets
we should know next to nothing about them.
Nor is it necessary to go so far in our assumptions,
for we can readily conceive that, in the same
degree as the atmosphere diminishes in density,
moisture disappears and the planet freezes
up, organic life might also undergo corresponding
modifications, leading finally to forms which,
according to our present ideas of life, are
impossible…
They would adapt themselves to their constantly
changing environment.
So I think it quite possible that in a frozen
planet, such as our moon is supposed to be,
intelligent beings may still dwell, in its
interior, if not on its surface.”
He then goes on to discuss communicating with
such beings and his proposal on how, and circling
back to his work in Colorado and its supposed
groundbreaking nature.
“I can readily demonstrate that, with an
expenditure not exceeding two thousand horse-power,
signals can be transmitted to a planet such
as Mars with as much exactness and certitude
as we now send messages by wire from New York
to Philadelphia.
These means are the result of long-continued
experiment and gradual improvement….
My next step was to use the earth itself as
the medium for conducting the currents, thus
dispensing with wires and all other artificial
conductors.
So I was led to the development of a system
of energy transmission and of telegraphy without
the use of wires, which I described in 1893.
The difficulties I encountered at first in
the transmission of currents through the earth
were very great.
At that time I had at hand only ordinary apparatus,
which I found to be ineffective, and I concentrated
my attention immediately upon perfecting machines
for this special purpose.
This work consumed a number of years, but
I finally vanquished all difficulties and
succeeded in producing a machine which, to
explain its operation in plain language, resembled
a pump in its action, drawing electricity
from the earth and driving it back into the
same at an enormous rate, thus creating ripples
or disturbances which, spreading through the
earth as through a wire, could be detected
at great distances by carefully attuned receiving
circuits.
In this manner I was able to transmit to a
distance, not only feeble effects for the
purposes of signaling, but considerable amounts
of energy, and later discoveries I made convinced
me that I shall ultimately succeed in conveying
power without wires, for industrial purposes,
with high economy, and to any distance, however
great.”
He goes on in explanation on how he achieved
this, well, as the good professor formerly
noted, Tesla was really good at throwing around
sparks.
Tesla himself states,
“A few years ago it was virtually impossible
to produce electrical sparks twenty or thirty
foot long; but I produced some more than one
hundred feet in length, and this without difficulty.
The rates of electrical movement involved
in strong induction apparatus had measured
but a few hundred horse-power, and I produced
electrical movements of rates of one hundred
and ten thousand horse-power.
Prior to this, only insignificant electrical
pressures were obtained, while I have reached
fifty million volts.
Many persons in my own profession have wondered…
and have asked what I am trying to do.
But the time is not far away now when the
practical results of my labors will be placed
before the world and their influence felt
everywhere.
One of the immediate consequences will be
the transmission of messages without wires,
over sea or land, to an immense distance.
I have already demonstrated, by crucial tests,
the practicability of signalling by my system
from one to any other point of the globe,
no matter how remote, and I shall soon convert
the disbelievers.”
With all this, Tesla also was under the impression
that if he could control atmospheric electrical
effects similar to what caused lightning,
he could control the climate anywhere with
it by, again, tapping into the Earth’s energy
through his device and directing it where
he willed.
Thus, he claimed he could create rain over
a desert and the like with it from one of
his devices far afield.
Speaking of weather, going back to his Colorado
experiments, he states, “As I was improving
my machines for the production of intense
electrical actions, I was also perfecting
the means for observing feeble effects.
One of the most interesting results, and also
one of great practical importance, was the
development of certain contrivances for indicating
at a distance of many hundred miles an approaching
storm, its direction, speed and distance travelled.
These appliances are likely to be valuable
in future meteorological observations and
surveying, and will lend themselves particularly
to many naval uses.”
And now we get to his alleged signal from
another world.
“It was in carrying on this work that for
the first time I discovered those mysterious
effects which have elicited such unusual interest.
I had perfected the apparatus referred to
so far that from my laboratory in the Colorado
mountains I could feel the pulse of the globe,
as it were, noting every electrical change
that occurred within a radius of eleven hundred
miles.
I can never forget the first sensations I
experienced when it dawned upon me that I
had observed something possibly of incalculable
consequences to mankind.
I felt as though I were present at the birth
of a new knowledge or the revelation of a
great truth.
Even now, at times, I can vividly recall the
incident, and see my apparatus as though it
were actually before me.
My first observations positively terrified
me, as there was present in them something
mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I
was alone in my laboratory at night; but at
that time the idea of these disturbances being
intelligently controlled signals did not yet
present itself to me.
The changes I noted were taking place periodically,
and with such a clear suggestion of number
and order that they were not traceable to
any cause then known to me.
I was familiar, of course, with such electrical
disturbances as are produced by the sun, Aurora
Borealis and earth currents, and I was as
sure as I could be of any fact that these
variations were due to none of these causes.
The nature of my experiments precluded the
possibility of the changes being produced
by atmospheric disturbances, as has been rashly
asserted by some.
It was some time afterward when the thought
flashed upon my mind that the disturbances
I had observed might be due to an intelligent
control.
Although I could not decipher their meaning,
it was impossible for me to think of them
as having been entirely accidental.
The feeling is constantly growing on me that
I had been the first to hear the greeting
of one planet to another.
A purpose was behind these electrical signals;
and it was with this conviction that I announced
to the Red Cross Society, when it asked me
to indicate one of the great possible achievements
of the next hundred years, that it would probably
be the confirmation and interpretation of
this planetary challenge to us….
At the present stage of progress, there would
be no insurmountable obstacle in constructing
a machine capable of conveying a message to
Mars, nor would there be any great difficulty
in recording signals transmitted to us by
the inhabitants of that planet, if they be
skilled electricians.
Communication once established, even in the
simplest way, as by a mere interchange of
numbers, the progress toward more intelligible
communication would be rapid.
Absolute certitude as to the receipt and interchange
of messages would be reached as soon as we
could respond with the number “four,”
say, in reply to the signal “one, two, three.”
The Martians, or the inhabitants of whatever
planet had signalled to us, would understand
at once that we had caught their message across
the gulf of space and had sent back a response.
To convey a knowledge of form by such means
is, while very difficult, not impossible,
and I have already found a way of doing it…”
Noteworthy, while some were inspired by all
this, others not so much, for example, in
a July of 1900 edition of Marine Engineering,
it noted that piece by Tesla was a “handiwork
of a cerebrose individual- a bombastical genius
who has illumined unknown fields of imaginative
science with his intellectual searchlight,
and is willing to permit the gaping world
of ignorance or complaisance to peer in and
wonder, the credulous editor drawing the curtain.
This dazzling contribution to modern unscientific
research reads like nothing so much as an
essay on Christian Science, so profound is
it in the ambiguous nothingness whereby it
leads through the intricacies of incoherency
into the climax of absolute assinity.”
Needless to say, it was around this time that
Tesla was really starting to fall from grace
with the scientists and engineers of the world,
something that would, from this point, only
accelerate more and more.
But in any event, with his work now apparently
done in Colorado, he headed back to New York
looking for investors in his new world changing
technology.
Noteworthy, it’s also been suggested his
work wasn’t so much done here, as it was
that when he left the Colorado facility he
was not only out of money to continue operating
the facility but he left behind considerable
debts.
This all culminated in 1904 to him being sued
by Colorado Springs, with his debt being settled
via the lab and its contents sold at auction.
The Tesla World System
But back in New York, Tesla began singing
the praises of what he’d supposedly accomplished
in Colorado, and was looking for an investor
for an even grander version of what he’d
made there.
Of course, if he’d already done it all with
the Colorado facility and such a facility
could transmit anywhere in the world economically,
why didn’t he just use or modify that for
cheaper?
Don’t know.
But this is maybe something J.P. Morgan should
have asked when having dinner with Tesla and
discussing the whole thing.
And, in particular, Tesla selling him on the
idea of Tesla’s “World System” of wireless
communication where Tesla claimed "When wireless
is fully applied the Earth will be converted
into a huge brain, capable of response in
every one of its parts."
He goes on, “It makes possible not only
the instantaneous and precise wireless transmission
of any kind of signals, messages or characters,
to all parts of the world, but also the inter-connection
of the existing telegraph, telephone, and
other signal stations without any change in
their present equipment.
By its means, for instance, a telephone subscriber
here may call up and talk to any other subscriber
on the Globe.
An inexpensive receiver, not bigger than a
watch, will enable him to listen anywhere,
on land or sea, to a speech delivered or music
played in some other place, however distant.
These examples are cited merely to give an
idea of the possibilities of this great scientific
advance, which annihilates distance and makes
that perfect natural conductor, the Earth,
available for all the innumerable purposes
which human ingenuity has found for a line-wire.
One far-reaching result of this is that any
device capable of being operated thru one
or more wires (at a distance obviously restricted)
can likewise be actuated, without artificial
conductors and with the same facility and
accuracy, at distances to which there are
no limits other than those imposed by the
physical dimensions of the Globe.
Thus, not only will entirely new fields for
commercial exploitation be opened up by this
ideal method of transmission but the old ones
vastly extended.”
He goes on, “As soon as completed, it will
be possible for a business man in New York
to dictate instructions, and have them instantly
appear in type at his office in London or
elsewhere.
He will be able to call up, from his desk,
and talk to any telephone subscriber on the
globe, without any change whatever in the
existing equipment.
An inexpensive instrument, not bigger than
a watch, will enable its bearer to hear anywhere,
on sea or land, music or song, the speech
of a political leader, the address of an eminent
man of science, or the sermon of an eloquent
clergyman, delivered in some other place,
however distant.
In the same manner any picture, character,
drawing or print can be transferred from one
to another place.
Millions of such instruments can be operated
from but one plant of this kind.”
And that, "When the great truth accidentally
revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully
recognized, that this planet, with all its
appalling immensity, is to electric currents
virtually no more than a small metal ball
and that by this fact many possibilities,
each baffling imagination and of incalculable
consequence, are rendered absolutely sure
of accomplishment."
But to sum up, he promised that this system,
which he claimed he could have operational
in 9 months, would provide for:
“1) The inter-connection of the existing
telegraph exchanges or offices all over the
world;
(2) The establishment of a secret and non-interferable
government telegraph service;
(3) The inter-connection of all the present
telephone exchanges or offices on the Globe;
(4) The universal distribution of general
news, by telegraph or telephone, in connection
with the Press;
(5) The establishment of such a ‘World-System’
of intelligence transmission for exclusive
private use;
(6) The inter-connection and operation of
all stock tickers of the world;
(7) The establishment of a ‘World-System’
of musical distribution, etc.;
(8) The universal registration of time by
cheap clocks indicating the hour with astronomical
precision and requiring no attention whatever;
(9) The world transmission of typed or handwritten
characters, letters, checks, etc.;
(10) The establishment of a universal marine
service enabling the navigators of all ships
to steer perfectly without compass, to determine
the exact location, hour and speed, to prevent
collisions and disasters, etc.;
(11) The inauguration of a system of world-printing
on land and sea;
(12) The world reproduction of photographic
pictures and all kinds of drawings or records.”
He also philosophically felt that such widespread
communication would bring about an end to
war, noting, “The greatest good will comes
from technical improvements tending to unification
and harmony, and my wireless transmitter is
preeminently such.
By its means the human voice and likeness
will be reproduced everywhere and factories
driven thousands of miles from waterfalls
furnishing the power; aerial machines will
be propelled around the earth without a stop
and the sun’s energy controlled to create
lakes and rivers for motive purposes and transformation
of arid deserts into fertile land.
Its introduction for telegraphic, telephonic
and similar uses will automatically cut out
the statics and all other interferences which
at present impose narrow limits to the application
of the wireless….War can not be avoided
until the physical cause for its recurrence
is removed and this, in the last analysis,
is the vast extent of the planet on which
we live.
Only thru annihilation of distance in every
respect, as the conveyance of intelligence,
transport of passengers and supplies and transmission
of energy will conditions be brought about
some day, insuring permanency of friendly
relations.
What we now want most is closer contact and
better understanding between individuals and
communities all over the earth, and the elimination
of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals
of national egoism and pride which is always
prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism
and strife.
No league or parliamentary act of any kind
will ever prevent such a calamity.
These are only new devices for putting the
weak at the mercy of the strong…
Peace can only come as a natural consequence
of universal enlightenment and merging of
races, and we are still far from this blissful
realization.”
However, at the time he wrote this long after
his famed J.P. Morgan funded tower failure,
he ominously notes that such widespread communication
seems to be being suppressed by hitherto unknown
dark forces, stating, “As throwing light
on this point, I may mention that only recently
an odd looking gentleman called on me with
the object of enlisting my services in the
construction of world transmitters in some
distant land.
‘We have no money,’ he said, ‘but carloads
of solid gold and we will give you a liberal
amount.’
I told him that I wanted to see first what
will be done with my inventions in America,
and this ended the interview.
But I am satisfied that some dark forces are
at work, and as time goes on the maintenance
of continuous communication will be rendered
more difficult.
The only remedy is a system immune against
interruption.
It has been perfected, it exists, and all
that is necessary is to put it in operation.”
Tesla’s Tower and Downfall
Speaking of his own attempt to “put it in
operation”, again we go back to J.P. Morgan.
Intrigued by Tesla’s ideas, and with Tesla
himself stating his Colorado facility had
already demonstrated the technology needed,
Morgan gave Tesla $150,000 today (about $5.6
million today) to build a larger facility
to facilitate global communication in this
way through allegedly manipulating the electrical
charge of the Earth.
This ultimately led to the construction of
his famed Wardenclyffe tower, some 187 feet
tall with a 55 ton sphere of metal at the
top.
The tower also possessed a shaft that went
about 120 feet into the earth, and below this
he had 16 iron pipes about 300 feet long embedded
into the ground.
As to why, Tesla stated, “In this system
that I have invented, it is necessary for
the machine to get a grip of the earth, otherwise
it cannot shake the earth.
It has to have a grip… so that the whole
of this globe can quiver.”
Now, while it’s pretty much universally
said this facility failed because of lack
of funding, if you’ve been following along,
you’re going to no doubt not be surprised
that the real reason it failed was because
Tesla had some pretty fundamental misunderstandings
of quite a lot of things.
As Professor Paul J Nahin formerly noted,
Tesla was good at “generating large, noisy
sparks”, but his understanding of the forces
he was dealing with were based on 19th century
understanding that just didn’t bear out.
And, in fact, as we’ve alluded to a few
times, Tesla’s unwillingness to advance
his own understanding on various points as
science progressed saw his brilliant mind
mostly go to waste pretty much from this point
on, other than some interesting work on turbines.
But going back to the Wardenclyffe tower,
when looking over Tesla’s patents and papers
and what was built, it really isn’t clear
how the tower was supposed to do what Tesla
claimed even with his understanding of things.
But either way, the Earth cannot be used as
a conductor as Tesla was thinking, nor could
he shoot the energy into the ionosphere to
do what he was thinking with the tower there
either.
Speaking of shooting energy through the air,
going back to his original radio patent that
so many claim makes Tesla the father of radio
instead of Marconi or others working on similar
things, we should also point out that Tesla
also had the idea that he could create a vast
power distribution service via floating balloons
up around 30,000 feet.
He writes in the radio patent, “by the aid
of captive balloons supplied continuously
with gas from reservoirs and held-in position
securely by steel wires or by any other means,
devices, or expedients, such as may be contrived
and perfected by ingenious and skilled engineers.
From my experiments and observations I conclude
that with electromotive impulses not greatly
exceeding fifteen or twenty million volts
the energy of many thousands of horse-power
may be transmitted over vast distances, measured
by many hundreds and even thousands of miles,
with terminals not more than thirty to thirty-five
thousand feet above the level of the sea,
and even this comparatively-small elevation
will be required chiefly for reasons of economy,
and, if desired, it may be considerably reduced,
since by such means as have been described
practically any potential that is desired
may be obtained, the currents through the
air strata may be rendered very small, whereby
the loss in the transmission may be reduced.”
In a nutshell, given the low density of atmosphere
at that altitude, he thought this would allow
him to send millions of volts from balloon
to balloon spaced at incredible distances.
Why he thought this would work seems to have
been based on the idea that the high atmosphere
was extremely conductive.
He also thought he could utilize this supposed
fact to make the upper atmosphere glow and,
thus, provide ample light at night to large
areas in this way anywhere he wanted.
No outdoor lighting needed.
But as for the tower, as things progressed
and he’d still not managed to send any signals
anywhere despite seemingly having successfully
created what he’d claimed he’d need for
it, things began to turn south pretty quickly.
To make matters worse in all this, while Tesla
was trying and failing in his wireless messaging
transmission idea, across the pond in Europe,
Marconi was doing the same, but in a way that
could actually work.
In particular, on December 12, 1901, Marconi
had successfully sent the letter “S” all
the way across the Atlantic Ocean from England
to Newfoundland.
Tesla was initially unconcerned about this,
thinking incorrectly that Marconi was just
copying his method.
In particular because he had read Marconi
was using a Tesla coil that was “connected
to the Earth”.
And, according to Tesla, using 17 of Tesla’s
patents.
On the latter, it is true that Marconi was
using some of Tesla’s work as previously
noted, but also as noted, the way he was transmitting
the message was fundamentally different than
Tesla’s proposed system.
But not getting anywhere with sending messages
and given Marconi’s much cheaper system
that was progressing nicely, in order to drum
up more funding, Tesla decided to switch it
up from the focus of his tower being communication,
to pushing using the facility for wireless
power.
He wrote to Morgan in July of 1903 of this,
“Financially, I am in a dreadful fix.
But if I can complete this work, I can readily
show that by my wireless system power can
be transmitted in any amount, to any desired
distance and with high economy.
Of the three hundred horsepower developed
by my oscillator on Long Island, two hundred
and seventy five, perhaps a little more, can
be recovered at the greatest distance in Australia.”
It is here we feel compelled to explicitly
point out a few things to counter some of
the claims of internet Tesla conspiracy theorists.
In particular the idea that Tesla invented
a form of “free” wireless energy, which
could have been communicated wirelessly at
no cost to the end consumer and would have,
thus, revolutionized the world.
Given all Tesla’s claims about his tower
here and how he thought it would work, you
can kind of squint and see where such rumors
came from.
Of course, first, the way Tesla was proposing
transmitting power and the efficiency, for
example in his quote there from Long Island
to Australia at 91%, well.
Let’s just say J.P. Morgan didn’t buy
it either, and we hope any of the Tesla conspiracy
theorists listening also can see now that
maybe it wasn’t his alleged “dark forces”
sabotaging Tesla’s work here that was its
downfall, but the man himself.
Further, as to the whole idea of free or ultra
cheap ubiquitous energy, Tesla thought this
would be the downfall of society.
He state, “If we were to release the energy
of atoms or discover some other way of developing
cheap and unlimited power at any point of
the globe this accomplishment, instead of
being a blessing, might bring disaster to
mankind in giving rise to dissension and anarchy
which would ultimately result in the enthronement
of the hated regime of force.”
Going back to Tesla’s pitch to J.P. Morgan
for using the tower for power instead of communication,
Tesla goes on, “If I had told you such as
this before, you would have fired me out of
your office.
Now you see, Mr. Morgan, what I work for.
It means a great industrial revolution.
It will be the one thing worthy of your attention,
as I have always assured you.
There is no incertitude about this, it is
an absolute.
My patents confer a monopoly.
Will you help me or let my great work-almost
complete- go to pots?”
Morgan replied on July 17, 1903, “I have
received your letter of the 16th inst., and
in reply would say that I should not feel
disposed at present to make any further advances.”
Not dismayed, Tesla persisted, writing Morgan,
"I am the only man on this earth today who
has the peculiar knowledge and ability to
achieve this wonder and another one may not
come in a hundred years.
There has been a long and painful delay.
My nerves are not of iron, and all this knowledge
and ability may be lost to the world.
Help me to complete this work or at least
remove the obstacles in my path."
In yet another instance he wrote him "… you
are the only man today who possesses the genius
and power to compel the universal adoption
of these ideas and that is why I approached
you two years ago."
When none of that worked, Tesla then wrote
him in October of 1904, stating "Since a year,
Mr. Morgan, there has been hardly a night
when my pillow is not bathed in tears, but
you must not think me a weak man for that.
I am perfectly sure to finish my task, come
what may.
I am only sorry that after mastering the difficulties
which seemed insuperable, and acquiring special
knowledge which I now alone posses, and which,
if applied effectively, would advance the
world a century, I must see my work delayed."
Morgan’s response was quick and to the point-
“No.”
In a rage, Tesla replied,
"You are a man like Bismark.
Great but uncontrollable.
I wrote purposefully last week hoping that
your recent association [with the archbishop]
might have rendered you more susceptible to
a softer influence.
But you are no Christian at all, you are a
fanatic musoulman [Muslim].
Once you say no, come what may, it is no.
May the gravitation repel instead of attract,
may right become wrong, every consideration
no matter what it may be, must founder on
the rock of your brutal resolve…
You let me struggle on, weakened by shrew
enemies, disheartened by doubting friends,
financially exhausted, trying to overcome
obstacles which you yourself have piled up
before me."
In further frustration, in December of 1904
he wrote, "Owing to a habit contracted long
ago in defiance of superstition, I prefer
to make important communications on Fridays
and the 13th of each month, but my house is
afire and I have not an hour to waste.
I knew that you would refuse.
What chance have I to land the biggest Wall
Street monster with soul’s spider thread!”
