Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse • Hacker News Board

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#11

Post by OnlineGladiator » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 4:15 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #8

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfair to judge them exceptionally when comparing among the range people and views of that earlier age, or to hide behind supposed earlier universal standards which often turn out to have been anything but. In the pantheon of world history it is perfectly reasonable to judge, question and doubt. Plenty of people of those ages found such things abhorrent and banded together to end child labour, animal mistreatmen…

It appears that Edison's involvement is a bit of an exaggeration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)

> On January 4, 1903, in front of a small crowd of invited reporters and guests Topsy was fed poison, electrocuted, and strangled, the electrocution ultimately killing her. Amongst the press that day was a crew from the Edison Manufacturing movie company who filmed the event. Their film of the electrocution part was released to be viewed in coin-operated kinetoscopes under the title Electrocuting an Elephant. It is probably the first filmed death of an animal in history.

The relevant part for people who don't want to search for it.

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#12

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 4:23 AM UTC

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #11

WalterBright wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that Edison's involvement is a bit of an exaggeration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)

> On January 4, 1903, in front of a small crowd of invited reporters and guests Topsy was fed poison, electrocuted, and strangled, the electrocution ultimately killing her. Amongst the press that day was a crew from the Edison Manufacturing movie company who filmed the event. Their film of the electrocution part was released to be viewed in coin-operated kinetoscopes under the title Electrocuting an Elephant. It is p…

Also that the electrocution took place 10 years after the end of the "current war". Blaming Edison for it is like blaming CNN for the events in the news footage they run.

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#13

Post by greggman2 » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 4:40 AM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #2

I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…

You can add

(4) took credit for all the inventions his employees invented

vs say Westinghouse who let his employees put their names on the patents for their inventions.

In other words, he wasn't as prolific an inventor as claimed since he took credit for others work.

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#14

Post by userbinator » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 4:50 AM UTC

8bitsrule wrote: post #10

I've always wondered about the connection between Mr. Edison and the mysterious Theodore Audel. Many of Audel's (at one time) ubiquitous tech-craft books promoted the immortality of Mr. Edison.

Audel/Hawkins has some written some very interesting books, many of which you can find at archive.org

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

Regarding Edison, I assume you're referring to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1917_Hawkins_Electrical_G...

I think "Edison-worship" was pretty common at the time, since I have some other electrical books by other authors which prominently have a picture of Edison inside the front.

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#15

Post by gumby » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 6:47 AM UTC

The review doesn't mention that he was a patent abuser (though that is why the film industry grew in California).

Also, the fun part of telling his story backwards ("This ludic approach makes for some awkward challenges for the reader, who meets Edison as an old man, his children as adults and his second wife before his first." wrote the reviewer) is that it makes a parallel to Merlin who lived his own life backwards, sadly knowing that his "future" was for everybody he knew to forget him. Still, a nice parallel.

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#16

Post by daseiner1 » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 6:59 AM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #2

I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…

the elephant thing had nothing to do with him

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#17

Post by rjzzleep » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 9:02 AM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #5

jjtheblunt wrote: post #2

I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…

I confess I too was once a diehard Tesla fanboy. It was only after reading T.P. Hughes “The Electrification of America: The System Builders“[1] that I came to appreciate the accomplishments of Edison and the unfairness of the pervasive one-sided boosterism for team Tesla. Both men were genius. It’s my own opinion that there is more to learn from the life of Edison and the work of Tesla than the other way round. [1] h…

I'm a bit puzzled why people don't mention the obvious. I'm not a Tesla fanboy nor do I like Edison, but this shouldn't really be about whether Edison did or did not invent the lightbulb. There were so many people involved in the invention and multiple steps of bulbs.

But in this particular case Edison was a patent troll. He took someone elses invention that had been built in that form and patented it to prevent others from using it.

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#18

Post by 0x8BADF00D » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 9:17 AM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #5

jjtheblunt wrote: post #2

I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…

I confess I too was once a diehard Tesla fanboy. It was only after reading T.P. Hughes “The Electrification of America: The System Builders“[1] that I came to appreciate the accomplishments of Edison and the unfairness of the pervasive one-sided boosterism for team Tesla. Both men were genius. It’s my own opinion that there is more to learn from the life of Edison and the work of Tesla than the other way round. [1] h…

What is there to appreciate? You cannot call yourself a trailblazer if you follow someone else's trail. Edison just reproduced other people's work, that doesn't make him exceptional at anything.

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#19

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 9:43 AM UTC

greggman2 wrote: post #13

jjtheblunt wrote: post #2

I find myself wondering what fraction of HN readers think of Edison as other than the person who, without shame in all the following, (1) cheated Nikola Tesla, (2) hired labworkers to steal neighborhood pets (dogs and cats) to practice electrocution during the war of currents, and (3) had a circus elephant publically executed via electrocution for his own greedy business purposes. Having read outside the hero worship…

You can add (4) took credit for all the inventions his employees invented vs say Westinghouse who let his employees put their names on the patents for their inventions. In other words, he wasn't as prolific an inventor as claimed since he took credit for others work.

[deleted]

Re: Thomas Edison’s brilliant life, told in reverse

#20

Post by paulgerhardt » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #17

paulgerhardt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I confess I too was once a diehard Tesla fanboy. It was only after reading T.P. Hughes “The Electrification of America: The System Builders“[1] that I came to appreciate the accomplishments of Edison and the unfairness of the pervasive one-sided boosterism for team Tesla. Both men were genius. It’s my own opinion that there is more to learn from the life of Edison and the work of Tesla than the other way round. [1] h…

I'm a bit puzzled why people don't mention the obvious. I'm not a Tesla fanboy nor do I like Edison, but this shouldn't really be about whether Edison did or did not invent the lightbulb. There were so many people involved in the invention and multiple steps of bulbs. But in this particular case Edison was a patent troll. He took someone elses invention that had been built in that form and patented it to prevent othe…

Yes, that is the common narrative.

What the Hughes article makes crystal clear is that Edison didn’t iterate on 3000 different versions of the lightbulb because he was bored. He did so because most configurations were low voltage, high current - this required thicker copper which was the limiting cost to electrification - by finding a viable configuration that was high voltage, low current (and patenting that configuration) he could mass produce light bulbs and the necessary grid behind them at a cost lower than natural gas.

An analogy is perhaps Elon Musk didn’t invent the electric car, but he released it in a form (along with a supercharger network) that made mass adoption viable over the competing gasoline based network. Following a period of over-infatuation with Musk, it may be likely that 140 years from now we condemn him as not really inventing the electric car, saying his patents over battery production technology were trollish, and hail Mark Eberhard as the true unsung genius. For obvious reasons that interpretation is problematic and kind of misses the point of what these people actually did.