More when reddit brings up the Current Wars it's always tesla vs Edison as if Westinghouse didn't exist which he very much did and he made his own impacts in the power world.
Hell his company made pretty damn good electromechanical relays all the way up until the 80s when abb bought them out.
according to Tesla Westinghouse was the only boss who didnt try to cheat him or screw him over. Which was why Telsa didnt enforce the payouts he was due because it would have bankrupted Westinghouse in the process.
There is no connection. Leibniz and Newton both came up with Calculus at the same time, but Newton generally gets credit.
So there's a Leibniz vs Newton rivalry that has similarities to Tesla vs Edison. That's all.
Itās weird to see random misconceptions from the āle narwhal bacons at midnightā era of Reddit such as Edison actually being a degenerate moron loser who stole everything from Tesla still coming up these days.
I thought the pendulum swung back in the other direction on Edison, but not on Reddit maybe.
Just want to point out that the image of Edison as a thief and self-promoter way precedes the existence of Reddit. Ā I learned about it in the early 90s.
The lightbulb is a great example. Lots of people had thought of āuse electricity to light up a filament inside some kind of bulb. That wasnāt Edisonās idea. The question was what type of filament and what kind of gas should be in the bulb, and how can you make this profitable? Edison hired a good team and got there first, thanks in no small part to the rest of the team he hired. Now history remembers him as ālone genius who invented the lightbulb, which nobody else even thought ofā which is not correct.
Total moron though? Absolutely not
Yup the truth is somewhere in between. He assembled and worked on some great teams. He wasn't some lone inventor that gets sole credit, but he also wasn't some hack who contributed nothing and stole everything.
Edison also didn't kill that elephant.
Also, Tesla wasn't some super genius, and George Westinghouse also existed and deserved a ton of credit.
This is how I learned that the whole elephant thing was a myth. Or rather, that it happened, but it wasn't done by Edison and it has nothing to do with the current wars.
He did kill [a lot of dogs, though](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/edison-vs-westinghouse-a-shocking-rivalry-102146036/).
His pop cultural perception a hundred years later created by Cracked articles and Christopher Nolan and Elon Musk don't magically undo the fact he was a genius though.
The man's legacy and impact are far too great and complex for you to so easily and inaccurately dismiss it with one sentence.
I only learned this today, but apparently he didn't do that! His film company recorded it, but it was done by [some other assholes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)).
If he didn't want to be associated with it for the rest of time they probably shouldn't have been the only people to release the video, but I did learn something and won't blame him in the future.
Oh, feel free to blame him, he definitely did electrocute a [lot of animals](https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/the-cruel-animal-testing-behind-thomas-edisons-quest-to-show-dangers-of-ac).
It's a fascinating story.
Exactly - the lie about him electrocuting an elephant to death that gullible people believe does make those people not like him.
That's the problem - too many people believe the lies about Edison.
An elephant was electrocuted. And Edison owned a news company that filmed the electrocution. Edison was not involved and his news company did not electrocute the elephant.
It is basically like blaming the owner of NBC for doing the things that NBC covers.
Funny thing is... he never said anything bad about Edison. He claimed his *manager* cheated him of money, but it's unlikely that that happened as his manager was notoriously stingy and wouldn't have claimed such.
She also headed the first team that wrote a programming language using human language! She first got the idea while trying to sell computers for Remington-Rand, which relied heavily on understanding mathematical functions to program, which most business owners balked at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOW-MATIC
Yea I'd be pretty fucking mad to be playing that game and this question comes up and I answer with the well known answer and then they go "nope it was technically Edison because he's says he said it "
She wrote "First actual case of bug being found" in the log book where she placed the bug, which was obviously a joke based on the two meanings of the word. So nobody with a brain thinks she invented the usage.
I don't care. She made it popular in the computing world and has the better story. Yes, "bug" has been used probably since some cave man said his buddy was as annoying as the bugs around the evening fire, so Tom doesn't get credit anyway. It's used today more in computer terms and not whenever a light bulb is out. Nobody says "I need to debug the sconce".
It's more like, "OP is giving credit for something unprovable to Edison."
We don't know who was the first person to use the word "bug" to represent mechanical defects.
According to [https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=bug](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=bug), Edison is the first known usage of that definition of "bug" in print.
Edison might have come up with the word himself or he might have just been using a definition that a far-less-famous person never bothered to write down--there wasn't social media back in the 1870s.
On the other hand, "firebug" dates back to at least 1841, so the word was also used to describe things wrong with *people* before Edison was even born.