And that, “Mr Morgan you have raised great
waves in the industrial world and some have
struck my little boat.
Prices have gone up in consequence, twice,
perhaps three times higher than they were
and there were expensive delays, mostly as
a result of activities you excited.”
Ultimately a dejected Tesla for reasons unclear-
perhaps just angry, perhaps doing some last
minute experiments to try to get the thing
to work while he still had use of the tower,
or perhaps trying to put on a show to get
some media hype about his tower he could potentially
use to find more investors- put on a rather
interesting light show directly after receiving
a rejection letter for further financing from
J.P. Morgan, with the New York Sun reporting
that those nearby the tower observed “all
sorts of lightning… from the tall tower…
For a time the air was filled with blinding
streaks of electricity which seemed to shoot
off into the darkness on some mysterious errand.
The display continued until after midnight.”
When asked what he was doing with all that,
Tesla cryptically told the paper, “It is
true that some of them have had to do with
wireless telegraphy" and that if the local
people "had been awake instead of asleep,
at other times they would have seen even stranger
things.
Some day, but not at this time, I shall make
an announcement of something that I never
once dreamed of.”
Perhaps lending credence to the “publicity”
angle of his display in order to drum up potential
new investors, Tesla also claimed to reporters
that he’d successfully used the tower to
transmit messages to Scotland, noting “We
have been sending wireless messages for long
distances from this station for some time,
but whether we are going into the telegraph
field on a commercial basis I cannot say at
present.”
On this note, Tesla would manage to secure
some additional funding from one Thomas Fortune
Ryan.
However, rather than use the funds to continue
construction as they were intended, he, instead,
used it to pay off some debts.
Ultimately Tesla was unable to keep up with
mortgage payments and Wardenclyffe was dismantled
in 1915 by its de facto owner, George C Boldt,
in order to be sold for scrap.
In the aftermath of this all, the news would
call the Tower, “Tesla’s million dollar
folly”.
The man himself would maintain for the rest
of his life it all would have worked if not
for a “blind, faint-hearted, doubting world”
which resulted in his inability to drum up
needed funds to continue the project.
Even many years later in life during his aforementioned
Edison medal acceptance speech he brought
it up again, stating, “as to the transmission
of power through space, that is a project
which I considered absolutely certain of success
long since.
Years ago I was in the position to transmit
wireless power to any distance without limit
other than that imposed by the physical dimensions
of the globe.
In my system it makes no difference what the
distance is.
The efficiency of the transmission can be
as high as 96 or 97 per cent, and there are
practically no losses except such as are inevitable
in the running of the machinery.
When there is no receiver there is no energy
consumption anywhere.
When the receiver is put on, it draws power.
That is the exact opposite of the Hertz-wave
system.
In that case, if you have a plant of 1,000
horsepower, it is radiating all the time whether
the energy is received or not; but in my system
no power is lost.
When there are no receivers the plant consumes
only a few horsepower necessary to maintain
the electric vibration; it runs idle, as the
Edison plant when the lamps and motors are
shut off.
I have made advances along this line in later
years which will contribute to the practical
features of the system.
Recently I have obtained a patent on a transmitter
with which it is practicable to transfer unlimited
amount of energy to any distance.
I had a very interesting experience with Mr.
Stone, whom I consider, if not the ablest,
certainly one of the ablest living experts.
I said to Mr. Stone: ”Did you see my patent?"
He replied: "Yes, I saw it, but I thought
you were crazy."
When I explained it to Mr. Stone he said,
"Now, I see; why, that is great," and he understood
how the energy is transmitted.”
Of course, in reality, while he genuinely
seems to have believed everything he said
here, no amount of money could have made the
Wardenclyffe Tower work for what Tesla was
trying to do with it.
An interesting thing to note on all this,
however, is that despite Tesla’s rage filled
letters and insults to Morgan in the moment,
he would later write much more kindly words
about the man.
In Tesla’s autobiography he states, “in
view of various rumors which have reached
me, that Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan did not interest
himself with me in a business way but in the
same large spirit in which he has assisted
many other pioneers.
He carried out his generous promise to the
letter and it would have been most unreasonable
to expect from him anything more.
He had the highest regard for my attainments
and gave me every evidence of his complete
faith in my ability to ultimately achieve
what I had set out to do.
I am unwilling to accord to some small minded
and jealous individuals the satisfaction of
having thwarted my efforts.
These men are to me nothing more than microbes
of a nasty disease.
My project was retarded by laws of nature.
The world was not prepared for it.
It was too far ahead of time.
But the same laws will prevail in the end
and make it a triumphal success.”
A Breakdown
Going back to the immediate aftermath of the
Tower’s failure, Tesla would write, “Despite
my rare physical endurance at that period
the abused nerves finally rebelled and I suffered
a complete collapse, just as the consummation
of the long and difficult task was almost
in sight.”
He goes on, he got over it quickly, however,
thanks to his particular constitution, stating,
“Without doubt I would have paid a greater
penalty later, and very likely my career would
have been prematurely terminated, had not
providence equipt me with a safety device,
which has seemed to improve with advancing
years and unfailingly comes into play when
my forces are at an end.
So long as it operates I am safe from danger,
due to overwork, which threatens other inventors
and, incidentally, I need no vacations which
are indispensable to most people.
When I am all but used up I simply do as the
darkies, who ‘naturally fall asleep while
white folks worry.’
To venture a theory out of my sphere, the
body probably accumulates little by little
a definite quantity of some toxic agent and
I sink into a nearly lethargic state which
lasts half an hour to the minute.
Upon awakening I have the sensation as though
the events immediately preceding had occurred
very long ago, and if I attempt to continue
the interrupted train of thought I feel a
veritable mental nausea.
Involuntarily I then turn to other work and
am surprised at the freshness of the mind
and ease with which I overcome obstacles that
had baffled me before.
After weeks or months my passion for the temporarily
abandoned invention returns and I invariably
find answers to all the vexing questions with
scarcely any effort.”
The Tesla Turbine
After his breakdown, Tesla got back to work,
noting "My enemies have been so successful
in portraying me as a poet and a visionary
that I must put out something commercial without
delay."
On this, after JP Morgan’s death in 1913,
Tesla did attend his funeral, and not long
after tried to get Morgan’s son, Jack, to
support the Tower project, but he was uninterested.
However, Jack was sold on an alternate project
of Tesla’s turbine idea, giving Tesla $20,000
(about $600,000 today) to help support the
project.
As for the turbine engine, this one was Tesla
going back to creating something that actually
worked and was ingenious.
On this, traditional such devices used a bladed
system, more or less like a windmill inside
of an enclosure.
Tesla’s system used a series of discs along
a shaft that utilized the boundary layer effect
to spin.
When he got it to work, he stated, "I have
accomplished what mechanical engineers had
been dreaming about ever since the invention
of steam power.
That is the perfect rotary engine."
Tesla also noted of it, and people’s skepticism
of his device, “Only the other day I had
a disheartening experience when I met my friend
and former assistant, Charles F. Scott, now
professor of Electrical Engineering at Yale.
I had not seen him for a long time and was
glad to have an opportunity for a little chat
at my office.
Our conversation naturally enough drifted
on my turbine and I became heated to a high
degree.
‘Scott,’ I exclaimed, carried away by
the vision of a glorious future, ‘my turbine
will scrap all the heat-engines in the world.’
Scott stroked his chin and looked away thoughtfully,
as though making a mental calculation.
‘That will make quite a pile of scrap,’
he said, and left without another word!”
Not dissuaded, Tesla hoped given the efficiency
and simple design, it would be able to be
used in everything from aircraft to automobiles.
On the former, he also hoped to combine it
with wireless power, allowing the airplanes
to be lighter and faster and remain aloft
indefinitely.
He stated of such planes in 1911, “Twenty
years ago I believed that I would be the first
man to fly; that I was on track of accomplishing
what no one else was anywhere near reaching…
My idea was a flying machine propelled by
an electric motor, with power supplied by
stations on the earth.”
In an article published in Reconstruction
magazine in July of 1919, he also stated such
a wirelessly powered aircraft with his turbine
could fly at supersonic speeds at 40,000 feet
above the Earth’s surface.
He goes on, “The power supply is virtually
unlimited, as any number of power plants can
be operated together, supplying energy to
airships just as trains running on tracks
are now supplied with electrical energy through
rails or wires.”
On the automobile side, her states, “Shortly
before the war, when the exhibition of my
turbines in this city elicited widespread
comment in the technical papers, I anticipated
that there would be a scramble among manufacturers
to get hold of the invention, and I had particular
designs on that man from Detroit who has an
uncanny faculty for accumulating millions.
So confident was I that he would turn up some
day, that I declared this as certain to my
secretary and assistants.
Sure enough, one fine morning a body of engineers
from the Ford Motor Company presented themselves
with the request of discussing with me an
important project.
‘Didn’t I tell you?’
I remarked triumphantly to my employees, and
one of them said, ‘You are amazing, Mr.
Tesla; everything comes out exactly as you
predict.’
As soon as these hard-headed men were seated
I, of course, immediately began to extol the
wonderful features of my turbine, when the
spokesmen interrupted me and said, ‘We know
all about this, but we are on a special errand.
We have formed a psychological society for
the investigation of psychic phenomena and
we want you to join us in this undertaking.’
I suppose those engineers never knew how near
they came to being fired out of my office.”
In the end, however, while an ingenious device
and more efficient than its competitor bladed
turbines of the day, Tesla’s turbine went
relatively nowhere, other than some niche
applications since, and a whole lot of people
using it as a science project in high school
and the like.
As to why it didn’t go anywhere, it didn’t
work practically for the applications such
turbines were being used for, for a few different
reasons, but most notably because at the high
temperatures it was operating under and high
speeds of rotation, the discs had a tendency
to warp, a problem Tesla and his assistants
were never able to overcome satisfactorily
for commercial application.
The Bizarro Years
From this point, for the rest of Tesla’s
life, his genius mind accomplished a series
of fantastical things that seemingly existed
only in his head.
Among his last patents included, in 1928,
patent number 1,655,114 an “Apparatus For
Aerial Transportation” which came full circle
with his childhood dream of creating a flying
machine.
He claimed this device, called a helicopterplane,
could be flown with vertical takeoff from
anyone’s roof or parking space, then transition
to more typical airplane flight, weigh a mere
800 lbs, and cost only $1000 to buy ($18,000
today).
A couple years later, he had supposedly made
a huge breakthrough that was so significant
he held a press conference, telling the gathered
reporters in 1931 he had come up with a brand
new source of energy and that "The idea first
came upon me as a tremendous shock…
I can only say at this time that it will come
from an entirely new and unsuspected source."
He also noted it was “violently opposed”
to the physics of Einstein.
The next year he claimed he’d invented a
new kind of motor that ran on cosmic rays.
Not long after this, in 1934, he claimed he’d
invented a new type of weapon called the “Teleforce”,
with the New York Times July 11, 1934 edition
reading “Tesla, at 78, Bares New ‘Death
Beam’” in which it will “end concentrated
beams of particles through the free air, of
such tremendous energy that they will bring
down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at
a distance of 250 miles…"
Although Tesla would clarify it was more akin
to a peace beam as its power would make, in
his opinion, war completely untenable.
He would further publish a paper on it titled
“New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive
Energy Through Natural Media”.
The general idea was to create a series of
power plants along a given country’s borders
and the beam would then be used to shoot down
any enemy aircraft within 200 miles of the
stations.
Going back to his roots, he also felt the
beam could be used to transmit power wirelessly.
Yet another big idea with this was that he
proposed once again his aforementioned idea
to light up the night sky with it via creating
something of a man-made aurora borealis.
Efforts by Tesla to get funding to pursue
this death beam via various governments like
the UK or from J.P. Morgan Jr all failed initially,
though in 1939 he allegedly received $25,000
(about a half a million dollars today) from
the Soviet Union in relation to it.
Tesla also claimed when he was awarded the
Order of the White Lion and some individuals
expressed skepticism that it would work that,
“it is not an experiment … I have built,
demonstrated and used it.
Only a little time will pass before I can
give it to the world.”
While it is true that, following Tesla’s
death, government officials, keen on such
a device to use against the Nazis, searched
his hotel room for sensitive documents and
the device itself, no physical proof of the
inventor’s ‘death beam’ has ever been
found.
Further a package left by Tesla in a hotel
vault, which he had told the hotel manager
was a secret prototype worth thousands of
dollars and some thought might be this, was
discovered to be the aforereferenced Wheatstone
bridge, a mundane tool for measuring electrical
resistance.
Nor was anything of this sort found by Tesla’s
nephew, Sava Kosanovic, who was a Yogoslavian
ambassador stationed in New York at the time
of his famous uncle’s death.
Directly after Tesla’s ceasing to exist,
Kosanovic went to Tesla’s hotel and after
having a locksmith crack Tesla’s safe, inside
he only found a few honorary degrees, a medal,
a memorial book, and a few misc items like
this.
It would be two days later in which the government
would step in and seize Tesla’s belongings
to examine them and his papers to see about
the death beam.
On this note, some of the Tesla fanboy ilk
claim the reason no such papers were found
is just because Tesla didn’t need to write
things down and, as Tesla himself often claimed,
the devices he’d invision in his head, according
to him at least always worked exactly as he
thought once he created them…
Except, of course, none of this is true, except
the part that Tesla really did say things
like this and about his supposed eidetic memory
as previously quoted.
However, as far as science is aware, while
some people do have remarkable memories, the
idea of a photographic memory doesn’t appear
to be a real thing,
That said, again, some people do have remarkable
abilities on this front, but almost always
associated with various abnormal brain development
issues.
For instance, Kim Peek, a so-called megasavant
or “human Google”, who served as the inspiration
for Rain Man, was one such well known example.
While Peek’s mental prowess has been subjected
to significant embellishment over the years,
it is quite well documented that he could
seemingly effortlessly absorb all of the information
on a given page with remarkable speed.
While exactly how many words per minute he
could read with almost perfect comprehension
was never tested (at least that we could find
documentation of), according to his father
who by necessity had to be his “shadow”
as Kim Peek called him, Kim generally averaged
about ten seconds a page and then could recall
it with almost perfect accuracy, even years
later.
This was an ability Kim was more than happy
to demonstrate, including “performing”,
as it were, in front of over two and a half
million people over the years in various lecture
halls and libraries across the United States.
Once he came out of his shell a bit after
Rain Man, he’d even often walk up to strangers
on the street to demonstrate his astounding
memory and date-processing abilities.
This was one of the few ways he knew how to
socially interact with others.
However, Peek’s abilities were believed
to be the side effect of a serious congenital
birth defect known as agenesis of the corpus
callosum, in which the largest band of white
matter that connects the two hemispheres of
the brain doesn’t develop correctly; in
his case, it didn’t develop at all and his
brain compensated by making some rather unusual
connections, leaving him mentally and physically
handicapped in many ways, while also giving
him his truly remarkable memory.
And something similar tends to be the case
with others with similar well out of the ordinary
abilities like this.
It is technically possible Tesla was one of
these given his many mentions of other very
odd mental quirks such as his vivid hallucinations
and flashes and the like from an early age.
But his abilities here were never tested,
and many of his more grandiose claims about
himself on some of this are relatively easy
to debunk with other things he wrote or did.
And, with regards to the supposed idea that
he rarely or never took notes, this, too,
is likewise easily debunked by the fact that
even after his death he had many surviving
papers demonstrating him working out various
things, rather than doing it all in his head.
Going back to what he wrote and said about
his Death Beam, and if such a thing could
have worked the way Tesla described…
Well, no.
No it could not.
Unless of course it really was using laws
of physics that Tesla stated “no one has
ever dreamed about” we guess…
To sum up the government’s stance on it,
electrical engineer Dr. John G. Trump of the
National Defense Research Committee of the
Office of Scientific Research and Development
was called in to look over all Tesla’s papers
on the matter and stated:
“His [Tesla’s] thoughts and efforts during
at least the past 15 years were primarily
of a speculative, philosophical, and somewhat
promotional character often concerned with
the production and wireless transmission of
power; but did not include new, sound, workable
principles or methods for realizing such results.”
Going back to his waning years in general,
throughout all this time, Tesla also occasionally
took odd consulting jobs for money as available,
though his proposals for clients were generally
fantastical and entirely un-useful in what
they were trying to do, so this work, too
declined with time.
Tesla vs Einstein
In the general case, the scientific and engineering
world had moved on, and Tesla’s theories
and work had been left behind, with the man
himself not advancing with the times, and
even pointedly arguing with many new theories,
including some of those proposed by Einstein.
For example, Tesla didn’t believe electrons
existed, felt atoms were not composed of subatomic
particles, and that atoms could not be split
or change state.
And as for Einstein’s work, Tesla stated,
“I hold that space cannot be curved, for
the simple reason that it can have no properties.
It might as well be said that God has properties.
He has not, but only attributes and these
are of our own making.
Of properties we can only speak when dealing
with matter filling the space.
To say that in the presence of large bodies
space becomes curved is equivalent to stating
that something can act upon nothing.
I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a
view.”
Tesla also called relativity “a beggar wrapped
in purple whom ignorant people take for a
king”.
He further noted he could prove it was incorrect
because he himself had measured the speed
of cosmic rays at approximately 50 times the
speed of light…
In 1937 he also claimed he was on the verge
of completing a grand “dynamic theory of
gravity [that [would] put an end to idle speculations
and false conceptions, as that of curved space.”
And that all the details were worked out and
he’d publish it to the world shortly.
He never did, of course.
During all this time, Tesla’s finances continued
to suffer to the point of near homelessness
until the aforementioned Westinghouse stipend
for the last decade or so of his life, with
Yugoslavia also kicking in a bit of a pension
for him.
Tesla last great financial windfall came from
a rather unexpected source when, from 1915
through 1917, he received $1000 per month
(about $30,000 per month today) paid by Telelfunken
in a patent infringement case with U.S. Marconi
Company.
In this one, Marconi was suing this German
radio company at the behest of the U.S. Government
who was attempting to disrupt German wireless
communications after the British had cut the
telegraph cable that linked Germany and the
U.S. Tesla was hired as an expert witness
on the German side, and presumably happy to
do so not just for the money, but also to
try to stick it to the Marconi Company.
His rather generous monthly paycheck on this
one ended when the U.S. threw their hat into
WWI in 1917.
But from all this, you’ll not be surprised
that Tesla’s last decades do not seem to
have been happy ones.
In reduced financial circumstances, his reputation
in the industry thoroughly sullied, and the
wider world having mostly moved on to other
celebrity scientists like Albert Einstein,
Tesla continued to work seemingly as hard
as he ever had, but produced nothing of consequence.
Tesla’s Peculiar Habits
This was also a period during which, by all
accounts, the great scientist’s energy and
mental health declined rapidly.
He became increasingly ‘eccentric,’ to
put it mildly, displaying behavior such as
an obsession with numbers and cleanliness
and the way his food had to be prepared for
him to eat it which would today most likely
be diagnosed as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
He also reportedly at this time began obsessively
washing his hands after doing things like
shaking hands with others, as well as had
very particular ways napkins had to be arranged
on his table.
He elaborates on some of his quirks here,
“I had a violent aversion against the earrings
of women but other ornaments, as bracelets,
pleased me more or less according to design.
The sight of a pearl would almost give me
a fit but I was fascinated with the glitter
of crystals or objects with sharp edges and
plane surfaces.
I would not touch the hair of other people
except, perhaps, at the point of a revolver.
I would get a fever by looking at a peach
and if a piece of camphor was anywhere in
the house it caused me the keenest discomfort.
Even now I am not insensible to some of these
upsetting impulses.
When I drop little squares of paper in a dish
filled with liquid, I always sense a peculiar
and awful taste in my mouth.”
Going back to his quirks with regards to other
people, Tesla also wasn’t a fan of people
who were overweight in any way, once firing
one of his secretaries when she became a little
too plump in his opinion.
He also reportedly had a habit of making any
employee of his who wasn’t dressed to his
standards go home and change, as well as didn’t
like the tendency for women to, in his opinion,
try to usurp men.
Writing in 1924, “In place of the soft-voiced,
a gentlewoman of my reverent worship, has
come the woman who thinks that her chief success
in life lies in making herself as much as
possible like man—in dress, voice and actions,
in sports and achievements of every kind … The
tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting
the old spirit of cooperation with him in
all the affairs of life, is very disappointing
to me.”
He further stated that he thought it was only
a matter of time before women would supplant
men as the dominant sex and that to quote
him, “Queen Bees” would run the world.
He also had peculiar ideas about coffee, tea,
and chewing gum, stating, “A drastic, if
not unconstitutional, measure is now being
put thru in this country to prevent the consumption
of alcohol and yet it is a positive fact that
coffee, tea, tobacco, chewing gum and other
stimulants, which are freely indulged in even
at the tender age, are vastly more injurious
to the national body, judging from the number
of those who succumb.
So, for instance, during my student years
I gathered from the published necrologues
in Vienna, the home of coffee drinkers, that
deaths from heart trouble sometimes reached
sixty-seven per cent of the total.
Similar observations might probably be made
in cities where the consumption of tea is
excessive.
These delicious beverages superexcite and
gradually exhaust the fine fibers of the brain.
They also interfere seriously with arterial
circulation and should be enjoyed all the
more sparingly as their deleterious effects
are slow and imperceptible.
Tobacco, on the other hand, is conducive to
easy and pleasant thinking and detracts from
the intensity and concentration necessary
to all original and vigorous effort of the
intellect.
