The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla • Hacker News Board

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#21

Post by justicezyx » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 7:32 AM UTC

hyperpallium wrote: post #20

WalterBright wrote: post #5

These days it's fashionable to venerate Tesla and denigrate Edison. Tesla's contributions to AC motors and power are great and beyond dispute. The others, not so much. For those who like to denigrate Edison by comparison, I challenge to read "Edison" by Josephson and maintain that opinion. I.e. Tesla transformed AC power, Edison transformed multiple foundational industries.

funfact: though Elon Musk has a company named after Tesla, in an interview, he has said Edison is the better role model. e.g. It's not that Edison invented a light bulb - he created the first power grid. It's like inventing an internet client, and the internet.

Light bulb to electricity is as www to internet.

Internet client?

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#22

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #11

WalterBright wrote: post #5

These days it's fashionable to venerate Tesla and denigrate Edison. Tesla's contributions to AC motors and power are great and beyond dispute. The others, not so much. For those who like to denigrate Edison by comparison, I challenge to read "Edison" by Josephson and maintain that opinion. I.e. Tesla transformed AC power, Edison transformed multiple foundational industries.

Edison was an asshole - but he was a brilliant polymath asshole - I can draw a line, an almost direct line between the methods of Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison. Edison can be an asshole, without denigrating any of his brilliance, or suppressing any of Teslas. It's interesting though - Edison was often the disruptor of industries - but he was not the man who turned Electrical Power, the Phonograph, or the Motion Pictur…

[deleted]

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#23

Post by vadimberman » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 7:36 AM UTC

hyperpallium wrote: post #20

WalterBright wrote: post #5

These days it's fashionable to venerate Tesla and denigrate Edison. Tesla's contributions to AC motors and power are great and beyond dispute. The others, not so much. For those who like to denigrate Edison by comparison, I challenge to read "Edison" by Josephson and maintain that opinion. I.e. Tesla transformed AC power, Edison transformed multiple foundational industries.

funfact: though Elon Musk has a company named after Tesla, in an interview, he has said Edison is the better role model. e.g. It's not that Edison invented a light bulb - he created the first power grid. It's like inventing an internet client, and the internet.

Actually, Tesla was not founded and named by Musk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#History

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#24

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 8:23 AM UTC

hyperpallium wrote: post #20

WalterBright wrote: post #5

These days it's fashionable to venerate Tesla and denigrate Edison. Tesla's contributions to AC motors and power are great and beyond dispute. The others, not so much. For those who like to denigrate Edison by comparison, I challenge to read "Edison" by Josephson and maintain that opinion. I.e. Tesla transformed AC power, Edison transformed multiple foundational industries.

funfact: though Elon Musk has a company named after Tesla, in an interview, he has said Edison is the better role model. e.g. It's not that Edison invented a light bulb - he created the first power grid. It's like inventing an internet client, and the internet.

It's also popular to say Edison did not invent the light bulb. It is correct that he was not the first to invent a glowing wire. Edison's key innovation was the thin, high resistance filament which used high voltage and low current. That design was said to be impossible by all the experts of the time, but it is what made the light bulb practical and useful.

Edison's light bulb was attacked on all fronts in patent court for years, and he beat them all.

He invented the light bulb.

Ironically for Elon Musk, early electric cars mostly used Edison batteries.

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#25

Post by joering2 » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 8:23 AM UTC

My tinfoil hat tells me that either neither Tesla nor Einstein were humans, OR both were in some sort of communication with aliens.

I know on its face it sounds like horseshit... but with over 100 billion people ever lived on earth... how come we have so few geniuses that truly push the whole human kind forward 10x faster than all people combined thru a previous ten centuries?

Even more - if we assume its just a coincident or that they had such good DNA, or their parents were geniuses before... then how come it doesn't happen again? How come we don't have such huge brains like Tesla or Einstein today? Sure there are many super smart humans among us... but not a single one sticks out like Tesla or Einstein did in their old days.

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#26

Post by antaviana » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 8:24 AM UTC

vadimberman wrote: post #23

hyperpallium wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

funfact: though Elon Musk has a company named after Tesla, in an interview, he has said Edison is the better role model. e.g. It's not that Edison invented a light bulb - he created the first power grid. It's like inventing an internet client, and the internet.

Actually, Tesla was not founded and named by Musk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#History

Had he founded it, he would have named it Edison, not Tesla.

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#27

Post by trodemode » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 8:36 AM UTC

There is a factual inaccuracy in the article. Although an ethnic Serb, Tesla was not born in Serbia. He was born in Croatia that was at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#28

Post by ck425 » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 8:41 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #5

These days it's fashionable to venerate Tesla and denigrate Edison. Tesla's contributions to AC motors and power are great and beyond dispute. The others, not so much. For those who like to denigrate Edison by comparison, I challenge to read "Edison" by Josephson and maintain that opinion. I.e. Tesla transformed AC power, Edison transformed multiple foundational industries.

Interesting titbit (from In The Plex IIRC), one of the big motivators for Page and Brin to found Google, after failing to sell PageRank to existing search engines, was the story of Tesla. Page apparently read about him as a teen and was haunted by how much more Tesla could have achieved if he had been more business savvy.

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#29

Post by klum » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 8:48 AM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #7

I still think my favorite development in the Tesla saga was when a cartoonist (The Oatmeal) got the Internet and then Elon Musk to help him save Wardenclyff from the dozers.

It was a nice result, but I think the one-sided view that comic painted of Tesla as a misunderstood saint and of Edison as an evil thief (and that the internet largely went along with) is far removed from reality.

It's easier to put a narrative together if you choose to view the world in black and white.

Re: The Extraordinary Life of Nikola Tesla

#30

Post by bkovacev » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 8:53 AM UTC

trodemode wrote: post #27

There is a factual inaccuracy in the article. Although an ethnic Serb, Tesla was not born in Serbia. He was born in Croatia that was at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Why does it always have to be someone that involves politics into this? Tesla during his life said he is of Serbian origin and thinks of himself as a Serbian, even though he was born in Croatia. Don't steer it up in here too, I'd like HN to remain what it is.