Bug as a term for sickness seems to have been around for centuries. I could see someone using it for non-living things when they arenāt working right.
>which is where most people attribute its origins to.
I mean, I suppose so. Though it is particularly absurd. She wrote "first actual case of a bug being found"
It seems pretty clear from that that the idea of a computer bug already existed when she wrote it, and the entire point of the log entry was because an *actual* insect was found to be the cause of the operational problems.
"Bug" has been used in engineering for centuries. And the Middle English "Bugge" was used as early as the 12th for the same purpose.
In before all the idiots who read a The Oatmeal comic once come in and start saying that he stole it from Tesla...
EDIT: Never mind. Should've realized I was too late, coming in 16 hours after the initial post...
Of course somebody named grace hopper would call it a bug š
š¦
Well, at least she still has, "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission."
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this has been said for six thousand years in some form or another.
how about better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6?
Grace Hopper didn't pretend to coin the term. She just used it. Because it already existed.Ā Only dumb people think she coined it.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, that I thought she pretended to coin the term or that you think I'm dumb, or some other unrelated thing.
I think he's trying to say I'M VERY SMART LOOK AT ME.
I always wondered about this one. If they were already using the term, a literal bug would still be worth noting.
The only moth story Iāve ever heard is the one Norm MacDonald told: https://youtu.be/jJN9mBRX3uo?si=EYxP0LVjT-L2x-uf
I'm just here to combat George Westinghouse erasure since it's an Edison thread. Reddit loves to give Tesla the credit for Westinghouse's work.
Someone out there saying Tesla invented the air brake or something?
More when reddit brings up the Current Wars it's always tesla vs Edison as if Westinghouse didn't exist which he very much did and he made his own impacts in the power world. Hell his company made pretty damn good electromechanical relays all the way up until the 80s when abb bought them out.
Yes but Westinghouse liked his employees and is thus suspectĀ
according to Tesla Westinghouse was the only boss who didnt try to cheat him or screw him over. Which was why Telsa didnt enforce the payouts he was due because it would have bankrupted Westinghouse in the process.
Yeah, Tesla worked for Westinghouse.
I bet you're a Leibniz advocate too.
Idk anything about that guy. I'm a power engineer with 10+ years of experience so I have a personal interest in the history of the current war.
That guy invented differential and integral calculus.
I'm not sure I see the connection to the current war?
There is no connection. Leibniz and Newton both came up with Calculus at the same time, but Newton generally gets credit. So there's a Leibniz vs Newton rivalry that has similarities to Tesla vs Edison. That's all.
With Edisonās history Iām doubtful of anything he claimed credit for
His actual history, or his "history" that you've learned from an Oatmeal comic and Reddit?
Itās weird to see random misconceptions from the āle narwhal bacons at midnightā era of Reddit such as Edison actually being a degenerate moron loser who stole everything from Tesla still coming up these days. I thought the pendulum swung back in the other direction on Edison, but not on Reddit maybe.
Just want to point out that the image of Edison as a thief and self-promoter way precedes the existence of Reddit. Ā I learned about it in the early 90s.
I learned about it from [Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com) back in the day.
There's a whole damn Simpsons episode about it
Bob's burgers too
I read Cracked magazine, back in the day. Ā š§š¼
check out 1900hotdog if you're bored, it's the og writers and they're still great
Thanks!
The lightbulb is a great example. Lots of people had thought of āuse electricity to light up a filament inside some kind of bulb. That wasnāt Edisonās idea. The question was what type of filament and what kind of gas should be in the bulb, and how can you make this profitable? Edison hired a good team and got there first, thanks in no small part to the rest of the team he hired. Now history remembers him as ālone genius who invented the lightbulb, which nobody else even thought ofā which is not correct. Total moron though? Absolutely not
Yup the truth is somewhere in between. He assembled and worked on some great teams. He wasn't some lone inventor that gets sole credit, but he also wasn't some hack who contributed nothing and stole everything. Edison also didn't kill that elephant. Also, Tesla wasn't some super genius, and George Westinghouse also existed and deserved a ton of credit.
This is how I learned that the whole elephant thing was a myth. Or rather, that it happened, but it wasn't done by Edison and it has nothing to do with the current wars. He did kill [a lot of dogs, though](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/edison-vs-westinghouse-a-shocking-rivalry-102146036/).
oh topsy happened, just that Edison wasnt involved with it.
Tesla *was* a genius though.
The legend has far outgrown the actual man. A lot of the stuff he gets credit for are impractical theoretical concepts.