Chewing gum is helpful for a short while but
soon drains the glandular system and inflicts
irreparable damage, not to speak of the revulsion
it creates.”
That said, because of his stance on eugenics,
he was all for people being allowed to use
any substances they pleased.
He states, “it should not be overlooked
that all these are great eliminators assisting
Nature, as they do, in upholding her stern
but just law of the survival of the fittest.
Eager reformers should also be mindful of
the eternal perversity of mankind which makes
the indifferent "laissez-faire" by far preferable
to enforced restraint.”
In other words, let people kill themselves
with such substances if they so please.
It will only help humanity in the long run.
He further noted he thought people’s propensity
to pity others was hindering evolution.
Noting in an interview in 1937 about all this
and his prediction on it:, “man’s new sense
of pity began to interfere with the ruthless
workings of nature.
The only method compatible with our notions
of civilization and the race is to prevent
the breeding of the unfit by sterilization
and the deliberate guidance of the mating
instinct … The trend of opinion among eugenists
is that we must make marriage more difficult.
Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent
should be permitted to produce progeny.
A century from now it will no more occur to
a normal person to mate with a person eugenically
unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.”
On his stance on eugenics, however, before
anyone over-vilifies him for it, it’s important
to understand the historical context here.
This was a time when most people were on board
with the idea at least on some level.
That is, until the Nazis went and made everyone
go “Oh, wait…” when they took the notion
and applied it in the worst possible way.
Going back to his quirks, Tesla also states,
“I counted the steps in my walks and calculated
the cubical contents of soup plates, coffee
cups and pieces of food- otherwise my meal
was unenjoyable.
All repeated acts or operations I performed
had to be divisible by three and if I mist
I felt impelled to do it all over again, even
if it took hours.”
If all this is making you now picture an unkempt,
reclusive individual at this stage of life,
that was still never Tesla.
As ever, he put great stock in his appearance
and how he dressed.
And famously even was very particular on exactly
how he was photographed, which is why he always
looks so incredibly dapper in surviving photos
today.
It was also reported on his dining habits
that while he frequently did so alone, it
also wasn’t out of the ordinary even late
in life to continue to entertain guests during
such.
Tesla’s Legacy
In the end, Nikola Tesla ultimately died of
coronary thrombosis on the evening of January
7, 1943 at the age of 86, found in his hotel
room, Room 3327, by hotel worker Alice Monaghanr
the next day.
Over his lifetime he held over 100 U.S. Patents,
and others in other nations, generally tallied
up to about 300, though many of these were
for the same device across multiple countries,
and the exact number isn’t actually clear
today.
While it’s often said he died penniless
and forgotten, and there are elements of truth
to this, much like his entire life story,
the reality was quite different than what
people often assume.
In this case, it was more just that he’d
fallen from rather extreme heights in both.
He was once very wealthy thanks to his work,
but had a bit of a practice of hemorrhaging
money not just on his work, but living quite
lavishly in many ways, including apparently
abhorring anything but the finest hotels.
For example, on April 1, 1901 he had dinner
with famed author Rudyard Kipling and lamented
Kipling’s choice of hotels, in perhaps in
the most humblebrag letter of all time,
“My dear Mrs. Johnson, What is the matter
with inkspiller Kipling?
He actually dared to invite me to dine in
an obscure hotel where I would be sure to
get hair and cockroaches in the soup.
Yours truly, N. Tesla”
Beyond liking the finer things in that way,
he also threw vast sums of money at his various
projects with abandoned, not just his own
money, but countless wealthy investors over
the years he could convince to buy into his
hype based on his obviously brilliance, early
significant work, and his skills at wowing
whoever he was talking to with his visions
of the future, generally selling them on a
device he’d supposedly be able to create
to make it happen.
Thus, the claim that the only reason Tesla
didn’t achieve vastly more in his lifetime
was from lack of funding wasn’t true at
all.
Much more so than most scientists and inventors,
Tesla on the whole had a relatively easy time
drumming up funding for his work.
The money only dried up when people began
to realize that his wild claims of amazing
things he supposedly invented were just that.
And his ability to convert them to actual
working real world devices wasn’t there.
Not from lack of funding.
But from his own lack of understanding of
physics in reality, vs. the physics that existed
in his head.
His fall on this front was entirely of his
own making.
And even in his waning years when funds were
tight, he never adjusted.
Running up bills at expensive hotels he couldn’t
pay, then moving to a different one when kicked
out and doing the same.
Only avoiding homelessness thanks to Westinghouse
covering Tesla’s Hotel New Yorker bill along
with the aforementioned stipend of $125 per
month (about $3000 today) starting in 1934
through Tesla’s death in 1943 in thanks
for his previous contribution to the company.
On top of this, as mentioned, the Yugoslavian
government also in Tesla’s waning years
gave him a small pension to help support his
day to day living.
Thus, while a large fall from his peak he
was, nonetheless, reasonably comfortable.
Moving over to the fame factor, even all the
way up through the 1930s he wasn’t yet forgotten
completely by the masses, with Time magazine
putting him on the cover in 1931, for example,
doing a highlight of the man and his inventions
in homage to his 75th birthday.
Tesla was not some reclusive genius misunderstood
by the masses of his day.
At least as far as scientists go, he was one
of the most famous in the world for quite
some time.
And his abilities as a showman and ability
to wow and inspire the masses and wealthy
alike were a huge part of why on this.
The media likewise loved him through a good
chunk of his life for his abilities here and
how that helped them sell newspapers.
However, again, after the initial success
with the AC Induction Motor and then wowing
audiences with his seemingly magical demonstrations
and grandiose predictions and devices he’d
supposedly invented wore off, and none of
his work after amounted to anything particularly
tangible, Tesla did fade into obscurity, although
this is still relative.
Countless scientists and engineers just as
accomplished as Tesla even in his era likewise
rarely get remembered outside of the industry
they worked, and even then often only in a
passing reference in some textbook of the
history of this or that.
Why Tesla’s legend lives on today to the
extent it does on the interweb isn’t so
much because of his actual accomplishments
or genius relative to so many other great
scientists and engineers of his era, but because
of his very vocal and prominent predictions
of what things would be like in the future
as certain technologies emerged, a subset
of which have come true, if not really the
way he necessarily envisioned would work.
The internet, picking up on this and every
wild claim Tesla made, generally not looking
too much into the man himself or his claims
in any deep way, and having forgotten so many
others whose work was critical to even making
Tesla’s contributions to the world be a
thing, ultimately bought into the hype, and
Tesla’s legend surged once again.
This time, without the man himself publicly
making wild predictions and claims to kill
it a second time.
In the end, if a scientist today made even
1/10th of the claims Tesla made about his
own work he’d supposedly already accomplished
without ever backing it up, he’d become
the laughingstock of the industry with very
rapidly zero credibility regardless of what
he’d done before.
…And, as outlined, that’s kind of what
happened to Tesla both within the industry
first, and later with the general public when
all his claims with regards to his work came
to nothing substantive.
That said, it’s an overcompensation the
other way to say Tesla didn’t do significant
work in his lifetime.
He did.
While others were doing similar work on AC
power and, for example, his induction motor,
well, that’s no different than every other
invention in history where countless people
were working on the same thing.
Tesla’s just so happened to be the one that
more directly contributed to advancements
in that arena and, for that, and other work
he did on AC power distribution and various
devices involved in all that, he is worthy
of acclaim.
Tesla was also very clearly a genius.
Although, as so sagely put in the 2023 blockbuster
Oppenheimer when Colonel Leslie Groves is
questioned about if he’d heard Oppenheimer
was brilliant, Groves responds, “brilliance
is taken for granted in your circle.”
To really sum up, the problem today is not
the perception that Tesla was brilliant, nor
that he did some significant things, just
that Tesla is often given credit for an intellect
and understanding of science far beyond his
contemporaries.
When, in fact, while there was a time in his
life this was maybe partially true, almost
directly thereafter, it wasn’t that the
science in his mind was beyond his contemporaries,
it was that it was incorrect and he refused
to adjust his understanding.
And, as noted on all this, as with so many
of the rumors surrounding Tesla’s intellect
and scientific prowess, it was Tesla himself
who started the idea that he saw things other
scientists of the world didn’t understand.
Tesla was a visionary in some other ways beyond
some of his contemporaries in terms of what
technologies were coming and what they would
do, but this was more along the lines of a
science fiction author, rather than based
on technologies he understood.
If we applied the same rubric many do with
Tesla to, say, Jules Verne, we would say Jules
Verne was the real inventor of the modern
submarine, the hologram, the modern helicopter,
news radio and TV, video conferencing, solar
sails, the Lunar Module, etc.
None of this diminishes Tesla’s actual real
life accomplishments, which were noteworthy
in a handful of cases.
It’s just important to focus on what those
actually were, and their actual relative importance.
In the end, the work of Tesla is rather harshly
summed up by the aforementioned electrical
engineer Laurence A Hawkins, in 1903 “Enough
has been given to indicate the reason for
the standing that is Tesla’s today in the
scientific world.
Not even the brilliancy of suggestion and
experiment contained in his early work, not
even the persistent efforts of powerful friends,
moved by their commercial interest to magnify
and exalt the value of his patented inventions,
could avert the discredit to his reputation
as a scientists brought upon himself by his
wild struggles for notoriety.
He has been condemned by his own extravagant
boasts, never followed by the realization
of their claims and often revealing a total
misunderstanding of the very elements of physical
laws.”
Tesla, however, summed up his life and work
a bit more charitably, noting, “The progressive
development of man is vitally dependent on
invention.
It is the most important product of his creative
brain.
Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery
of mind over the material world, the harnessing
of the forces of nature to human needs.
This is the difficult task of the inventor
who is often misunderstood and unrewarded.
But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing
exercises of his powers and in the knowledge
of being one of that exceptionally privileged
class without whom the race would have long
ago perished in the bitter struggle against
pitiless elements.
Speaking for myself, I have already had more
than my full measure of this exquisite enjoyment,
so much that for many years my life was little
short of continuous rapture.
I am credited with being one of the hardest
workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the
equivalent of labor, for I have devoted to
it almost all of my waking hours.
But if work is interpreted to be a definite
performance in a specified time according
to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of
idlers.
Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice
of life-energy.
I never paid such a price.
On the contrary, I have thrived on my thoughts.”
He concludes, “The scientific man does not
aim at an immediate result.
He does not expect that his advanced ideas
will be readily taken up.
His work is like that of the planter – for
the future.
His duty is to lay the foundation for those
who are to come, and point the way.”
And speaking of pointing the way, this brings
us, finally, to Thomas Edison.
Edison
Our story with Edison begins in Milan, Ohio,
where on February 11, 1847, the 7th and final
child of Samuel and Nancy Edison was born
in the family’s small brick cottage.
Not only from relatively humble origins, Thomas
Alva Edison also didn’t have the benefit
of a formal education growing up.
While he did attend a private school for a
few months under one Rev. George Engle in
1854 at the age of 7 before his father could
no longer afford to pay according to Engle,
and again briefly in 1859-1860 at Port Huron
Union School where he studied math and science,
in the end, his mother simply took to teaching
him to read and write and do basic math.
Edison would later state of this, "My mother
taught me how to read good books quickly and
correctly and as this opened up a great world
in literature, I have always been very thankful
for this early training."
Once the basics out of the way, she also then
set him on the local library where he notes,
“My refuge was the Detroit Public Library.
I started, it now seems to me, with the first
book on the bottom shelf and I went through
the lot, one by one…”
As for his opinions on formal schooling, he
would later in life state, “I like the Montessori
method.
It teaches through play.
It makes learning a pleasure.
It follows the natural instincts of the human
being…
The present system casts the brain into a
mold.
It does not encourage original thought or
reasoning.”
By the age of 11, Edison set up his first
chemical lab in the basement of the home they
had moved to in Port Huron and where he apparently
at one point also accidentally set his father’s
barn on fire.
For this, he reportedly got a very public
town square spanking.
This would not be the last time he accidentally
set things on fire.
Now at 12 years old, being the 19th century,
it was time for him to go to work, at first
on the family’s little farm.
But Edison would state of this: “After a
while I tired of this work as hoeing corn
in a hot sun is unattractive and I did not
wonder that it built up cities.
Soon the Grand Trunk R.R.
was extended from Toronto to Port Huron at
the foot of the Lake Huron and thence to Detroit,
at about the same time the war of the Rebellion
broke out.
By a great amount of persistence I got permission
from my mother to go on the local train as
a newsboy.
The local train from Port Huron to Detroit,
a distance of 63 miles left at 7 A.M. and
arrived again at Port Huron at 9 P.M.”
A 12 Year Old On a Mission and His First Business
And so it was that at an age when most of
us were wiling away our hours playing with
friends or causing our parents to wear rubber
gloves when handling our socks, Edison was
not only out working 13 hrs a day, but starting
his first successful business on the side.
He stated of this,
“After being on the train for several months,
I started two stores in Port Huron, one for
periodicals and the other for vegetables,
butter and berries in the season, these were
attended by two boys, who shared in the profits.
The periodical store I soon closed, as the
boy in charge could not be trusted.
The vegetable store I kept up for nearly a
year.
After the railroad had been opened a short
time they put on an express which left Detroit
in the morning and returned in the evening.
I received permission to put a newsboy on
this train connected with this train was a
car, one part for baggage and the other part
for U.S. mail, but for a long time it was
not used.
Every morning I had two large baskets of vegetables
from the Detroit Market loaded in the mail
car and sent to Port Huron where the German
boy would take them to the store.
They were much better than those grown locally
and sold readily.
I never was asked to pay freight and to this
day cannot explain why, except that I was
so small and industrious and the nerve to
appropriate a U.S. mail car to do a free freight
biz so monumental that it probably caused
passivity.
However, I kept this up for a long time and
in addition bought butter from the fanners
along the line and an immense amount of blackberries
in the season; I bought wholesale and at a
low price and permitted the wives of the engineers
and trainmen to have the benefit of the rebate.
After a while there was a daily immigrant
train put on— this train generally had from
seven to ten coaches filled always with Norwegians,
all bound for Iowa and Minnesota.
On these trains I employed a boy who sold
bread, tobacco and stick candy.”
He would soon change tack, however, noting,
“As the war progressed the daily newspaper
sales became very profitable and I gave up
the vegetable store, etc.”
On this one, things really changed thanks
to the battle of Shiloh, also known as the
battle of Pittsburg Landing.
He states, “On the day of this battle when
I arrived at Detroit, the bulletin boards
were surrounded with dense crowds and it was
announced that there were 60 thousand killed
and wounded and the result was uncertain.
I knew that if the same excitement was attained
at the various small towns along the road
and especially at Port Huron that the sale
of papers would be great.
I then conceived the idea of telegraphing
the news ahead, went to the operator in the
depot and by giving him Harper’s Weekly and
some other papers for three months, he agreed
to telegraph to all the stations the matter
on the bulletin board.
I hurriedly copied it and he sent it, requesting
the agents who displayed it on the blackboard,
used for stating the arrival and departure
of trains, I decided that instead of the usual
100 papers that I could sell 1000, but not
having sufficient money to purchase that number,
I determined in my desperation to see the
Editor himself and get credit.
The great paper at that time was the Detroit
Free Press.
I walked into the office marked Editorial
and told a young man that I wanted to see
the Editor on important business—important
to me anyway.
I was taken into an office where there were
two men and I stated what I had done about
telegraphy and that I wanted 1000 papers,
but only had money for 300 and I wanted credit.
One of the men refused it, but the other told
the first spokesman to let me have them.
This man I afterwards learned was Wilbur E
Storey, who subsequently founded the Chicago
Times and became celebrated in the newspaper
world.
By the aid of another boy we lugged the papers
to the train and started folding them.
The first station called Utica, was a small
one where I generally sold two papers.
I saw a crowd ahead on the platform, thought
it some excursion, but the moment I landed
there was a rush for me; then I realized that
the telegraph was a great invention.
I sold 35 papers; the next station, Mt.
Clemens, now a watering place, but then a
place of about 1000.
I usually sold 6 to 8 papers.
I decided that if I found a corresponding
crowd there that the only thing to do to correct
my lack of judgment in not getting more papers
was to raise the price from 5 cents to 10.
The crowd was there and I raised the price;
at the various towns there were corresponding
crowds.
It had been my practice at Port Huron to jump
from the train at a point about 1/4 mile from
the station where the train generally slackened
speed.
I had drawn several loads of sand at this
point to jump on and had become very expert.
The little German boy with the horse met me
at this point; when the wagon approached the
outskirts of the town I was met by a large
crowd.
I then yelled 25 cents apiece, gentlemen,
I haven’t got enough to go round.
I sold all out and made what to me then was
an immense sum of money…”
On top of all this, for about 6 months in
1862 Edison even started his own newspaper,
the Weekly Herald, edited and printed in the
baggage car of the train.
This one was mostly comprised of local news
he’d learn of at each stop, as well as news
about the Grand Trunk Railway itself.
You’ll Put Your Eye Out (Early Experiments)
As for the profits from all this, he used
it to both help support his family, as well
as fund his varied experiments.
This was something he was doing all at the
same time, even on the train itself, which
would get him into some amount of trouble
when he accidentally set fire to it as we’ll
get to shortly.
Speaking of flammable substances, he would
also occasionally make explosives.
For example, Edison recounts, “One day I
found in my copy of the Scientific American
a complete description of a method of making
nitroglycerin…
The product came out rather brown and the
article warned makers that brown nitro-glycerin
was impure and dark in color, that it was
due to impurities and in this condition was
dangerous and might explode spontaneously.
To see if the quality was O.K. we exploded
a few drops and the results were so strong
that we both got frightened, so we put the
nitro in a pop bottle, wound waste around
it, tied a cord to the end of the bottle and
let it down a sewer inlet on the street…”
One of his boyhood friends, James A. Clancy,
would reminisce about such experiments, "the
chances you and I used to take at your old
home and how your good Mother used to talk
to us and say we would yet blow our heads
off."
Speaking of that, then there was the time
he accidentally simultaneously partially electrocuted
himself, as well as covered himself in nitric
acid all at the same time.
He recalls,
“I had a large induction coil, which I had
borrowed from Mr. Williams to make some experiments
with.
With this coil I had ten large cells employing
nitric acid.
One day I got hold of both electrodes and
it clinched my hand on them so I couldn’t
let go.
The battery was on a shelf.
The only way I could get free was to back
off and pull the coil, so the battery wires
would pull the cells off the shelf and thus
break the circuit.
I shut my eyes and pulled, but the nitric
acid splashed all over my face and ran down
my back.
I rushed to the sink which was only half big
enough and got in and wiggled around for several
minutes to permit the water to dilute the
acid and stop the pain.
My face and back were streaked with yellow,
the skin thoroughly oxidized.
I did not go in the street by daylight for
two weeks, as the appearance of my face was
dreadful.
The skin, however, peeled off and new skin
replaced it without any damage.”
Of course, on the side, as noted, he also
did his experiments in a little lab he’d
set up in the train as well, ultimately culminating
in a white phosphorous fire on the train that
got him in some rather hot water and his ears
thoroughly boxed.
On this one, it’s sometimes claimed that
it was such boxing of ears that saw Edison
go deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the
other starting around 12 years old, something
that only got worse and worse as he aged.
However, it’s generally thought this deafness
was far more likely to have been the results
of some infection.
Relentless Optimism
As for the deafness, in something of a theme
you’re going to see as we go, Edison was
relentlessly positive, and had a strong propensity
to look on the bright side of everything no
matter what.
He stated of the condition, “I had doctors.
They could do nothing for me.
I have been deaf ever since and the fact that
I am getting deafer constantly, they tell
me, doesn’t bother me.
I have been deaf enough for many years to
know the worst, and my deafness has not been
a handicap but a help to me…”
On this, because it helped him to better focus
on his study and experiments without outside
audible distractions.
And just for now for a brief taste of the
level of positivity he applied to all aspects
of life, in one instance in 1914 at the age
of 67, an accidental fire burned six buildings
of his phonograph factory, with total losses
from it at around $7 million (about $210 million
today), of which only $2 of the $7 million
was insured.
Yet his son, Charles, notes when he ran over
to his father, instead of being upset, he
simply smiled and told him to run get Edison’s
wife, Mina, because she’d never have a chance
to see a fire like that again in her life.
He later stated while the losses were extreme,
a plus side of it was that they could redesign
a new phonograph factory taking advantage
of all they’d learned from the burned to the
ground one, as well as to "arrange my machinery
properly in order to take advantage of Mr.
Ford’s methods as far as possible."
In yet another instance, he had sold his GE
stock to pursue an iron-ore innovation business,
which flopped costing him all that money plus
millions more he had to pull from his other
businesses to keep the iron-ore company afloat
before its final failure.
After this, a reporter pointed out to him
the insane amount the GE stock would have
been worth had he kept it.
In response, Edison simply laughed and quipped,
"Well, it’s all gone, but we had a hell of
a good time spending it!"
In yet another case, when one Walter S. Mallory
asked why he didn’t give up on the storage
battery after getting no results for so many
years, Edison responded, "Results!
Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results.
I know several thousand things that won’t
work!"
In yet another case, and giving a small glimpse
of what working for Edison was like (and we’ll
dive into this much more deeply later), one
Dr. E.G.
Acheson states, "I once made an experiment
in Edison’s laboratory at Menlo Park during
the latter part of 1880, and the results were
not as looked for.
I considered the experiment a perfect failure,
and while bemoaning the results of this apparent
failure Mr. Edison entered, and, after learning
the facts of the case, cheerfully remarked
that I should not look upon it as a failure,
for he considered every experiment a success,
as in all cases it cleared up the atmosphere,
and even though it failed to accomplish the
results sought for, it should prove a valuable
lesson for guidance in the future work.
I believe that Mr. Edison’s success as an
experimenter was, to a large extent, due to
this happy view of all experiments."
This all gave rise to perhaps the most famous
Edison quote of all- “If I find 10,000 ways
something won’t work, I haven’t failed.
I am not discouraged, because every wrong
attempt discarded is another step forward.”
And that, "Our greatest weakness lies in giving
up.
The most certain way to succeed is always
to try just one more time."
The Life You Save May Be Your Own
In any event, going back to the story of the
young Edison, things were humming along quite
smoothly for the teen in this way until one
day his life changed forever when he added
“save a life” to his efforts to make the
rest of our teen years look completely wasted-
specifically, saving the life of three year
old Jimmie MacKenzie when Edison was 15 in
1862.
On this one, Edison explains he’d become
fascinating by the relatively new technology
of the telegraph, to the point that he began
neglecting his formerly lucrative news business,
which had peaked around a $200 profit per
month (about $6K today) down to only about
$30 a month profits, or a little over $900
today.
Such an unproductive 15 year old…
In any event, he states, “The station agent
at Mt.
Clemens permitted me to sit in the Telegraph
office and listen to the instrument; one day
his little boy was playing on the track when
a freight train came along—and I luckily
came out just in time to pull him off the
track; his mother saw the operation and fainted.
This put me in the good graces of Mr. Mackenzie,
the agent, and he took considerable pains
to teach me, as I kept at it about 18 hours
a day I soon became quite proficient.”
And note here, on the side, he also setup
a telegraph line between his and his aforementioned
friend James A. Clancy’s homes so they could
both practice at home and communicate with
each other any time.
At this point, he ceased his former business
activities and switched to becoming a telegraph
operator.
He states, “I then put up a telegraph line
from the station to the village a distance
of 1 mile and opened an office in a drug store,
but the business was small and the operator
at Port Huron knowing my proficiency and who
wanted to go into the U.S.M.
Telegraph, where the pay was high, succeeded
in convincing his brother-in-law (Mr. Walker)
that I could fill the position all right.
Mr. Walker had a jewelry store and had charge
of the WU.
Tel.
office.
As I was to be found at the office both day
and night, sleeping there, I became quite
valuable to Mr. Walker.
After working all day I worked at the office
nights as well for the reason that press report
came over one of the wires until 3 A.M and
I would cut in and copy it as well as I could,
to become more rapidly proficient; the goal
of the rural telegraph operator was to be
able to take press.”
After this, “Mr. Walker tried to get my
father to apprentice me at 20 dollars per
month, but they could not agree.
I then applied for a job on the Grand Trunk
R.R.
as a railway operator and was given a place
nights at Stratford Junction, Canada.
This night job just suited me as I could have
the whole day to myself.
I had the faculty of sleeping in a chair any
time for a few minutes at a time.
I taught the night yardman my call, so I would
get 1 hour sleep now and then between trains
and in case the station was called, the watchman
would awaken me.”
Note here, not just transmitting and receiving
messages, the telegraph operator was also
in charge of maintaining the equipment, meaning
he also had to understand all the inner workings,
including gaining a lot of intimate knowledge
on how batteries and electricity and circuits
work.
The skill and knowledge upgrade in all this
ultimately laid the groundwork for a large
percentage of his later work in life.
Ever the tinkerer and with his insatiable
curiosity, when he now wasn’t doing his
duties as a telegraph operator, he was experimenting
with all this.
The insanely lucrative fruits of this tinkering
wouldn’t be long in coming, making himself
the equivalent of a million dollars in modern
valuation only a handful of years after this.
But before he got there, he had a few potholes
in the road.
Whoopsadoodle
For example, going back to his rather odd
sleeping habits and the Grand Trunk, Edison
invented a device that would automatically
check in on the hour even if he was sleeping
or otherwise pursuing his research interests.
Unfortunately for him, this got discovered
by his supervisor and he was promptly fired
from that location.
Not the first time he’d be fired, in the
next instance via almost getting people killed.
On this one he states, “One night I got
an order to hold a freight train and I replied
that I would.
I rushed out to find the signalman, but before
I could find him and get the signal set, the
train ran past.
I ran to the Telegraph Office and reported
I couldn’t hold her, she had run past.
The reply was "Hell".
The dispatcher on the strength of my message
that I would hold the train, had permitted
another to leave the last station in the opposite
direction.
There was a lower station near the Junction
where the day operator slept.
I started for it on foot.
The night was dark and I fell in a culvert
and was knocked senseless.
However, the track was straight, the trains
saw each other, and there was no collision.
The next morning Mr. Carter, the station agent
and myself were ordered to come at once to
the main office in Toronto.
We appeared before the General Superintendent,
W J. Spicer who started in hauling Mr. Carter
over the coals for permitting such a young
boy to hold such a responsible position.
Then he took me in hand and stated that I
could be sent to Kingston States Prison, etc.
Just at this point, three English swells came
into the office.
There was a great shaking of hands and joy
all around; feeling that this was a good time
to be neglected I silently made for the door;
down the stairs to the lower freight station,
got into the caboose going on the next freight,
the conductor who I knew, and kept secluded
until I landed a boy free of fear in the U.S.
of America.”
In yet another instance of getting fired,
in 1866 while working in Kentucky for Western
Union as a part of their Associated Press
bureau news wire, he asked to once again work
the night shift.
Unfortunately, while experimenting with a
lead-acid battery one night, he accidentally
spilled sulfuric acid on the floor.
This quickly seeped through the floor board
and onto his boss’ desk below, who, upon
discovering this the next morning, promptly
fired him.
Something to explicitly point out here was
that in working in the news at these various
telegraphic offices all over parts of the
U.S. and Canada, Edison became acquainted
and friends with many people in various facets
of the news, both current and future individuals
as this was a common transition for telegraph
operators.
He also learned well the power of the news
for promotion.
This was all later a great aid to him in the
early going in getting his inventions in the
public eye before he became world famous.
First Inventions and a Life Lesson
As for those devices, beyond the one that
would automatically check in for him on the
hour on the telegraph, another of his early
unpatented inventions was a device that would
automatically record a Morse Code message
on a paper tape, and then could be used to
play the message back, but at a slower speed.
He apparently intended this device to be used
to help train Morse Code operators.
Yet another early device he worked on was
a printer to convert the telegraph signals
into letters automatically.
His first patented device, however, came when
he was 22 in 1869.
This was an electric voting recorder, intended
to be used to massively speed up vote counting
in institutions like Congress.
Edison described the device in his patent
(U.S. Patent 90,646),
“The object of my invention is to produce
an apparatus which records and registers in
an instant,- and with great accuracy the votes
of legislative bodies, thus avoiding loss
of valuable time consumed in counting and
registering the votes and names, as done in
the usual manner ;’and my invention consists
in applying an electrographic apparatus in
such a manner that each member, by moving
a switch to either of two points, representing
an affirmative and opposing vote, has his
name imprinted, by means of electricity, under
the desired head, on a previously-prepared
paper, and at I the sametime-the number of
votes is indicated on a-dial-plate by the
operation…“
Unfortunately for him, speeding up vote counting
was not something any political group he pitched
it to were interested in.
No doubt with some making disparaging remarks
about young people these days, and how lazy
they are needing newfangled technologies to
do simple counting for them instead of tallying
up by hand like people had always done.
But as noted, seemingly nothing could keep
Edison down for long, and he reportedly resolved
all his future work would be practical things
that would have an obvious market.
Stating, “Anything that won’t sell, I
don’t want to invent.
Its sale is proof of utility and utility is
success.”
And that, “I never perfected an invention
that I did not think about in terms of the
service it might give others…
I find out what the world needs, then I proceed
to invent…”
That said, upon his waning years he switched
up on this and decided just to enjoy himself
experimenting with whatever tickled his fancy,
regardless of marketability.
But for most of his life, if it didn’t have
extreme utility, he wasn’t interested.
Another key tenet of his work, and perhaps
the most controversial today, as the New Yorker
would write of him, Edison “did not look
for problems in need of solutions; he looked
for solutions in need of modification.”
Edison himself would concur, stating, “My
principal business consists of giving commercial
value to the brilliant, but often misdirected,
ideas of others.
Accordingly, I never pick up an item without
thinking of how I might be able to improve
it.”
Essentially, finding potentially revolutionary
new ideas that simply didn’t work or weren’t
practical in their current state, and perfecting
them so they were.
On this practical side, it also wasn’t just
about perfecting the thing itself, but also,
as he was often working on the cutting edge
of things, creating the entire system and
infrastructure needed to make the thing commercially
viable.
But going back to his first failed patented
invention, after this he continued inventing
and ultimately came up with a Universal Stock
Printer, shortly after which he resigned his
position as a telegraph operator to pursue
inventing full time.
Making a Million Dollars By Keeping His Mouth
Shut
On this one, he almost cost himself close
to a million dollars, but by simply keeping
his mouth shut, changed his future forever.
To start, he states of the invention, “I
established a Laboratory over the Gold room
and put up a line on which I opened a stock
quotation circuit with 25 subscribers, the
ticker being of my own invention.
I also engaged in putting up private lines
upon which I used a dial instrument.
This instrument was very simple and practical
and any one could work it after a few minutes
explanation…”
This initial version of the device caught
on somewhat and he states of the early funds
from it, “Thinking that perhaps I might
not get anything at all, I told General Lefferts
[President of the Gold and Stock Telegraph
Company which supplied tickers to Wall Street],
who was at the head of the Company making
the purchase, all about my relations.
He said, say nothing, do nothing, leave it
to me.
When the deal went through, the General handed
me $1500 [about $38,000 today] and said that
was my share, he had saved it out when he
made the payment.”
This was just the beginning though.
With further funds and encouragement from
Lefferts, he began work on improving the ticker.
Edison states, “This [ticker] was made exceedingly
simple as the outside cities did not have
the experts we had in New York to handle anything
complicated.
The same ticker was used on the London Stock
Exchange.
After I had made a great number of inventions
and obtained patents, the General seemed anxious
that the matter should be closed up.
One day after I had exhibited and worked a
successful device, whereby if a ticker should
get out of unison in a broker’s office and
commenced to print wild figures, it could
be brought to unison from the central station
and which saved the labor of many men and
much trouble to the broker.”
And here is where Edison keeping his mouth
shut changed his life and the world.
He states, “He called me into his office
and said, ‘Now, young man, I want to close
up the matter of your inventions, how much
do you think you should receive?’
I had made up my mind that taking in consideration
the time and the killing pace I was working
that I should be entitled to $5,000, but could
get along with $3,000, but when the psychological
moment arrived, I hadn’t the nerve to name
such a large sum, so I said, ‘Well, General,
Suppose you make me an offer.’
Then he said, ‘How would forty thousand
dollars strike you.’
[A little over $1 million today] This caused
me to come as near fainting as I ever got.
I was afraid he would hear my heart beat.
I managed to say that I thought it was fair.
‘All right, I will have a contract drawn,
come around in three days and sign it, and
I will give you the money.’”
Still not believing it, Edison goes on, “[I]
had been doing considerable thinking on the
subject, the sum seemed to be very large for
the amount of work, for at that time I determined
the value by the time and trouble and not
what the invention was worth to others.
I thought there was something unreal about
it.
However, the contract was handed to me, I
signed without reading it.
The General called in the Secretary and told
him to fix it up and pay the money.”
There was an issue there.
Edison didn’t really know what to do with
a check, and this was a time before banks
would deal with basically anyone but business
owners and the rich.
(This would only change largely thanks to
the efforts of one of the unsung heroes of
American history, A.P. Gianini, who founded
the Bank of Italy that became the Bank of
America, and by the way was the partial inspiration
for the character of George Bailey in It’s
a Wonderful Life.
See our video on that one, in which we dive
into Gianini and his significance to modern
history).
But in any event, Edison states, “I arrived
on time, but I was then handed a check for
$40,000 on the bank of the State of New York,
which was at the corner of William and Wall
Streets.
This was the first check I ever had.
I went to the bank and noticed the window
marked "Paying Teller", got in line with about
a dozen men and a dozen messenger boys and
slowly approached the window.
When directly in front of the window passed
in the check, he looked at it, turned it over
and handed it back, making a few short remarks
which I could not understand, being at that
time as ever since, quite deaf.
I passed outside to the large steps to let
the cold sweat evaporate and made up my mind
that this was another Wall Street game like
those I had received over the press wire,
that I had signed the contract whatever was
in it, that the inventions were gone and I
had been skinned out of the money.
But when I thought of the General and knowing
he had treated me well, I couldn’t believe
it, and I returned to the office and told
the secretary what occurred.
He went in and told the General and both had
a good laugh.
I was told to endorse the check and he would
send a young man down with me to identify.
We went to the bank, the young man had a short
conversation with the Paying Teller, who seemed
quite merry over it, I presented the check
and the Teller asked me through the young
man, how would I have it.
I said in any way to please the bank Then
he commenced to pull out bundles of notes
until there certainly seemed to be one cubic
foot.
These were passed out and I had the greatest
trouble in finding room in my overcoat and
other pockets.
They had put a job up on me, but knowing nothing
of bank customs in those days, I did not even
suspect it.
I went to Newark and sat up all night with
the money for fear it might be stolen.
The next day I went back with it all and told
the General about it, and he laughed very
greatly, but said to one of his young men—Don’t
carry this joke on any further, go to the
bank with Edison and have him open an account
and explain the matter, which I did.”
A Kid in a Candy Shop and Making the Next
Great Invention
The 24 year old Edison was now like a kid
in a candy shop, stating, “I have too sanguine
a temperment to keep money in solitary confinement,
so I commenced to buy machinery, rented a
shop and got some manufacturing work to do
from the first shop; I moved into a large
shop Nos. 10 and 12 Ward Street, Newark.
I got large orders from the General to build
tickers and had over 50 men, and as orders
increased I put on a night shift.
I was my own foreman on both shifts, one-half
hour of sleep three or four times in the twenty-four
hours was all I needed.
Nearly all my men were on piece work and I
allowed them to make good wages and never
cut until their wages became absurdly high,
as they got more expert.
I kept no books.
I had two hooks, all the bills and accounts
I owed I jabbed on one hook and memorandum
of all owed to myself I put on the other.
The first three months I had the bookkeeper
go over the books to find out how much we
made.
He reported $3,000.1 gave a supper to some
of my men to celebrate this, only to be told
two days afterwards by this alleged accountant
that he had made a mistake and that we had
lost $500 instead of making $3,000, and then
a few days after coming to me again and said
he was all mixed up and now found we had made
$7,000.
I discharged him and got another man, but
I never counted anything thereafter as real
profits, until I had paid all my debts and
had the profits in the bank.”
Edison’s next great invention was only a
couple more years in coming- the quadruplex
telegraph system, which he patented in 1874.
On this one, Edison, demonstrating yet again
his genius for taking an existing device and
making it better, was experimenting with the
existing duplex system and realized that if
he added a diplex to it, he could double the
number of messages at a time on the line.
However, upon trying it, he discovered it
wasn’t quite so simple as that and he encountered
a number of hurdles.
However, each bug he encountered he simply
applied what he called a “bug trap”, essentially
if he couldn’t get rid of the problem, he
created a way to work around it to get the
result he wanted while still keeping the benefits
of the thing causing the bug.
And, yes, he did use the term “bug” for
this, which predated computers.
Edison’s Actual Greatest Invention
In the end, he was successful.
And the resulting windfall of cash- there
are varying reports on how much with the most
often cited figure being $100,0000 or about
$2.6 million today- allowed him to create
arguably his greatest invention of all, his
first version of The Industrial Think Tank
Lab, also known as the Invention Factory.
Rather than stay in Newark, however, in 1876
Edison, with the help of his father locating
suitable real estate, decided to build the
lab in a small little town outside of New
York City called Menlo Park.
As to why the move, Edison variously referenced
both issue with prices of rent in the city
for the size of facility he wanted, and also
that "I couldn’t get peace and quiet in Newark
and was run down by visitors."
With this lab, he took all he’d learned
from his previous shop, as well as his most
talented and hard working employees, and built
his dream lab.
A two story building, the bottom floor being
a top of the line machine shop with just about
any tool a machinist could want to make anything.
The top floor was likewise a world class lab
for experimenting on all manner of things.
In all, Edison’s goal was to, to quote him,
produce, "a minor invention every ten days
and a big thing every six months or so."
Of course, while Edison had some money, the
lab itself at this point was a money sink,
which is where his business savvy came in.
Knowing that the inventions he would potentially
churn out, especially in the beginning when
focussing on the telegraph, could benefit
Western Union, he wrote to Western Union President
William Orton, "the cost of running my machine
shop including coal kerosene & labor is about
15 per day or 100 per week; at present I have
no source of income which will warrant continuing
my machine shop and I shall be compelled to
close it unless I am able to provide funds
for continuing the same and keep my skilled
workmen."
And that if Western Union would pay this money
monthly, he would give them rights to use
"every invention that I can make during that
time which is applicable to commercial telegraphy."
From here, with the help of his “muckers,”
or also sometimes called the “insomnia squad,”
the industrial age of inventing began.
We’ll get to what the work environment and
process was for the inventions and how much
Edison was actually involved later.
But for now, let’s talk about some of the
world changing inventions they came up with.
This video would be several times longer if
we covered everything invented at Menlo Park.
So we’ll stick with some of the more significant
items.
Making the Telephone Commercially Viable
For starters, Western Union requested Edison
and his team turn their brains to the telephone,
as Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 invention,
while revolutionary, wasn’t commercially
viable at scale.
The biggest issue was that it had severe limitations
all centered around the fact that it used
a very weak signal from the way the microphone
and transmission system worked on it.
And so it was that within a year of Western
Union making the request, Edison and one Charles
Batchelor invented the carbon transmitter
microphone, which allowed for improving the
volume, clarity, and distance with which you
could transmit phone conversations, making
it practical for mass and long distance communication,
and ultimately becoming the basic staple design
used in most phones up until the late 20th
century.
Important to the value of Edison’s breadth
of knowledge and experience, the inspiration
for this device actually came back in 1873
where at one point Edison was trying to develop
a rheostat, or variable resistor, using carbon
filled glass tubes.
However, he wrote in his notes that "found
that the resistance of carbon varied with
every noise, jar or sound."
Not suitable for his original application,
when it came to a microphone of sorts for
the telephone, this property was perfect,
though, as noted, it still took Edison and
his team about a year to perfect their device
for practical commercial use.
Of course, as ever, others were working on
the same type of thing at the same time as
the issue with Bell’s original system was
obvious and needed fixing to make the telephone
broadly useful as we think of it.
For example, besides Edison and his team,
German inventor Emile Berliner invented more
or less the same thing in parallel, with Alexander
Graham Bell purchasing Berliner’s patent.
All kicking off a legal battle with the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling “The [carbon microphone]
is, beyond controversy, the invention of Edison."
Did He Actually Invent “Hello”?
Speaking of the telephone, before we move
on to the next major invention, as a brief
aside to clear up one Edison myth, it is often
claimed that Edison coined the word “Hello”
and even popularized it for use when answering
the phone.
As for the former assertion, this is false.
The first documented instance of the word
“hello” being used as a greeting predates
Thomas Edison, appearing in The Sketches and
Eccentricities of Col. Davey Crockett, which
was written in 1833, about 14 years before
Edison was born.
The exact quote from the text is: “Said
I, ‘Hello stranger!
if you don’t take keer your boat will run
away with you.’”
Further, based on significant literary evidence,
it would seem that even though “hello”
hadn’t graced the contents of dictionaries
yet, by around the 1860s, “hello” had
become a relatively common greeting.
As for the second assertion of Edison being
the one to popularize “Hello” as a phone
greeting, his contribution is less clear.
This one stems from the fact that he wrote
to the president of the Central District and
Printing Telegraph Company of Pittsburgh,
T.B.A.
David, in 1877 suggesting, “Friend David,
I do not think we shall need a call bell as
Hello!
can be heard 10 to 20 feet away.
What you think?
Edison – P.S.
first cost of sender & receiver to manufacture
is only $7.00.”
However, from his exact wording, it’s not
actually clear that he’s explicitly suggesting
“Hello,” simply stating he doesn’t think
the phone needs a ringer because you can hear
someone shouting “hello” over the phone
from quite a distance away.
Or maybe he is suggesting it.
It’s just not fully clear from his exact
phrasing.
That said, he clearly thought it was the way
to go in initial call and response greetings
on the phone and as he was intimately involved
in the early commercialization of telephones,
he may well have helped popularize the standard.
Especially as the other titan of the early
telephone age in Bell was pushing for saying
“ahoy hoy” instead for this purpose.
This one is referenced in the Simpsons with
Mr. Burns being so old he still answers the
phone this way.
Either way, within a few years of this, “hello”
had found its way into dictionaries, and telephone
operators also got the nickname “hello girls”.
In any event, while working on this microphone
for the telephone, he and others thought it
likely the telephone would replace the telegraph
as a means to disseminate news.
Seeing a potential problem in that people
talk too fast for the person on the other
end to write it all down, Edison felt there
was a need for a device to record the voice
and play it back slower for dictation.
Inventing the First Device to Play Back Recorded
Sound
And so the phonograph was born.
You’ll often read that this was the first
device in history to record sound, but this
isn’t correct.
It was the first device to be able to record
AND play back the sound it had recorded.
A couple decades before this in March of 1857,
Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
was the first to patent a device for recording
sound, and many others created similar devices.
The issue with these was they simply drew
the sound waves on paper tracings and, at
least with technology of the age, it was impossible
to play the sound back from this.
(Researchers have actually in more recent
times scanned surviving tracings and, with
a bit of custom software, have been able to
play them back, including hearing the voices
of the people on some of the recordings, making
them the first humans in history to have audible
record of their voice still around today.)
While these early devices were not remotely
useful for a mass commercial product, they
were, at least, very helpful in science in
studying sound waves.
Edison’s device worked very differently
from these and was perhaps his first truly
original invention, or at least, as close
as one can come to any invention being original,
as every invention builds on the work of others
on some level.
Not only this, but this was a rare device
that just sort of worked the first try, though,
to be fair Edison was building off a lot of
previous knowledge and experience he had accumulated
over the years on it, as well as some experiments
with wax paper before building the prototype.
Nevertheless, Edison, with the help of machinist
John Kruesi, sketched out the machine which
more or less had a diaphragm and needle in
a mouthpiece you talked into, as well as a
crank for turning a cylinder wrapped in tinfoil.
The vibrations from sound would then cause
the needle to indent on the tinfoil in a given
pattern.
The sound could then be played back via resetting
the cylinder and cranking the device, with
the needle then tracing along the line and
vibrating the diaphragm.
John Kruesi finished the prototype reportedly
within 30 hours of the design being completed.
And it just worked- the very first try, with
the first ever recording being Edison reportedly
reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and
having the device play it back to them.
This was also no doubt the first time in history
a human exclaimed upon hearing himself, “Wait,
that’s what I sound like?”
As for the device just working, Edison stated,
"I was always afraid of things that worked
the first time."
That said, this version of the device was
not commercially viable, with recordings extremely
low quality and able to be played back only
a few times before the recording became useless.
Nevertheless, it was something that the world
had never seen anything like before.
Adhering to the precept that “any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic…”
when Edison showed the phonograph off to the
press, it quickly vaulted him and his Invention
Factory lab into the global spotlight, as
well as earned him the nickname the “Wizard
of Menlo Park”.
In one early demo at Scientific American magazine,
they reported, "Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently
came into this office, placed a little machine
on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine
inquired as to our health, asked how we liked
the phonograph, informed us that it was very
well, and bid us a cordial good night."
He was also eventually asked to come demo
it to U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes in
April of 1878.
Interestingly, despite its potential world
changing implications, especially when it
came to music, Edison and co did virtually
nothing with the device for many years, other
than use it to promote the company.
Later they would realize it didn’t just
have utility in recording and playing back
voices, but also music, and at one point even
made a mini phonograph to be placed in the
world’s first talking dolls, where it would
recite little nursery rhymes and the like.
However, the fragility of these mini phonograph
systems and the rough life dolls often lived
made this particular venture fail after a
run of only about 500 dolls, most of which
were returned within a month when they stopped
working.
The Wizard of Menlo Park
Moving on from the phonograph and helping
to make the telephone commercially viable,
on the side they had countless other lesser
talked about inventions, including devices
for improvements on fruit storage via vacuum
sealing them and the automatic electric pen
in 1875.
On this one, they used an electric motor to
drive a needle up and down in a pen, which
ultimately created a stencil as the user wrote,
which then, with the help of a press, could
be used to make copies of a handwritten document.
This device was initially quite successful,
but soon other technologies, such as the mimeograph,
inspired by the electric pen and developed
about a decade later, replaced it.
However, this worked out for Edison too, as
the inventor of the mimeograph, A.B.
Dick, teamed up with Edison to create the
Edison Mimeograph.
We bring this one up as it’s also often
claimed, though whether true or independently
invented is difficult to discern, that Samuel
O’Reilly used the electric pen as the inspiration
for his rather revolutionary electric tattoo
needle device he invented in the 1890s, which
worked in a somewhat similar fashion.
Beyond all this, in the 1880s Edison and his
team also began working on the relatively
new fuel cell technology, eventually using
sulphuric acid to catalyze the oxidation of
carbon from anthracite coal, which he managed
to get a strong current out of.
He stated of the fuel cell, "The great secret
of doing away with the intermediary furnaces,
boilers, steam engines, and dynamos will be
found, probably within ten years.
I have been working away at it for some months
and have got to the point where an apparently
insurmountable obstacle confronts me.
Working at the problem now seems to me very
much like driving a ship straight for the
face of a precipice, and when you come to
grief picking yourself up and trying it again
to-morrow.
There is an opening in the barrier somewhere,
and some lucky man will find it.
I have got far enough to know that the thing
is possible.
… I give myself five years to work at it,
and shall think myself lucky if I succeed
in that time."
However, as is a theme you’ll see a few
notable times in his career, if a technology
seemed to become too dangerous, or he perceived
it as such, regardless of how potentially
lucrative it might be, he tended to abandon
it to work on something else.
In this case, he would mostly abandon the
fuel cell technology research after an accident
in 1884 resulted in an explosion so great
it blew the windows out of his lab.
The Real Story of the Lightbulb
But in any event, going back to shortly after
inventing the microphone for the telephone
and the phonograph, Edison and his team would
put the phonograph aside to instead focus
their efforts on revolutionizing the world
of lighting.
As we covered recently in our video Who Actually
Invented the Light Bulb, countless people
in the decades leading up to Edison’s lightbulb
were working on similar technologies, with
the arc lamp being used to light an opera
theater in Paris all the way back in 1846.
As for Edison, while he did briefly dabble
in lighting previous to this, it wasn’t
until 1877 when a physics professor at the
University of Pennsylvania, George Barker,
showed him an arc light system developed by
Moses Farmer and William Wallave that, according
to a contemporary account in the New York
Sun, “Edison was enraptured.
He fairly gloated over it.
. . . He ran from the instruments to the lights,
and from the lights back to the instrument.
He sprawled over a table with the simplicity
of a child, and made all kinds of calculations.
He estimated the power of the instrument and
of the lights, the probable loss of power
in transmission, the amount of coal the instrument
would save in a day, a week, a month, a year,
and the result of such saving on manufacturing.”
But while arc lamps were fine for lighting
large open spaces, their light was far too
harsh for ordinary household use.
Thankfully, by this time, research on incandescent
lamps was beginning to show promise.
One of the first practical incandescent lamp
designs was patented in 1872 by Russian inventor
Alexander Lodygin.
Lodygin’s bulb did not use a traditional
filament but a pair of carbon rods, arranged
so that current would pass to the second rod
once the first burned out.
To get around the limitations of vacuum pump
technology at the time, Lodygin instead filled
the bulb with inert Nitrogen, an arrangement
that would later become standard – albeit
with different gasses.
Lodygin was later among the first to patent
a light bulb using a tungsten filament – another
now-standard design feature – but unfortunately
at the time tungsten was prohibitively expensive
to work with, and none of Lodygin’s designs
saw commercial production.
For full details of the development of the
lightbulb, go check out our video on it, but
suffice it say, a whole lot of people were
trying to do exactly as Edison and his team
were, all at the same time.
But while loads of people came up with designs
that worked, none of them were commercially
viable for a number of varied reasons depending
on the exact device.
Some of them, however, including Canadian
medical student Henry Woodward and hotel keeper
Matthew Evans, did manage to patent devices
that had elements Edison and his team felt
were on the right track, and they purchased
the rights, in this case for $5,000 or about
$160,000 today.
None of these were workable commercially viable
products, however, and an insane amount of
experimentation still needed done to get there,
with Edison’s group and one Joseph Swan
across the pond in England getting their first
for a commercially viable product.
Although in slightly different ways, and with
Swan ultimately borrowing a lot of elements
from Edison’s bulbs to markedly improve
his own’s efficiency, with the ensuing court
battle all initially going Swan’s way, but
then later Edison’s.
As for the conclusion of it, as Lord Justice
Fry of Great Britain’s Royal Courts stated,
“Swan could not do what Edison did…the
difference between a carbon rod (as employed
by Swan) and a carbon filament (Mr. Edison’s
method) was the difference between success
and failure…
Mr. Edison used the filament instead of the
rod for a definite purpose, and by diminution
of the sectional area made a physical law
subserve the end he had in view.
The smallness of size, then, was no casual
matter, but was intended to bring about, and
did bring about, a result which the rod could
never produce, and so converted failure into
success.”
Whatever your opinion on that, this all resulted
in the Edison and Swan United Electric Company
or Ediswan, which soon became one of the largest
manufacturers of lightbulbs in the world.
But going back to Edison’s bulb, Edison
began the project by pretty brazenly proclaiming
that he could create a safer, cheaper, and
more reliable electric light to replace gas
lights in only six weeks.
Amazingly, such was Edison’s clout at this
time that this announcement caused gas company
stocks to plummet.
After raising funds from investors, which
was the real point of the media circus on
that one, Edison and his insomnia squad set
to work.
While they did initially come up with various
designs that worked great, such as one using
a thin platinum filament, as with so many
similar at the time, none of them were commercially
viable on the scale Edison was seeking.
For example, the platinum filament bulb lasted
only about 14 hours, and platinum was too
expensive for mass adoption.
Thus, Edison and his muckers embarked upon
a marathon hunt for a lightbulb filament that
would be durable, long-lasting, and economical
to manufacture.
As for the excitement within the company over
the light bulb, one of his key employees,
Francis Upton, wrote to his father, “The
electric light is coming up.
We have had a fine burner made of a piece
of carbonized thread which gave a light of
two or three gas jets.
Mr. Edison now proposes to give an exhibition
of some lamps in actual operation.
There is some talk if he can show a number
of lamps of organizing a large company with
three or five millions capital to push the
matter through.
I have been offered $1,000 [about $31,000
today] for five shares of my stock.
. . . Edison says the stock is worth a thousand
dollars a share or more, yet he is always
sanguine and his valuations are on his hopes
more than his realities.”
Upton’s letters from here waxed and waned
on optimism, but within a few weeks he wrote,
“the first lamp that answers the purpose
we have wished.
It is cheap much more so than we even hoped
to have.
The lamp is obtained from a piece of charred
paper which is bent thus [into a horseshoe
shape].
The burner is made from common card board
and cut to about the size shown [1" high].
This is then sealed in a glass bulb and the
air exhausted and then a current of electricity
passed through it which heats it to a brilliant
whiteness so that it will give a light equal
to that from a good sized gas burner.”
And on this cheapness, Edison would state
once ramped up it would become “so cheap
that only the rich will burn candles.”
As for the Demo, the New York Herald reported,
"Extra trains were run from east and west,
and notwithstanding the stormy weather, hundreds
of persons availed themselves of the privilege.
The laboratory was brilliantly illuminated
with twenty-five lamps, the office and counting
room with eight, and twenty others were distributed
in the street leading to the depot and in
some of the adjoining houses.
The entire system was explained in detail
by Edison and his assistants, and the light
was subjected to a variety of tests."
Unfortunately, the initial paper filaments,
while working great for a demo, had the issue
of inconsistency for mass production.
Edison stated, "Paper is no good.
Under the microscope it appears like a lot
of sticks thrown together.
There are places where the fibres are packed
and other places where there are few fibres,
dense spots and great open holes…
Now I believe that somewhere in God Almighty’s
workshop there is a vegetable growth with
geometrically parallel fibres suitable to
our use.
Look for it.
Paper is man made and not good for filaments."
On all this, what Edison might have lacked
in theoretical knowledge, he more than made
up for with the realization that large-scale
technical problems require large-scale solutions
– an ethos that predicted today’s era of
“big science” and industrial research
laboratories.
And so it was that between 1878 and 1880,
Edison and his team at Menlo Park tested over
6,000 different filament materials in various
ways, including cotton, linen, cedar, baywood,
boxwood, and hickory.
Edison even wrote botanists from around the
world to obtain samples of exotic plants to
test.
At first, carbonized cotton seemed to hold
the most promise, glowing for nearly 500 hours
straight.
Ultimately, however, Edison and his team hit
upon carbonized bamboo, which allowed for
bulb lives of up to 1200 hours.
Of the entire research and development, process,
Edison later wrote: "The electric light has
caused me the greatest amount of study and
has required the most elaborate experiments."
Naturally, ever the optimist, he went on,
"I was never myself discouraged, or inclined
to be hopeless of success.
I cannot say the same for all my associates.”
But to finish the story of the lightbulb,
Edison and his team did not “invent” the
lightbulb in the traditional sense; rather,
they simply perfected the technology to the
point where it became economically viable
and practical, and then helped popularize
it.
As Robert Friedel, professor of history at
University of Maryland College Park explains:
"He carefully identified all of the key qualifications
for a successful rival to the alternatives
… reliability, longevity, economy and aesthetics.
He deliberately set out to create an electric
light that would check all these boxes — this
is something no one else succeeded in doing.”
His Accidental Invention That Massively Changed
the World That Nobody Talks About
Interestingly, there was a rather insanely
revolutionary and far more unique device Edison
accidentally invented in parallel with the
lightbulb that was just one of his lightbulbs
with a slight twist.
But unfortunately for Edison, he did not realize
the implication of what he’d just made in
one of his thousands of tests, and how revolutionary
it could be if refined a bit, and in the right
applications.
Because of his failure to realize any of this,
nor be the one to perfect it for commercial
use, despite his patent for the device, Edison
is almost never given credit for his contribution
on this world changing invention.
Which is unsurprising as, as is a theme you’re
probably picking up on, it’s the person
who ultimately did the thing in its perfected
commercial form, rather than was the first
to come up with the thing, that usually gets
credit in popular history.
On this one, enter English physicist John
Ambrose Fleming, who was an advisor to Edison
Electric Light and consultant to Edison-Swan
at one point.
He would be inspired by Edison’s device
to create his revolutionary Fleming valve
vacuum tube in the early 20th century.
Further, after reading Fleming’s paper on
this in 1905, this was partially the inspiration,
and in fact a decades long lawsuit would ensue
related to this, for engineer Lee de Forest’s
three element vacuum tube, and after a whole
lot of work, the refined triode device that
ultimately became the backbone for countless
electronic devices from radar to the digital
computer, until the transistor came along.
Going back to Edison’s original device,
at one point during his experiments on the
lightbulb, he and his staff were trying to
figure out why carbon from the filament seemed
to be jumping across the vacuum to the walls
of the bulb.
Clearly some current flow was involved.
So in order to try to figure out what was
going on here, Edison created a special bulb
with a third electrode placed in between the
legs of the filament, and then connected that
to a galvanometer to measure the current.
What he found was that if, relative to the
filament, the plate was put at a negative
potential, there would be no current between
the plate and the filament.
However, if the plate was at a positive potential,
and the filament heated up enough, there would
be a large current flow between the filament
to the plate through the vacuum.
Importantly in this, the electrons can only
flow one way, from the hot element to the
cold one, creating a rudimentary diode.
Edison ultimately patented the device for
its potential use as a sort of voltage regulator,
but seemingly did not understand the implications
beyond that.
Importantly, he did show it off at the International
Electrical Exposition in Philadelphia in 1884,
with one William Preece bringing several of
these bulbs back to England and coining the
term “Edison Effect,” also now known as
“thermionic emission,” in a paper he published
the following year on the phenomenon.
And, of course, as noted, a couple decades
later Fleming was inspired by all this and
ultimately did his thing, and the modern electronics
age was born.
More Power Mister Scott!!!
In any event, going back to the lightbulb,
in parallel to all of this, and keeping with
Edison’s credo of making complete systems
for his products to make them as commercially
viable as possible, he and his team quickly
realized the Wallace arc-light dynamo generator
and others like it wouldn’t be suitable
for incandescent light.
Thus, the team got to work experimenting and
studying electromagnets and generator designs.
After a few weeks of this, they tasked their
machine shop with building new generators
based on their research, which they then experimented
with ceaselessly, ultimately coming up with
a much more efficient system that worked well
for this application.
Among other modifications, rather than having
equal internal and external resistance as
was the norm at the time as this produced
maximum current, they found the generator
was significantly more efficient overall if
the internal resistance was smaller.
Upton would write of this to his father, "We
have now the best generator of electricity
ever made and this in itself will make a business."
On this one, yet again, Edison and his team
came up with nothing inherently original,
but tweaked existing technology to make it
better and more efficient and, thus, more
practical for commercial use.
Beyond the commercially viable light bulb
and generators to make the whole system as
efficient as possible, Edison and his team
also came up with everything from fuses, power
meters, the screw in light socket design,
and countless other things needed to make
the entire system go.
A Death and an Adorably Nerdy Marriage Proposal
Unfortunately for Edison, while business was
booming at this stage, in 1884, around the
same time he was accidentally blowing up his
lab experimenting with fuel cells, his wife
Mary died unexpectedly, of what isn’t clear.
She had been suffering on and off again from
what was called “obstinate neuralgia”
and “gastritis” and “uterine troubles”
which all apparently caused her severe pain.
Part of her treatment for this for pain management
was a regular dose of morphine…
Given how suddenly she died and her young
age at just 29, as well as some rumors that
seemed to have swirled at the time about it,
it’s often speculated that it was, in the
end, a morphine overdose that killed her.
Whatever the case, once this happened, Edison
spent less and less time at the Menlo Park
lab, in favor of living and working in New
York.
Two years after this, he married one Mina
Miller with perhaps the most adorably nerdy
way of proposing to her of all time.
First, as he approached every other problem
he encountered, Edison is speculated to have
been highly analytical when it came to choosing
his second wife.
Or, at least, a rather curious scorecard was
found amongst his countless notebooks.
In this one, he appears to have been making
an attributes list of himself and 60 people
he knew, both men and women.
Note here, this seemingly wasn’t just for
prospective partners, but also ranking other
men’s wives and the like too, to see how
they fared together given their attributes
list.
He then ranked everyone based on various traits
from things like temper, mouth, affectionate
or not, ambition, conceit, reasonableness,
etc.
As to why, as alluded to, it’s hypothesized
this may have had something to do with his
future wife, this is primarily down to the
timing of the scorecard, which coincided with
when he was looking for a new wife and actively
being introduced to prospects for this, as
well as the fact that he also ranked how he
viewed the happiness of the people who were
married and cross referenced them to their
attributes.
Thus, perhaps, in the most Thomas Edison way
possible, he was trying to analyze what made
a good match for a wife.
That said, it’s also been speculated that
he was actually trying to test the theories
of one Sir Francis Galton, the “father of
eugenics”, concerning the connection between
certain physical traits and psychological
characteristics.
Or perhaps he was doing both.
If it really was an attempt to find a woman
who maximally fit someone who would make a
good partner for himself, this rigor may have
been from being a little burned by his former
wife who, the only thing he ever seems to
have mentioned about her in any of his insane
amount of writings was in the earliest part
of their relationship lamenting, “Mrs Mary
Edison My wife Dearly Beloved Cannot invent
worth a Damn!”
Something he later doubled down on writing
on valentine’s day, "My Wife Popsy Wopsy
Can’t Invent."
He also spent so much time away from his family
in the lab that his daughter, Marion, would
state her mother slept with a revolver under
her pillow because how secluded Menlo Park
was frightened her at night, and quite often
her father would stay most of the night at
the lab and not come home “until early morning
or not at all.”
That said, he may have had great affection
for her as Marion also states when her mother
died he was "shaking with grief, weeping and
sobbing so he could hardly tell me that mother
had died in the night."
And that in the aftermath for several months
he basically kept Marion glued to him, even
often while working in his lab.
Nevertheless, her inability to invent seems
to have been a sore spot.
This is in stark contrast to his second wife,
Mina, who sometimes helped him record test
results, and otherwise witnessed on several
of his experiment notebook entries, and even
on at least one instance performed an experiment
with him to determine if electrical shock
could be used to get an oyster to open up.
He would also write to Mina, "You & the children
and the Laboratory is all my life.
I have nothing else."
Going back to their adorable courtship and
proposal, Edison first met Mina Miller while
vacationing in Winthrop Massachusetts with
a friend.
The daughter of inventor Lewis Miller, who
made a fortune inventing the Buckeye Reaper
harvester combine and subsequently devoted
most of his wealth to various philanthropic
endeavors, Mina checked a lot of the boxes
of what Edison was looking for in a new partner.
So smitten was he, he would later write in
his journal, "Saw a lady who looked like Mina…
got to thinking about Mina and came near being
run over by a street car—If Mina interferes
much more will have to take out an accident
policy."
During their relatively brief courtship that
mostly comprised a trip Mina joined Edison
and his group on, he also taught her morse
code.
After this, the two apparently enjoyed tapping
out conversations to one another rather than
talking when others were around.
He states of this, "We could use pet names
without the least embarrassment, although
there were three other people in the carriage.”
Note here, his previous courtship to Mary
Stilwell had also been remarkably brief from
meeting to marriage taking just two months.
With Mina, when he finally decided to propose
to her while they were in the White Mountains
of New Hampshire, rather than just ask her
directly.
He, instead, asked by tapping the request
out on her hand.
Rather than reply with words, Mina simply
tapped back “Yes” in Morse Code on his
hand.
Of course, being the 19th century, Edison
still needed to ask her father for permission.
He thus wrote to him that during the trip
their friendship had evolved into “admiration
as I began to appreciate her gentleness and
grace of manner, and her beauty and strength
of mind.
That admiration has on my part ripened into
love.”
In response, Lewis invited Edison to his home
in Akron where they discussed the matter more
fully, and consent was given.
The Future of Inventing
And so it was that the couple were married
on February 24, 1886.
Edison then purchased a new estate in West
Orange, New Jersey, and shortly thereafter
also created a new lab within walking distance
of his home in West Orange to work from.
And on this lab, utilizing all he’d learned
from Menlo Park, and significantly more resources
he had this time around, his ambition was
to create "the best equipped & largest Laboratory
extant, and the facilities incomparably superior
to any other for rapid & cheap development
of an invention, & working it up into commercial
shape with models patterns special machinery—
In fact there is no similar institution in
existence.", and that he hoped to be able
to "build anything from a lady’s watch to
a Locomotive."
The initially 5 building complex included
a central three story building with everything
from every tooling equipment any inventor
could want to even a massive library for research
reference (and which functioned as Edison’s
office).
The facility also had separate physics and
chemistry and metallurgy labs, etc.
This was just the beginning.
The complex rapidly grew from there, at its
peak around WWI, covering about 20 acres with
over 10,000 people working there.
Given the scale of all this, here, Edison
did indeed begin to step back slightly, still
putting in his long hours and directing everything,
but no longer intimately involved in everything
to the level he was at Menlo Park.
As noted in Rutgers incredible Thomas A. Edison
Papers Project, which catalogs the over 5
million documents by Edison and his cohorts
while they were doing all their inventing,
they state, “The big new laboratory that
Edison opened in West Orange, N.J., late in
1887 led to one of his most important inventions:
the professional research director.
The lab’s unmatched size, equipment, supplies,
and skilled staff allowed Edison to create
in new ways.
No longer did he have to take the lead on
each problem: he could assign it to a talented
man or team of men (always men).
Over the next few years, Edison adapted his
long habits; still working eighteen (or more)
hours in a day, he learned to direct others’
work: planning, watching, quizzing, instructing,
summarizing.
Still the inventor working at a bench, now
he could also multiply his personal efforts,
pushing a variety of difficult projects at
more or less the same time.
Work could even go on without him, as it did
when he spent almost two months abroad visiting
the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris.
The new role of research director could not
be patented, and it added little to Edison’s
glittering fame at the time.
But he proved the concept of industrial research
that, within his lifetime, would be adopted
by the likes of General Electric, Bell Telephone,
and DuPont to transform the United States
in the 20th century.”
It was at this lab that Edison decided to
circle back with the phonograph, including
not just coming up with various versions of
the device itself, but the entire suite of
things needed from equipment to mass manufacture
the records for it, the recording equipment
to record whatever on them, etc.
The Motion Picture
It was also around this time Edison and his
team began to dip their toes into the burgeoning
market of motion pictures, with the idea being
to eventually link the phonograph with such
motion pictures.
We’ve covered the origin of the film industry
in our video What was the First Movie Ever
Made?, which is the fascinating tale of the
unabashed murder, Eadweard Muybridge, who
thanks to the fact that the jury let him off
despite him being quite open about the murder,
we got the world’s first motion pictures,
which is what he was working on at the time
when he decided someone needed killing.
As for Edison, he visited Muybridge’s studio
sometime in the mid-1880s.
Taking a keen interest in Muybridge’s groundbreaking
work, but unimpressed by his execution, Edison
began to develop a device that “would do
for the eye what the phonograph does for the
ear."
Around 1889, the Kinetograph debuted out of
Edison’s West Orange lab.
Despite Edison’s peripheral involvement
here in inventing what many hail as the first
true video camera, because at this point Edison
had become more of an administrator on a lot
of projects, and seemingly was focussing his
time on other inventions during this period,
historians generally attribute Edison’s
assistant, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson,
as the primary creator of this history-making
invention.
Whatever the case there, in 1890, Dickson
shot a test movie he entitled Monkeyshines
No. 1, featuring the movements of another
lab assistant, with the result being like
something a ghost hunter would use as “proof”
that evil spirits are lurking, rather than
like the films that would soon start to come
out.
Nevertheless, it’s generally given credit
for being the first official video camera
motion picture in history.
It also inspired Edison to build what was
perhaps the first movie studio near his West
Orange lab.
Calling it “Black Maria” because they
thought it resembled a police wagon, this
is where they shot hundreds of motion pictures
featuring vaudeville, magic shows, boxing
matches, and Wild Wild West stunts – included
among the latter is a video of Annie Oakley
showing off her prodigious skills with a rifle.
From here, motion picture innovation took
off.
In April 1894, the Kinetoscope Parlor opened
in New York City – essentially the first public
movie theater.
Then, there was the first movie projected
for a wide audience, the first on-screen kiss,
and the first theater permanently created
entirely for a film.
The Lumières brothers and countless others
also propelled the industry, and if you want
to learn more on all that, do go check out
our video What was the First Movie Ever Made?
Because Eadweard Muybridge’s story is incredibly
fascinating, as was the entire inspiration
for the motion picture, which was to answer
a question that had plagued artists pretty
much as long as artists have been artisting-
Do all four of a horse’s hooves leave the
ground in mid gallop?
Something Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford
University, wanted to know and was willing
to throw prodigious sums of money at Muybridge
to get it answered, as this was impossible
to tell with the human eye or with photographic
technology of the age.
Muybridge’s solution to the problem was
incredibly ingenious.
And while what he came up with wasn’t a
video camera, it did result in the first motion
picture.
His later work would be extensively studied
by the likes of early Disney artists and researchers
the world over to study things like how animals
and humans actually move.
Edison the Miner
In any event, going back to other things Edison
was working on, one major failure of his work
during all this, as alluded to earlier, was
in mining.
There was a huge need for iron ore at the
time, so Edison decided to throw he and his
team’s brains into the fray.
And so it was that he sold his stock in GE
after mostly being ousted from it owing to
the War of the Currents, which we’ll get
to in a bit to separate fact from fiction
on that one, because there is so much fiction
commonly out there on this.
Edison then promptly spent millions of dollars
trying to come up with an efficient way to
take low-grade ore and use a magnetic separator
to create high-grade briquets for use in steel
mills.
Ultimately this venture failed when large
iron ore deposits were discovered in the Great
Lakes, dropping the price too much for him
to compete.
However, one small success that came out of
it was that the rock crushing technology they’d
come up with would be adapted for use in producing
portland cement after Edison and his team
noted the waste sand they produced while milling
ore could be used to make extremely durable
cement.
Ever one to not just make one innovation in
an existing field, he and his team then came
up with a long rotary kiln which they licensed
out, which ironically resulted in Edison’s
Portland cement plant being much less profitable
because of the subsequent overproduction in
the industry partially as a result.
Nevertheless, Edison Portland cement was widely
used, including to build the original Yankee
Stadium.
Trying to bolster demand, as well as revolutionize
housing, Edison and his team also came up
with a quick and inexpensive way to make concrete
houses, though this never really caught on
beyond a handful of homes made using their
system.
Another thing that helped soften the blow
of his misstep selling his GE stock and the
failure of the iron-ore business was the fact
that his phonograph company was exploding
around the same time, fulfilling his former
prediction a couple decades before that it
would “grow up to be a big feller and support
me in my old age.”
Electric Cars
Also during all this, Edison turned his sights
on electric cars.
At the time, electric cars were actually vastly
more popular than their noisy, smelly, gas
powered or steam counterparts.
And for city travel particularly, which is
most of what people used cars for at the time,
they were quite practical, if rather expensive.
On all this, for example, in 1899, 90% of
New York City’s taxi cabs were electric
vehicles, built by the Electric Carriage and
Wagon Company of Philadelphia.
Not only that, but in 1899 and 1900, electric
cars outsold all other types of cars, such
as gas and steam powered vehicles.
In 1902 an electric car, the Baker Torpedo,
became the first car to have an aerodynamic
body that enclosed both the driver and the
platform.
This car at one point reached 80 mph in a
speed test before crashing and killing two
spectators.
It was later clocked as high as 120 mph, but
with spectators not invited this time.
The issue with these cars was, as has been
the case since, the need for improved batteries.
Thinking electric cars would win the battle
if they had these, Edison and his team got
to work looking for alternatives to acid batteries,
ultimately leading him to work on alkaline
batteries.
After over 10,000 combinations on this one,
the battery Edison and his team were most
famous for was the Nickel-iron battery, versions
of which are still popular today for things
like off-grid power storage due to their extreme
durability and longevity, as well as speed
of charge and energy density, all a huge advancement
over lead-acid batteries of Edison’s era.
On this one, Edison initially told the press
back in 1902 they had come up with a battery
system that could enable over 100 miles range
in a typical electric car of the era and that
“I do not know how long it would take to
wear out one of the batteries, for we have
not yet been able to exhaust the possibilities
of one of them.”
Unfortunately for him and his staff, they
still had a LOT of work to do to work out
all the kinks and initial sales came with
a lot of complaints.
And in the interim, one of Edison’s close
friends and neighbors in Henry Ford changed
the game with his Ford Model T, despite Ford
himself being a fan of electric cars, with
his wife, Clara, driving the 1914 Detroit
Electric car instead of his Model T. For reference,
this one had an impressive range of 80 miles.
While inferior to many electric cars of the
age on a number of fronts, the Model T was
dirt cheap in comparison.
By 1915 Henry Ford, due in part to his innovative
assembly line factory construction, was able
to offer his cars at a base price of around
$500 a piece (equivalent to about $15,000
today), which made it affordable for even
the non-rich, something that had never been
the case before.
In contrast, at that time the average price
of an electric car had steadily risen to about
$1700 or about $50,000 today.
This was also around the same time crude oil
was discovered in Texas and Oklahoma, which
drastically reduced the cost of gasoline so
that it was now affordable to average consumers.
In addition to these factors, Charles Kettering
invented the electric starter, which eliminated
the need to hand crank gas powered engines,
which could be a somewhat dangerous process,
as well as incredibly inconvenient.
Road systems also began expanding, further
tipping things more in gasoline engine car’s
favor; this was not only because of the range
factor, but also because gasoline cars were
now becoming significantly faster than electric
cars.
For example, while the American Morrison electric
car had a range of nearly 200 miles, it could
only cruise along at about 15 mph.
For city driving, this was not an issue, but
on a roadtrip it wasn’t exactly ideal.
That said, all was not lost for Edison and
co, as the batteries they came up with and
sold were eventually extremely durable and
extremely profitable.
Henry Ford also initially solicited Edison’s
help in coming up with a battery for the Model
T’s starter in 1912, though ultimately lead-acid
won the day there for that use-case.
But, as noted, Edison’s nickel-iron batteries
eventually sold well and were used in a variety
of applications in his day, including for
various railroad related applications, such
as railroad signaling.
His Edison Storage Battery Company even continued
operating all the way to 1972 when they sold
to Exide Battery Corporation.
Stepping Back
In any event, it was around this time as WWI
was raging along that Edison’s Thomas A.
Edison Incorporated began to do less original
inventing and more just refining things they’d
already done, with the man himself, now nearing
70, more and more stepping away from day to
day management, leaving it to his son Charles,
among others, and, while he continued to work
on various things, his glory days were behind
him.
Noteworthy, as previously mentioned, this
was intentional, with Edison stating he wanted
to "give up the commercial end… and work
in my laboratory as a scientist."
Essentially just exploring wherever curiosity
led him and no longer worrying if where it
led him was to a marketable product, with
the exception of the phonograph, which he
stated was his baby and "commercial reasons
when it comes to the phonograph don’t count
with me.
It’s the only invention of mine that I want
to run myself."
This was a rather curious thing for him to
focus on given he was mostly deaf… which
was occasionally a problem such as when Edison
insisted he get to select all the music they
recorded.
In an interesting little family conflict aside
here, noteworthy is that during WWI, his oldest
daughter Marion’s husband was an officer
in the German Army, and the couple had long
lived in Germany, all getting her stuck behind
enemy lines during the war.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Edison’s son
William was fighting for the U.S. Army in
France in the Tank Corps.
This presumably could have made family get
togethers awkward in the aftermath, except
that right after the war, Marion discovered
her husband had been having an affair and
shortly after ended their marriage, no doubt
lamenting her brother hadn’t managed to
blow his head off with one of his tanks during
the war.
Also during WWI, Edison began consulting for
the U.S. military, particularly the Navy,
as well as shifting the focus of his personal
research onto the war efforts.
Do No Harm and More WWI
We should also point out here, as it’s important
for some things we’re going to discuss later,
that, as we previously alluded to, Edison
only agreed to work with the Naval Consulting
Board if it was for defensive technology.
Once again, Edison at this stage in life had
pretty strong feelings against the other way,
stating, “Nonviolence leads to the highest
ethics, which is the goal of all evolution.
Until we stop harming all other living beings,
we are still savages.”
You might find this a rather odd thing for
an elephant killer to say, but we’ll get
to that myth in a bit.
But speaking of animals and his later life
feeling like we need to stop harming living
things, according to an account in the June
of 1908 edition of the Vegetarian Messenger,
Edison even became a vegetarian, stating,
“Mr. Thos.
Alva Edison, the famous inventor ceased using
meat and went for a thorough course of vegetarianism.
Mr. Edison was so pleased with the change
of diet that, now he has regained his normal
health, he continues to renounce meat in all
its forms.”
It’s generally reported he stuck with this
for the rest of his life, both for health
and moral reasons, though whether that’s
true or not proved prohibitively difficult
to track down definitively.
Whatever the case, going back to humans, he
stated, “I want to save and advance human
life, not destroy it…
I am proud of the fact that I have never invented
weapons to kill.”
As for WWI, most of his personal research
during the war was centered around methods
for evading torpedoes and detecting them and
submarines, camouflaging ships and blinding
periscope operators, as well as developing
a telephone system for the ships, and methods
for protecting passengers from toxic smoke
stack gasses.
He also worked on systems for spotting airplanes.
On the side, he built and switched some of
his manufacturing facilities to make various
chemicals needed in the war effort that the
U.S. and its Allies formerly got from England
and Germany.
The rapidity he and his team did this was
quite remarkable as well.
For example, upon England’s embargo of carbolic
acid, something Edison himself needed for
production of his phonograph records, he simply,
according to one newspaper account, “in
a week, 163 consecutive hours of work for
40 men in three shifts and Edison in one,
the plans were finished.
. . . Seventeen days afterward his plant delivered
its first day’s output of product, which
other chemists assured him would take at least
six months.”
He more or less rinsed and repeated this general
breakneck pace developing plants for certain
other needed chemicals there was now a shortage
of due to the war.
His Last Work and Death
After the war, Edison continued experimenting,
though, as noted, didn’t particularly focus
on anything commercial- just whatever tickled
his fancy in the moment.
That said, in the late 1920s, due to rising
costs of rubber, Henry Ford, along with Harvey
Firestone, did ask Edison if he could find
a good alternative to rubber for car tires,
which he did in Goldenrod weed.
This is what he was primarily working on when
he suddenly collapsed in August of 1931.
From here, his health continued to decline
until his death on October 18, 1931 owing
to complications due to diabetes.
In the end, Edison was listed on 1,093 patents,
389 related to electric light and power devices,
150 related to the telegraph, 141 for batteries,
195 related to the phonograph, and another
34 related to the telephone…
And that’s not even counting the additional
around 500 that he never finished or he applied
for and was rejected.
How Much was Edison and How Much Other People’s
Work?
So, this all brings us around to just how
much of this was Edison inventing, and how
much of it was him taking credit for others’
work like his lab workers and Nicola Tesla?
We’ve already covered that Edison did not
actually steal from Tesla.
And, as noted, in fact, oddly allowed Tesla
the patents for things he’d worked on while
working for Edison which helped Tesla get
his start…
But what about with the rest of Edison’s
workers?
And then, beyond, perhaps his lab stealing
inventions from others and simply patenting
them themselves.
We’ll start with whether Edison was simply
taking credit for what his workers did.
And in this, there’s nuance.
It is absolutely true that Edison, being a
rather brilliant businessman, realized the
value of building his company’s brand around
himself, for both the company and himself.
Because he did this, at a certain point, if
Edison said he was going to do something,
everyone just kind of believed him and that,
no matter how fantastical, it would happen.
In fact, as a joke, he once claimed to reporter
B.C.
Forbes that he and his team were inventing
a device to communicate with the dead, the
so-called “spirit phone”.
And because of his clout, a lot of people
took him seriously, resulting in Edison later
having to clarify, "I really had nothing to
tell him, but I hated to disappoint him so
I thought up this story about communicating
with spirits, but it was all a joke."
As a brief aside on this, Edison did not actually
believe in spirits.
Stating, “I do not believe in the God of
the theologians; but that there is a Supreme
Intelligence I do not doubt.”
And clarifying this, “Nature is what we
know.
We do not know the gods of religions.
And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving.
If God made me—the fabled God of the three
qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness,
love—He also made the fish I catch and eat.
And where do His mercy, kindness, and love
for that fish come in?
No; nature made us—nature did it all—not
the gods of the religions.”
And that, further, “what you call God I
call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that
rules matter…
it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence
or soul or whatever one may call it lives
hereafter as an entity or disperses back again
from whence it came, scattered amongst the
cells of which we are made.”
This stance on religion and his very public
support of Women’s Suffrage made him unpopular
in some circles, but Edison insisted, "Every
woman in this country is going to have the
vote."
But as for his self promotion, while it no
doubt did also appeal to his vanity, from
a practical standpoint, as a result of his
personal brand, investors would line up in
droves almost literally throwing money at
Edison whenever he wanted, with customers
likewise clambering to buy the latest Edison
innovation.
And Edison absolutely played this up like
crazy at every opportunity.
Working the media, not just in his own inventions,
but, particularly later in his career as noted
when his lab had ballooned to extreme size,
what his company as a whole were working on,
even giving regular updates and details, unlike
most inventors who tended to keep quiet on
things like that, lest a competitor steal
their ideas.
Edison knew his team could do things massively
quicker than most, both in innovation and
ramping up production, thanks to the sort
of industrialized lab concept he had and his
financial resources.
So someone beating him to the finish line
wasn’t really too much of a concern to him.
And the benefit to the company in building
hype was massive.
The Face of a Brand
So, yes, Edison, as the face of the company,
and the brand name, so to speak, absolutely
did get massively more credit than he may
have individually deserved, especially once
he moved away from Menlo Park to his facility
in West Orange, where he for a time was still
leading everything, but more and more offloading
work and innovation in it to others.
While your mileage may vary on how your opinion
of Edison sits from this, this is no different
than quite literally anyone from a professional
athlete to actor in a movie to CEO of a major
business and on and on- all of whom rely on
countless others to do their thing, but the
face always gets the vast majority of the
credit.
Despite that, for example with an actor like
a Tom Cruise, without the writers writing
most of the lines he speaks, sound and lighting
and camera people and directors and hundreds
of others making sure everything is captured
and produced well- as well as making it look
like everyone else in the movie isn’t taller
than him- well, I mean, Tom Cruise is just
a guy who’s extra good at role play and
looking super cool running fast.
That’s not to diminish Cruise’s contributions
too.
Without him doing his thing as well as he
does and the fact that if he attaches his
name to a project it will have a tendency
to get greenlit perhaps just from that, let
alone be more popular, the rest couldn’t
do theirs.
Just, Cruise is the face and gets most of
the credit in the end, and not one sound engineer
or camera operator ever gets even the smallest
credit from anyone outside of those in the
industry, let alone do those even writing
the script and story itself, outside of if
they happen to also be the director, who is
a secondary front man.
And most don’t seem too bothered by any
of this or hate on Tom Cruise because he gets
disproportionate credit, as well as gets paid
the most by far of anyone in just about any
film he does.
Working Style and What Did Edison’s Workers
Think of Him?
But this does bring up the question- where
on that spectrum was Edison?
Well, if you’ve been following along this
entire time, it would seem Edison had a brilliant
mind and was a talented inventor from an early
age.
While it is quite literally impossible to
look at every patent Edison attached his name
to and tell how involved he was, a pretty
clear picture emerges from a subset of the
5 million pages of notes from his lab and
himself, as well as countless accounts from
his workers as to what it was like working
for Edison and what the general workflow was.
And on all this, for most of his career, the
evidence seems to be extremely strong that
Edison was something akin to a micromanaging
film director who also wrote the script, at
least until later in life as previously noted.
But before this, Edison’s style was more
or less to use his workers as extensions of
himself.
As described in the New York Herald in January
of 1879, “Edison himself flits about, first
to one bench, then to another, examining here,
instructing there; at one place drawing out
new fancied designs, at another earnestly
watching the progress of some experiment.
Sometimes he hastily leaves the busy throng
of workmen and for an hour or more is seen
by no one.
Where he is the general body of assistants
do not know or ask, but his few principal
men are aware that in a quiet corner upstairs
in the old workshop, with a single light to
dispel the darkness around, sits the inventor,
with pencils and paper, drawing, figuring,
pondering.
In these moments he is rarely disturbed.
If any important question of construction
arises on which his advice is necessary the
workmen wait.
Sometimes they wait for hours in idleness,
but at the laboratory such idleness is considered
far more profitable than any interference
with the inventor while he is in the throes
of invention.”
Francis Upton would write to his father on
this point, "One thing is quite noticeable
here that the work is only a few days behind
Mr. Edison, for when he was sick the shop
was shut evenings as the work was wanting
to keep the men busy."
Of course, this didn’t scale and by the
time they’d reach around 60 employees, he
began to shift to less micromanaging.
He stated instead, "I generally instructed
them on the general idea of what I wanted
carried out, and when I came across an assistant
who was in any way ingenious, I sometimes
refused to help him out in his experiments,
telling him to see if he could not work it
out himself, so as to encourage him."
And the more ingenious among them would then
be put in trusted positions and paid more
and more.
As a specific example of this sort of thing,
one Wilson Howell was given the job of coming
up with a good underground cable insulation.
He states, "Mr. Edison sent me to his library
and instructed me to read up on the subject
of insulation, offering me the services of
Dr. [Otto] Moses to translate any French or
German authorities which I wished to consult.
After two weeks search, I came out of the
library with a list of materials which we
might try.
I was given carte blanche to order these materials.
. . . and, within ten days, I had Dr. Moses’
laboratory entirely taken up with small kettles
in which I boiled up a variety of insulating
compounds.
. . . Of course there were many failures,
the partial successes pointing the direction
for better trials."
At this point, Edison also began to further
refine how everything everyone was doing was
documented, and began to employ someone to
distill it all down to a daily record so that
he could keep track of what everyone was doing
every day and where the status of their work
was and what they were hung up on or pursuing.
Work Environment
And as for accusations of a horrible working
environment and such insane expectations…
This seems overblown from accounts.
There are absolutely elements of truth to
this, or at least by modern standards.
This was the 19th century, a time when most
factories or other such businesses didn’t
exactly have HR departments, to put it mildly.
And despite some industries in the United
States managing to achieve eight hour work
days, the average work week in the United
States in 1890 was around 90-100 hours per
week for, for example, most building tradesmen
according to a survey done by the federal
government at that time.
By the standards of his day, Edison seems
to have treated his employees extremely well,
for whatever that’s worth, if a bit stingy
on the pay unless a given employee really
stood out.
Perhaps scant consolation from a modern lens,
but it’s generally advisable to judge people
based on their time, and not our modern one.
If we didn’t, there is quite possibly not
a single human in history who any of us could
ever, not just admire, but not loathe with
every fiber of our beings.
They were all insanely racist, sexist, occasionally
rapists or even near to it or actual pedofiles,
and otherwise insanely cruel to animals and
a lot of other humans too.
But as for Edison, his employees seemed on
the whole to love working for him.
And apparently while the general work environment
was insanely hard working, it was also fun,
with frequent practical jokes, friendly competitions,
and late night breaks where they’d all eat
and drink beer, often featuring Edison himself
singing bawdy songs and playing the pipe organ.
From accounts of what all this was like, this
seems not too dissimilar to what you see in
most university computer science labs at all
hours of the night, or is quite common in
many tech startups today.
Nerds gonna nerd when working in groups.
Edison apparently also enjoyed taking his
staff, at least at Menlo Park, out on fishing
expeditions and the like.
As one of the workers, Charles Clarke would
later in life note, “Laboratory life with
Edison was a strenuous but joyous life for
all, physically, mentally and emotionally.
We worked long night hours during the week,
frequently to the limit of human endurance;
and then we had time off from Saturday to
late Sunday afternoon for rest and recreation.
. . . Here breathed a little community of
kindred spirits, all in young manhood, enthusiastic
about their work, expectant of great results;
moreover often loudly emphatic in joke and
vigorous in action.”
Machinist John Ott who spent basically his
entire life working for Edison, would likewise
later in life recall, "Edison made your work
interesting.
He made me feel that I was making something
with him.
I wasn’t just a workman.”
The downside of how hard Edison himself worked
and that he expected the same from his employees
was that, according to Ott, "My children grew
up without knowing their father.
When I did get home at night, which was seldom,
they were in bed."
However, Francis Upton would write in 1879
in a letter to his father, “I find my work
very pleasant here and not much different
from the time when I was a student.
The strangest thing to me is the $12 that
I get each Saturday, for my labor does not
seem like work but like study and I enjoy
it.
The electric light I think will come in time
and then be a success . . . and then my place
will be secure.
. . . My pay I know is very small in dollars
but the chance to get knowledge is beyond
measure.”
And in the end the best among them would be
well rewarded for their work, both directly
if they stuck with Edison, or in many cases
also when they left to use what they had learned
there for their own endeavors.
For example, Upton did indeed become wealthy
when Edison gave him 5% interest in their
electric lighting work, as well as promoted
him to head of the lamp factory.
The aforementioned Charles Clarke would, among
other things, rise to Chief Engineer, and
the aforementioned John Ott, the so-called
“Friend to the end”, worked with Edison
almost from the very beginning and all the
way to their respective deaths, dying only
one day after Edison.
During his career he rose to superintendent
of the machine shop, though owing to a previous
injury, later in life Ott was stuck in a wheelchair
or with crutches.
Owing to Edison and Ott’s close friendship
and lifelong work together, Mina Edison instructed
that, as Ott having just died couldn’t be
there for Edison’s funeral, his wheelchair
and crutches should be placed next to Edison’s
casket.
Stealing Ideas?
(Part 2)
Alrighty, so work environment was extreme
on the hours and expectations there, but otherwise
seemingly pretty enjoyable relative to the
era, and Edison’s relentless optimism and
love of learning seemed rather infectious
amongst his workers.
This brings us to whether Edison was out stealing
other’s ideas and then having his employees
churn out versions and calling it their own.
As ever, arguments against or for Edison on
this one are making a black and white thing
out of something that’s vastly more nuanced.
As previously alluded to, all evidence seems
to be whenever Edison and his team were going
to tackle an issue, they studied every related
resource material they could get their hands
on, including what was known of what everyone
else was currently working on.
They didn’t exactly have Google or the internet,
so it’s not like they had access to the
current state of everything, but they did
their due diligence with what they did have
access to.
They then looked to try to make a better and
more commercially viable solution through
their own research, as well as purchased any
patents they needed rights to along the way,
if needed, for example as mentioned with Woodward
and Evans’ patent for a version of the incandescent
light bulb.
This isn’t really any different than just
about any inventor or company in history,
but what Edison and his team did was industrialize
the process, which absolutely gave him and
his team a huge advantage over their competitors.
But the general process wasn’t really any
different.
Just scaled up.
The primary issue here in terms of public
perception seems to be both the common myth
of the isolated inventor, as well as Edison
and his team’s insane success compared to
others.
Edison vs Tesla is a classic example of this.
Everybody loves the underdog.
And yet, Tesla was no different than Edison
on this front, utilizing all the knowledge
of those who came before to do what he did.
And even much of what he did, as noted, still
needed perfected by others after to actually
be something practical.
That’s just how science and engineering
and advancements work.
Nobody comes up with things on their own.
And generally multiple people come up with
something similar all around the same time,
as noted.
Patents and a Ruthless Businessman?
Of course, Edison also was allegedly a rather
ruthless businessman, and definitely had an
army of lawyers out to protect his company’s
patents.
But this, also, isn’t really different than
what any other business and even small time
inventors do.
Edison is typically vilified for it though
because, as ever, he did it at scale and was
in a position to go after anyone infringing
on his patents, not just the major players.
That said, he also doesn’t seem to have
been quite as ruthless as most say.
For example, at one point Edison hired a lawyer
to file patents for things he’d been working
on.
But rather than do so, the lawyer simply took
the papers and sold them to competitors.
In total, 57 such potential patents were sold
in this way before Edison found out.
However, Edison refused to give the name of
the attorney to the media, stating, “His
family might suffer” if Edison did so, also
ultimately calling into question the alleged
persona of Edison as being spiteful, something
that once again often comes up in the mythical
Edison vs Tesla feud.
On the note of patents, Edison had a lot to
say on their value, which was minimal compared
to his ability to use them to manufacture
products himself.
For example, when told by reporter Remsen
Crawford that seven of his patents were set
to expire in one day, he initially stated
to his assistant, “Go back.
Tell that fellow that I say the expiration
of those patents won’t amount to a hill
of beans.
Tell him that Mr. Edison says he has never
had exclusive use of his inventions and never
expects to in this world.
Tell him the expiring of a patent has no effect
whatever upon the fortunes of an inventor.”
Ultimately the reporter managed to use a brief
back and forth from his assistant to get to
talk to Edison directly to explain what he
meant.
Edison elaborated: “There is no such thing
in this country as an inventor’s monopoly.
The moment he invents something that is an
epoch-maker in the world of science and commerce,
there will be pirates to spring up on all
sides and contest his rights to his ideas.
I might invent a new monkey wrench which could
go without infringement, but the moment I
take certain forces and work out a moving
picture for the first time in history… mark
you how the pirates rise up and call it their
own.”
Almost three decades later, Crawford asked
Edison why he wasn’t the richest man in
the world given all his inventions.
To which Edison stated, “Nearly $10,000,000,000,
they tell me, are invested in modern industries
which developed from ideas embodied in my
inventions and my patents.
A billion or so dollars, I am told, may be
the annual total income to artisans and workers
in fields thus created.
But I have made very little profit from my
inventions.
In my lifetime I have taken out 1180 patents,
up to date.
Counting the expense of experimenting and
fighting for my claims in court, these patents
have cost me more than they have returned
me in royalties.
I have made money through the introduction
and sale of my products as a manufacturer,
not as an inventor.”
On the lightbulb he states, “I have known
of several inventors [whose] ideas would have
made them millionaires.
But they were kept poor by the pirates who
were allowed through our very faulty system
of protection to usurp their rights.
Do you see that little incandescent lamp hanging
over my head?
Well, I fought in the courts of this and other
countries for fourteen years to establish
my rights as inventor, even after I had the
patents.
My associates and I had to spend more than
$1,000,000 [about $32 million today] to prove
our rights to the incandescent light, even
though our claims had been duly vouched by
the United States patent office.
Everywhere, all around the earth, the pirates
kept picking on that little lamp, and they
were able to keep me out of the profits on
my patents until there were but three years
left out of the seventeen…”
Edison would go on that a large part of the
problem was the fact that the judges often
didn’t really understand what they were
ruling on.
And he suggested what was needed was “A
separate and special court.
Take the whole business out of the regular
judicial system.
It has never belonged there.
What does the average judge of our district
courts, or circuit courts of appeal—or even
of the Supreme Court, for that matter—know
about the technical phases of chemistry or
physics?
These judges have been lawyers all their lives,
and they are—some of them—distinguished
for their ability as jurists.
But when it comes to understanding a contest
over amperes, or ohms, or the atomic theory,
or subatomic energy, they can be fooled by
a smart lawyer quite as soon as…
any farmer from the hinterlands.
I would appoint, to this special court for
trying patent cases, judges from the faculties
of colleges of technology, men who know something
about science.
They could travel around the country and hold
court, if need be, in the factories and workshops
of the inventors and their competitors, and
get first-hand data upon each issue involved
in the litigation, just as President Wilson’s
War Labor Board, headed by William Howard
Taft, went around during the war settling
labor disputes in the mills, right on the
ground.
There wouldn’t be much quibbling on the
part of lawyers before these scientist judges.
Then, and not till then, will an inventor
stand some show of being rewarded for the
long, tedious labors he has expended through
ceaseless experimentation to gain the fruition
of his ideas.”
So, in the end on patents and stealing ideas,
the evidence seems to be that Edison and his
lawyers were extremely zealous in protecting
their patents and claims, what you might call
the Disney of his era, but in patents instead
of copyrights.
Whether this is a knock against him or not
depends on your personal opinion of all that.
Although, I think one thing we can all agree
on is that the world would be a better place
if all company’s legal teams adopted the
insanely nice disposition of Jack Daniel’s
lawyers, who aggressively protect their trademark
as they must to keep it, but famously do so
in the very deliberately nicest and most reasonable
way possible.
See our video on the subject.
The Truth About the Animal Killings
This all brings us to the whole animal murder
thing.
And this is arguably the biggest stain on
Edison, at least from a modern lens, and a
rather curious one given his stance on violence,
even towards animals, though it is possible
that was something he had not yet come to
until later in life.
Whatever the case there, even here most get
the details of all this wrong.
The devil is in the details.
So let’s sort through it.
First, it’s often claimed that Edison ran
a series of experiments on killing random
animals using AC electricity, and ultimately
even pushed for the electric chair for human
execution, all culminating in the killing
of an elephant on film, in one of the earliest
motion pictures ever made- and all for the
sole purpose of aiding his company in the
War of the Currents fight and show off his
fancy new video camera.
So is any of this true?
The Elephant Killing Myth
First, let’s start with the elephant thing
because this one is completely false.
Now, to be clear, there was an elephant named
Topsy who had been sentenced to death for
killing three humans, and it was indeed electrocuted.
But Edison had nothing to do with any of this
at any stage before, during, or after.
Nor was he mentioned in any contemporary news
accounts of the event.
Nor do any of his massive number of surviving
writings such as journal or business correspondence
make any mention of the event.
Further, going back to the so-called War of
the Currents, this elephant execution occurred
about a decade after Edison had already lost
the war and was no longer involved at all
in his former electrical company.
So this event was not in any way used by Edison
or his company to discredit AC current either.
So why do most today think Edison did murder
an elephant and use it to show AC current
was dangerous?
First, because the electrical company that
performed the execution bore his name- the
Edison Electric Illuminating Co. of Brooklyn.
However, despite the name, again, Edison was
not in any way involved with this power company
at the time.
It was a privately owned entity that had years
before lost any association with the man himself
outside of still bearing his name.
The second reason he is so associated with
this execution is that Edison Manufacturing’s
film branch filmed the event.
While Edison was president of Edison Manufacturing,
someone else ran the film company’s day
to day operations, Edison Manufacturing vice
president and general manager William E. Gilmore.
It’s also noted that the company made about
1,200 films around this time with very little
input or oversight from Edison.
And, indeed, this particular execution seems
to be one of those cases, as, once again,
none of Edison’s surviving correspondence
from this period between himself and Gilmore
mention anything about it.
So why film the execution?
It would seem simply that it was a highly
publicized event and Gilmore just thought
it would be something worth documenting with
their relatively new film technology.
Alrighty then, so what about the electric
chair?
Well, after a series of botched hangings,
there was a push for a more consistent and
humane way to kill other humans deemed unfit
to continue existing in society because, capital
punishment!
In parallel with this, the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had been
interested in something similar to have a
more humane way of euthanizing animals that
needed put down for whatever reason, and had
even eventually consulted with Edison, among
others, to help come up with a more humane
method for this- and long story short on this
one, ultimately the idea of using electricity
to put down humans percolate to the top as
an alternative to hangings.
But Edison didn’t really have much of anything
to do with the electric chair, other than
the commission put in charge of looking into
the feasibility of this contacted countless
electrical experts and asked their opinion.
Edison was one of those consulted.
However, contrary to the popular narrative,
Edison’s initial response wasn’t positive.
In fact, he initially refused to give his
opinion, citing that he was morally against
capital punishment.
And, thus, was hesitant to give his thoughts.
After further prompting, however, he was finally
convinced to give his opinion on what the
most humane way to do this would be, and wrote
in a letter in December of 1887 that if they
really wanted to kill someone, they should
use Westinghouses’ “alternating machines,”
and about 6 months later doubled down, stating
rather than needing to design such a device,
they could just "Hire out your criminals as
linemen to the New York electric lighting
companies."
The Real Story of the War of the Currents
Animal Thing
This all brings us to the animals and back
to the War of the Currents, and Edison’s
rather curious crusade against AC power, even
after it became clear it was the significantly
more commercially viable option and his own
team and investors were heavily pushing him
to switch.
Edison still refused, even publicly stating
in 1889, right before he was ousted, Edison
Electric would never adopt AC as long as he
was in charge.
It was pretty much right around then that
his company started working on AC internally
and he was more and more shunted to the side.
The War of the Currents was mostly over.
A couple years later, this culminated in some
of his investors brokering a merger with Westinghouses’
main rival in the AC sphere, Thomson-Houston,
despite Edison’s objections.
And so it was that Edison General Electric
merged to form GE in 1892.
Edison was out not just in name, but in truth,
more or less just a figurehead briefly at
this point, before deciding to sell his shares
in the company he could no longer lead to
use the funds to pursue other ventures, in
particular, as mentioned, focusing on iron
ore refinement.
So why was Edison, who normally never saw
a good idea he didn’t like to adapt and
improve on, so stubborn on this particular
issue to the bitter end?
While some have claimed Edison simply didn’t
understand AC electricity, and so was doggedly
pushing his company’s inferior low voltage
DC power distribution systems, the evidence
of notes and the like from his lab don’t
back this at all.
He very clearly was extremely well versed
in how AC worked and its advantages for mass
power distribution, and eventually his own
people were explicitly pointing it out to
him either way.
While it’s impossible to definitively discern
his unfiltered thoughts precisely because
of the company’s existing DC push.
Edison right from the start, even before the
war of the currents really got going, genuinely
seemed to think the idea of high voltage AC
lines running around in a city populated with
countless thousands of people was a recipe
for people getting killed regularly by these,
writing in a private correspondence with one
Edward Johnson in 1886 shortly after Westinghouse
had installed his first scale AC system, "Just
as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill
a customer within six months after he puts
in a system of any size.
He has got a new thing and it will require
a great deal of experimenting to get it working
practically."
And, indeed, his prediction proved prophetic.
With basically no regulation, Westinghouse
just did things the cheapest way possible
with a mishmash of wires strung overhead on
polls and attached to buildings, with minimal
insulation that also broke down relatively
quickly with exposure to the elements- all
inspiring one electrician to state the insulation
was as useful as “a molasses covered rage”.
Noteworthy on this, Westinghouse’ aforementioned
main AC competitor in Thomson-Houston was
doing it a little differently.
Every bit as concerned about the safety factor
as Edison was, Elihu Thomson put a lot of
money and research into trying to develop
various mechanisms to make the whole system
safer, including developing things like lightning
arrestors and magnetic blowout switches to
kill the power instantly if there was any
surge.
Further, he initially wouldn’t allow his
system to be installed for use in homes for
AC lighting as he felt it was too dangerous
in its state at that point.
Westinghouse’s system, in contrast, was
built with seemingly not much of any thought
given to safety.
Naturally, deaths quickly did follow from
this, with a string of them in the spring
of 1888, including the killing of some kids,
particularly causing a media frenzy, and the
press deeming the new phenomenon “death
by wire”.
But it didn’t really matter.
High voltage AC systems were significantly
cheaper and more efficient for this use case
than Edison’s low voltage DC systems, and
it only got worse with time as prices of copper,
which his system required much thicker lines
of, continued to rise, and the AC technology
continued to advance.
Nevertheless, Westinghouse was put on the
defensive, and took to pointing out, quite
reasonably, that while, yes, the pole mounted
AC lines were dangerous, so were countless
other things people dealt with in the city
from street cars to gas lighting, the latter
of which his system would actually help prevent
deaths on.
Of course, Edison detractors tend to claim
Edison was only taking this extreme stance
against AC because he was trying to take down
his competitor in Westinghouse.
And there probably is some truth to this.
But the reality seems far more nuanced.
On all this, Edison was going against one
of the core business tenants that had made
him so successful- always trying to make something
as practical and cheap as possible.
Given how passionate he got on this one, and
how he was even willing to be ousted from
his company before agreeing to a switch, even
after the war was all but lost, it doesn’t
seem that far fetched that he may well have
genuinely thought the risk of deaths were
too great to pursue the path Westinghouse
and Thomson-Houston and others were.
The Truth About the X-Ray
Especially as this was a bit of a theme throughout
his life.
For example we have the aforementioned fuel
cell work, where despite significant progress,
the explosion resulted in him ultimately abandoning
the research line.
Likewise, when it came to X-rays.
While his company did make great strides in
this, including creating the first commercially
viable fluoroscope, vastly improving on the
image quality of previous designs, and a design
that’s still at its core what’s used today,
he ultimately abandoned it after almost blinding
himself with x-rays, and more famously accidentally
killing one of his workers, Clarence Dally,
who had eagerly volunteered for the project-
a fate which countless other early X-ray researchers
also shared.
As we’ve covered in our video When Going
Shoe Shopping Was a Good Way to Die, it took
a long time for humans to fully grasp the
dangers of X-rays, with many shoe shops x-raying
people’s feet every time they wanted to
get fitted for shoes, sometimes even letting
kids get their feet x-rayed for fun multiple
times a fitting.
This was something that was all the rage up
to around the 1970s.
Yes, 1970s.
As for Dally, there was nothing Edison could
do once the damage was done, though he did
keep him on the payroll and paid for all his
medical expenses up through his death, and
then afterwards made sure Dally’s widow
and children were well taken care of financially.
While this seems like a no brainer today,
and a great way to avoid a lawsuit.
At the time, this was extremely out of the
ordinary.
Mere decades before, as we noted in our video
Charles’ Dickens’ Sledge Hammer for the
Poor Man’s Child, it was common to use kids
to remove jams in industrial machinery without
even turning the machinery off.
Such that if they didn’t get out rapidly,
they’d lose limbs or life.
And promptly be replaced by another child.
Workers were literally disposable, and many
business owners saw them this way, with this
only really beginning to change markedly around
the time of Dally’s death, interestingly
enough.
But on this one, despite the significant advancements
he and his team were making, Edison abandoned
X-ray research completely, feeling it was
too dangerous, not just for experiments in
his labs, but beyond for most to use.
That said, his basic design, as noted, if
significantly improved in various ways, is
still used today.
After the utility of this for medical use
was demonstrated in spades during WWI, he
would later in life state, looking back, “I
did not want to know anything more about X-rays.
In the hands of experienced operators they
are a valuable adjunct to surgery, locating
as they do objects concealed from view, and
making, for instance, the operation for appendicitis
almost sure.
But they are dangerous, deadly, in the hands
of inexperienced, or even in the hands of
a man who is using them continuously for experiment."
Back to the Truth About the War of the Currents,
the Animal Killings, and the Electric Chair
Going back to War of the Currents, this all
seems to have played into his choice to go
with low voltage DC instead of high voltage
AC, as he seems to have genuinely been prioritizing
safety over cost, and presumably thinking
with advancements he could get the cost down
to be on par.
This brings us to the animal killings.
Which Edison did indeed support, though not
quite the way most people think.
As for the details on this one, an electrical
engineer by the name of Harold P. Brown began
a personal campaign against AC systems, with
his initial salvo being a letter to the New
York Post, stating, “The only excuse for
the use of the fatal alternating current is
that it saves the company operating it [AC]
from spending a larger sum of money for the
heavier copper wires which are required by
the safe incandescent systems.
That is, the public must submit to constant
danger from sudden death, in order that a
corporation may pay a little larger dividend.”
It was on from there and Brown ramped up his
campaign to whoever would listen, including
lobbying the New York Board of Electrical
Control.
In one account it was noted, “At a July
meeting Board of Electrical Control, Brown’s
criticisms of AC and even his knowledge of
electricity was challenged by other electrical
engineers, some of whom worked for Westinghouse.
At this meeting, supporters of AC provided
anecdotal stories from electricians on how
they had survived shocks from AC at voltages
up to 1000 volts and argued that DC was the
more dangerous of the two.”
Note here, Brown was lobbying at this point
that line voltage be restricted to 300 volts.
Little was done about any of this given the
lack of hard data on the dangers of a given
voltage, and in comparison of AC and DC.
So, do you know what you do when there is
no hard data and it’s needed?
Rigorous experiments.
And when potential death or injury may be
involved, we humans tend to offer up our animal
friends for the testing.
And that’s exactly what Brown decided to
do.
Going back to Edison, at this point, he seems
to have had no association with Brown.
But it didn’t last.
How the connection was made exactly isn’t
clear, with varying accounts, though internal
records from Edison Electric Light seem to
indicate that it was Francis S. Hastings who
suggested to Edison they support Brown’s
efforts and research, which they subsequently
did, letting him use some of Edison’s equipment
and facilities for his research into the dangers
of AC vs DC power, to get the data needed.
Over the course of the experiments, Brown
would pay for captured stray animals, as well
as use some animals already slated to be euthanized,
such as in one case a lame horse, and then
run experiments on them using DC and AC power.
Of course, if this was all he was doing, there
wouldn’t have been much controversy.
After all, at the exact same time the New
York Medico-Legal Society was likewise doing
the same exact type of testing with nobody
kicking up a fuss.
And even today stray animals are regularly
euthanized if taken in and no one wants them,
and lame horses likewise are regularly euthanized
and the like, let alone research labs across
the world using animals in all sorts of experiments,
even to death.
And particularly on the latter, if the benefit
is to humans, most aren’t too bothered about
it.
Or, at least, most of us who are, aren’t
doing anything about it or vilifying the scientists
explicitly.
And this was even less the case back then
when the idea of animal rights was almost
non-existent in the public consciousness.
The issue here, of course, is that it wasn’t
just about the research, but also to get the
media involved to put a stop to high voltage
AC power distribution, or alternatively to
get regulations put in place to make it safer.
For example, there was a push for switching
to underground wires and the like as well.
And it was these few very overt killings that
seemed questionable, given they were solely
to demonstrate the results of the research
in the most graphic way possible, rather than
advancing the research.
Few, even then, were terribly enthusiastic
about witnessing such things directly, even
though most of us otherwise happily eat our
cheeseburgers and chicken wings, and use our
countless products built on the backs of animal
research.
Thus, given the graphic nature of the demonstrations,
while not really seemingly terribly controversial
at the time, they were highly effective for
what they showed.
In one such, where notably the chairman of
the death penalty commission Elbridge Gerry
was there to observe, Brown had a stray dog
in a cage which he gave a series of progressing
DC shocks, all the way up to 1,000 volts.
The dog was otherwise physically fine after
each of these.
Brown then switched to 330 volts of AC, which
killed the animal.
Critics of this demonstration noted that the
previous DC shocks had likely made the dog
more susceptible to being killed by the AC
shock.
Thus, Brown did another public demonstration,
this time killing three dogs in succession
via a shock of 300 volts of AC power each
with no previous DC shock.
His hope was, once again, to use this to convince
the board to set a limit of 300 volts for
publicly run AC lines.
He also did a few more tests using cows and
the aforementioned lame horse that were killed
with 750 volts of AC power.
Westinghouse, of course, claimed the demonstrations
and data couldn’t be trusted and that DC
was vastly more dangerous.
In response, Brown put his money where his
mouth was and publicly challenged Westinghouse
to come take part in an experiment.
In this one, Brown stated he would hook himself
up to the DC current, and Westinghouse would
be hooked to the AC current, and they’d
start at low voltages and work their way up
until one of them quit or died.
Naturally, Westinghouse declined to take part
in the challenge.
In the end, Brown ultimately published the
pamphlet: "The Comparative Danger to Life
of the Alternating and Continuous Electrical
Current" laying out the detailed results of
all his tests, and then had copies of it sent
to newspapers and government officials.
Because of his now very unique expertise here,
Brown would later be asked to design the first
electric chair, but refused.
And instead one George Fell was contracted
for that, and it was later built by one Edwin
F. Davis.
However, Brown was contracted to find a suitable
generator to use with the chair.
With both the help of Edison Lighting and
Thomson-Houston, Brown was able to acquire
a decommissioned Westinghouse AC generator
for this purpose.
As to whether Edison was involved in helping
Brown get this generator, this is often claimed
to be so.
However, at this point Edison had been, as
noted, partially forced to the side in this
company.
And while most sources on this one imply he
was involved, the aforementioned Rutgers University
Thomas A. Edison Papers, which is unequivocally
one of the most reliable sources out there
on all things Edison, explicitly say no, he
was not.
But he was involved in hiring Brown in the
first place, as well as known to have witnessed
one of the demonstrations.
And for that, despite being, at least later
in life if not before, well ahead of his time
on thoughts against even harm to animals,
this one is generally seen today as the biggest
stain against Edison.
Summing Up the Animal Killing Thing
But to sum this one up, often lost in all
this is that while absolutely Edison had a
business vendetta against high voltage AC
power and paid someone to have animals euthanized
towards this end.
The entire issue wasn’t so black and white.
Brown was doing research to try to prove the
relative dangers AC and DC power posed at
various voltages, and to have hard data to
show the regulatory bodies after initial outcries
were rebuffed.
Further, people didn’t view animal cruelty
quite the same back then as we do now.
And, ironically, as noted, Edison, at least
later in life, was ahead of his time on this,
and it was actually the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals that was one of the
chief parties interested in this research
at the time, as they wanted a more humane
way to euthanize animals that needed to be
put down, and were hoping such research would
lead to this, and a device they could use
for it.
And third, given Edison’s normal stance
on such things, while nobody knows exactly
what he was thinking because of the ambiguity
introduced given he was out to vilify his
competitor, the moral justification he may
have used perhaps isn’t hard to see.
If funding Brown’s research and killing
some stray animals and others like a horse
that was going to be put down anyway would
save human lives, he may have simply deemed
it worth it.
Or maybe he really didn’t care about any
of it, and his harping on about the dangers
of the high voltage AC systems of the era
were just a smoke screen, and he was simply
happy to murder as many animals as it took
and say whatever needed said to take his competitor
down.
You’ve now made it this far in this piece
so now have a much better sense of the man
than a few hours ago.
So what do you think?
Summing Edison Up
But to sum everything with Edison up, it is
unequivocally true Edison got credit for some
things he was little involved with, such as
the world’s first video camera, and other
things that were the combined efforts of himself
and his staff.
But this isn’t really any different than
every single institution that has a public
face.
And, arguably, Edison was directly involved
in the work far more than most who get such
excess of credit.
Edison and his team also very much did build
on the ideas of others…
The same as every single inventor in history
as long as humans have been humaning.
There are almost no instances of isolated
genius.
And frankly most of the examples of that we
think of, it’s very likely it’s only because
history has forgotten all of the others who
those inventors were aware of and built off
of.
With perhaps the only original human inventor
ever being the first person to pick up a rock
and realize they could smash something with
it.
But even there, perhaps inspired by gravity.
Humans, from rockets to rocks, always trying
to make gravity look bad.
In the end, it is unequivocally true that
Edison and his team changed the world in multiple
ways.
But arguably one way above all, which was
Edison’s initial idea after that first couple
inventions that made him rich- creating an
industrial lab, first with Menlo Park, and
then scaling it to an insane level in West
Orange.
That, more than anything else he did, changed
the world both in his time, and ever since
with everyone from his own General Electric
to Xerox Parc to 3M and beyond copying the
basic model, and, in so doing, changing the
world over and over and over again since.
And, finally, circling back to Tesla- did
Edison steal Tesla’s ideas and persecute
him into oblivion?
No.
And that narrative needs to stop because it’s
just wholly and unequivocally false.
Yes, the internet and, most humans really,
love the underdog, and love to vilify the
most successful, sometimes for legitimate
reasons, and sometimes just because they are
the New York Yankees and dang it, 40 American
League pennants and 27 World Championships
in a bit over a century is too many!
Screw those guys.
Can’t just spare 1 for the Seattle Mariners?!?!
It’s been almost a half a century and zero
of either despite over the years having Ken
Griffey Jr, A-Rod, Edgar, Randy Johnson, Ichiro,
and Felix!
Help us Julio-wan Kenobi, you’re our only
hope.
Of course, was Edison perfect?
Hardly.
He was human.
Obsessed with his work, unabashedly promoting
his own personal brand, pushing his employees
to their limits, but also expecting no different
from himself, priding himself on being the
hardest worker of all, something countless
of his employees and former employees attest
to.
He led by example.
He was also a product of his time, and you’ll
find no shortage of ways to vilify pretty
much any human from the 19th century in countless
ways…
Or, come to that, even most people from the
20th and 21st centuries.
We all suck in our own ways… outside of
Mister Rogers.
Who not only didn’t suck, but always made
sure all of us knew we didn’t actually either.
And the ways we think we do, well, he genuinely
believed in our ability to change and do better
next time.
Again, in all of that, Edison was a complex
human being like the rest of us.
With things to admire and things to cringe
at.
And trying to encapsulate who he was from
a given action or quote is as absurd as defining
any of us based on our worst or best moments.
He should no more be deified than Tesla sometimes
is on the interwebs, generally cast as the
God Genius, and Edison the Devil.
But the truth for both men is that they were
just people, if quite notable ones.
Who was Greater: Tesla or Edison?
So who was a greater cog in the vast and complex
machinery of human advancement?
Both men were unequivocally unique geniuses.
Both men were unabashed self promoters.
Both men built off other’s work in literally
everything they did.
Both men made a fortune from their work and
achieved worldwide fame both with the general
public and by those within the scientific
and engineering world.
Both did contribute to changing the world
through their work.
But unfortunately for the Team Tesla supporters,
which note we here at TodayIFoundOut previously
were on that bandwagon before really digging
into the man, Tesla’s major contribution
to the world was something that someone else
had already more or less invented and he himself
wasn’t able to perfect to make it practically
viable at scale for the application it was
being used for.
Others did that for him.
Others likewise built on some other of Tesla’s
work to make it practical for something useful
for the world.
And beyond this, the vast majority of things
Tesla ever supposedly did mostly just existed
in his head, though he sometimes claimed to
have made them.
Yet since then, it has not only been shown
in many cases that he had a pretty fundamental
misunderstanding of the field he was working
in and how things actually worked, but also
just that- it all only ever existed in his
head and generally since shown to not have
actually been workable, or at least not in
the way he thought.
And while nobody gives Jules Verne credit
for “inventing” the hologram or lunar
module, neither should Tesla get credit just
for thinking up a futuristic idea that someone
else would figure out how to actually make
work.
Edison, in contrast, while absolutely also
through the work of his team as well, gave
the world the commercial viable lightbulb,
the first device to record and playback sound,
similar to Tesla made major contributions
in the early development of the power grid
system we have today, accidentally inspired
the vacuum tube that birthed the electronic
age with one of his experiments, the list
goes on and on.
And, most important of all, perhaps his greatest
invention- the industrial lab, which is a
model that has been copied in every industry
since, and has given the world most of the
great inventions that have come since, many
of which from his own original company that
became GE.
In the end, both men were incredibly hard
workers, geniuses, and dreamers.
Edison and co., through an insane amount of
work and experimentation, made some of those
dreams a reality and, in so doing, changed
the world multiple times.
Tesla likewise made some of his dreams reality.
But as far as anything truly world changing
from what existed already?
Well, he sure did talk about a lot of things…
Maybe popular history up to a decade or two
ago actually got this one right.
What do you think now that you have the pair’s
full stories?
Let us know in the comments below.
Bonus Fact:
As for the whole “genius is 1% inspiration
and 99% perspiration” quote, in the spirit
of debunking myths, we should probably point
out that despite that maxim being one of the
most famous of all Edison quotes, it wasn’t
actually what he said, nor was he the originator
of the idea.
As for what he said, this was “Genius is
not inspired.
Inspiration is perspiration,” as well as
supposedly expanding, “2% is genius and
98% is hard work.”
As to who actually seems to have come up with
the source sentiment, enter academic Kate
Sanborn in her “What is Genius?”
lectures in the 1890s.
In this, she stated that genius is a mix of
perspiration and inspiration, and that perspiration
was far more critical than its fellow -ation.
Not long after, an editorial about her lecture
in the paper popularly made the rounds, afterwhich
Edison seemed to concur given his whole “inspiration
is perspiration” thing.
That quote and the general idea evolved over
time, to our present day “Genius is one
percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent
perspiration” that Edison never actually
said (nor did Sanborn say verbatim), and today
everybody’s forgotten about poor Kate’s
contributions given Edison’s long shadow.

48 Comments

@TodayIFoundOut 2 years ago
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@Vandelay666 2 years ago
Tesla reminds me of someone… TESLA
@glennrugar9248 2 years ago
Huh… Might have to do an opinion change after this one
@Mickcotton 2 years ago
Tesla ❤
@theprofessor4914 2 years ago
Tesla vs Edison. Fight! (I need that t shirt)
@ImNoctica 2 years ago
Bruh
@intangur 2 years ago
Awesome job on the video. Really well put together.
@Kylecombes4 2 years ago
Wow this is long, I'm halfway there 😅
@maxheadrom3088 2 years ago
None of the two: the fathers of Electric Engineering were Charles August Rudolph "Proteus" Steinmetz and Oliver Heavside.
@acidbracelet3697 2 years ago
I am an hour in and wondering if your sources are listed anywhere. So far it seems that you are saying that everything ive ever read or heard about these 2 men was a lie. In order to believe that big of a rewrite of history i will need to see some sources.
@ryurc3033 2 years ago
Simon, this is fantastic. I think someone has been watching analytics for the channel. Maybe it was a bet,"no way, they won't watch a 4.5 hour episode"
"Bet"
Or its an experiment to see if people will even finish the video….. either way , challenge accepted
@captainbackflash 2 years ago
Who was better? That's easy, Westinghouse !
@aceundead4750 2 years ago
Hugh Ron
@mattpaul5441 2 years ago
Ford v Ferrari wasn't even this long. Jeeze. You're lucky i like your face, simon.
@Phatxual 2 years ago
Yaaaaaaa, sure its a good video and all, but definitely not enough time in the day to watch a 4hr vid on Edison v. Tesla lol not hard getting paid whilst doing it, tho. I'm sure😂
@Vikcreed 2 years ago
WRONG!
@RandallSchwed 2 years ago
Edison, speak up I can't hear you………….Tesla, trust me I'm a visionary.
@Helicard 2 years ago
Calling Edison an old inventor is like calling Elon Musk an inventor. It pronounced Investor
@mindfortress105 2 years ago
Tesla sounds like my old serbian professor, completely delusional when it comes to his own abilities
@neiledmonds8477 2 years ago
Simon is my fall asleep voice, so ill prob get about 30 mins into this before zzzzz
@nomandad2000 2 years ago
Bravo! Been waiting for someone to do this. I’m always trying to defend Edison and now I have some more ammo…
@joppadoni 2 years ago
Mrs Jobson?
@luckyspurs 2 years ago
23:03 Ironic that Tesla did to Galileo Ferraris what people think Edison did to Tesla.
@larrybethune3909 2 years ago
Tesla was greater full stop. Genius inventor full stop. Edison was a bit of a thief. 3-Phase power, Tesla. Wireless communications, Tesla. The AC, not DC, power grid on which we all depend, Tesla.
@chadfansler1269 2 years ago
Longer than a Scorsese movie..😮..why? Not finishing that.
@owennoad-watson2820 2 years ago
I was taught about Tesla but not Edison here in the UK so that whole point about Edison being more famous ive always rhought was just in America
@Cbiz210 2 years ago
Hopefully this signals a turning point for this channel… Used to look forward to new videos on "TIFO" that said the short video format has become somewhat pedestrian…
@RogunK 2 years ago
Tesla was the better scientist and Edison was the better businessman is the simplest way of explaining this.
@amaze2708 2 years ago
Holy shit I was thirteen minutes in and thought “this was a good one, really cleared up the myths..” then saw the scrubber bar barely moved. Love it.
@YouEverSeeAFrogKid 2 years ago
Hot damn Simon
@ericalbany 2 years ago
Even as a lifelong Edison fan, I have to admit that when it came to enforcing his motion picture patents he could be as harsh as any of the classic robber barons. This next is aside from the point of your video, but he wasn't the best father to the children of his first wife, finding them dissapointing when they became adults. The second group did much better, in a large part because Mina had learned to smooth off some of his rougher edges, spinning them as colorful eccentricities.
@Rural_Pistachio13 2 years ago
This was brilliantly researched, written, and then conveyed by Simon. Bravo 👏🏻
@thexcix130 2 years ago
Personal bookmark:
20.00
@B-Nice 2 years ago
https://youtu.be/3gOR91oentQ?si=pJ5cbe-q9_sRxOsK no need to waste 4 hours 😂
@luckyspurs 2 years ago
About an hour in and Tesla's sounding more and more like Bill Burr's description of Steve Jobs with every second.
@luckyspurs 2 years ago
You can really spot the comments that didn't listen to the video first.
It's like Simon and his writers pre-empted everything they were going to say and debunked it in the first 15 minutes.
@notyouraveragegoldenpotato 2 years ago
Don't even have to watch this. TESLA hands down. Edison couldn't hold a spark to Tesla
@luckyspurs 2 years ago
Can you imagine how horrific Nikola Tesla's twitter output would be.
Wow.
@mank3y_ 2 years ago
Tesla was on the mark, Edison was a businessman
@cpeabody85 2 years ago
Listen to this while setting up electric fence on my farm today, seemed too hilarious not to.
@WidiaputriPutri 2 years ago
😮Wdp89
@luckyspurs 2 years ago
1:39:51 The irony of Tesla fans claiming he invented something because he patented something tangential to it.
@tideoftime 2 years ago
Fantastic presentation. Clarified a number of things/misperceptions I (and likely many) had relative to the Edison/Tesla "debate".
@luckyspurs 2 years ago
Whereas Jay from Inbetweeners claimed he "completed it", Tesla claimed he "invented it".
Can you imagine how infuriating it would be to genuinely invent something and have Tesla claim he invented in his mind 10 years earlier, just without telling anyone. As though Tesla could ever do a single thing without telling everyone about it.
@mringasa1848 2 years ago
Love all the extra information regarding who the "real" inventors of various pieces of technology were. So refreshing to see the less well known getting some of the limelight rather than the focus on the usual suspects.
It's a shame there's so much hostility around these two great men. People trying to trash their reputations, from one side or the other, is just ridiculous. They were both tremendously intelligent in their own way, and both of them should be celebrated by everyone. It's becoming all too common for this sort of thing though. Everything has to become a competition rather than enjoying both sides of a thing.
@riftster313 2 years ago
Anyone with a real historical education knows Edison was a charlatan and a thief of other people's ideas and genius. Tesla was a real life wizard.. there is no comparison to be made between the two except by the misinformed.
@finkployd4658 2 years ago
I can't even imagine editing a 4.5 hr video, let alone recording one!
@craigslist6988 2 years ago
Tl;dr if you copy what the very wealthy guy does and exaggerate your inventions but your name is Tesla, you're a nutter. But if you do the same things and your name is Edison it's just a joke and good business.
The biggest difference for Edison was being much better at manipulating people and the media about himself, where Tesla was inept at that.
Ironically, today Tesla does exactly what Edison did back then… manipulate naive nerds into working for peanuts for the "joy of knowledge".
A bad joke when Edison did it, and still is today.
The research on this was so lazy. Sounds like they started with Edison's autobiography and the wizard of menlo park as fact and then googled some reddit threads for Tesla information. Nonstop apologies for Edison and constant implied maligning of Tesla.
History is written by the winners… especially when the researcher is as naive and lazy, if not malicious, as this one.
Garbage.

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