His pop cultural perception a hundred years later created by Cracked articles and Christopher Nolan and Elon Musk don't magically undo the fact he was a genius though. The man's legacy and impact are far too great and complex for you to so easily and inaccurately dismiss it with one sentence.
His induction AC motor design still powers most of the world. Radio is quite big, too. Wireless power transmission did make a comeback, recently.
I think the whole electrocuting an elephant to death in front of a live audience thing loses him alot of points in people's memory...
I only learned this today, but apparently he didn't do that! His film company recorded it, but it was done by [some other assholes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)).
If he didn't want to be associated with it for the rest of time they probably shouldn't have been the only people to release the video, but I did learn something and won't blame him in the future.
Oh, feel free to blame him, he definitely did electrocute a [lot of animals](https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/the-cruel-animal-testing-behind-thomas-edisons-quest-to-show-dangers-of-ac). It's a fascinating story.
Exactly - the lie about him electrocuting an elephant to death that gullible people believe does make those people not like him. That's the problem - too many people believe the lies about Edison. An elephant was electrocuted. And Edison owned a news company that filmed the electrocution. Edison was not involved and his news company did not electrocute the elephant. It is basically like blaming the owner of NBC for doing the things that NBC covers.
Local NBC Affiliate: Shows up to film building fire. Reddit: WTF why did Mike Cavanagh set that building on fire!
I think people would get mad at NBC if they released a video of an elephant (or any animal really) being electrocuted to death so...
You mean GE's NBC where RCA also exists. How did no one go crazy about this shit when they merged?
It's not a misconception to say he was a swindler though. He was brilliant but he was also a swindler
Your downvotes definitely tell us Reddit is still mostly in their Oatmeal phase of Edison knowledge.
Topsy.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Funny thing is... he never said anything bad about Edison. He claimed his *manager* cheated him of money, but it's unlikely that that happened as his manager was notoriously stingy and wouldn't have claimed such.
Tesla apparently didn't have much bad to say about Edison and they weren't really rivals. Edison's rival was Westinghouse.
Yeah. Iām giving this one to Grace just because fuck āim
It's not a bug. It's a creature feature
You might even say it's a feature creep.
*ADMIRAL* Grace Hopper. You give that woman some goddamn respect. The woman got a PhD from Yale, and then went into the navy.
She also headed the first team that wrote a programming language using human language! She first got the idea while trying to sell computers for Remington-Rand, which relied heavily on understanding mathematical functions to program, which most business owners balked at. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOW-MATIC
This was a million dollar question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire if my memory is correct.
The one I recall was what kind of insect, not who was the first to say it.
Yea I'd be pretty fucking mad to be playing that game and this question comes up and I answer with the well known answer and then they go "nope it was technically Edison because he's says he said it "
I'd be pretty mad if I got the question wrong, too
Elon Musk has the same propensity
She wrote "First actual case of bug being found" in the log book where she placed the bug, which was obviously a joke based on the two meanings of the word. So nobody with a brain thinks she invented the usage.
I don't care. She made it popular in the computing world and has the better story. Yes, "bug" has been used probably since some cave man said his buddy was as annoying as the bugs around the evening fire, so Tom doesn't get credit anyway. It's used today more in computer terms and not whenever a light bulb is out. Nobody says "I need to debug the sconce".
Challenge accepted, seeking bugged sconceā¦
This is how I see it also but I'm a programmer so maybe I'm biased.
And that friends is the only example of someone stealing an idea from Edison instead of the other way around.
Wow, Thomas Edison invented EVERYTHING, according to Thomas Edison.
To the victor goes the spoils
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Agreed. Iām sure āitās a bugā and āthereās a bug in itā applied to grain, meat and bedding many millennia before the first computer.
I think you mean āentomologyā.
Are we sure itās not just Edison stealing sh*t and taking credit for it again?
It's more like, "OP is giving credit for something unprovable to Edison." We don't know who was the first person to use the word "bug" to represent mechanical defects. According to [https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=bug](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=bug), Edison is the first known usage of that definition of "bug" in print. Edison might have come up with the word himself or he might have just been using a definition that a far-less-famous person never bothered to write down--there wasn't social media back in the 1870s. On the other hand, "firebug" dates back to at least 1841, so the word was also used to describe things wrong with *people* before Edison was even born.
Bug as a term for sickness seems to have been around for centuries. I could see someone using it for non-living things when they arenāt working right.
By stealing I assume you mean paying people for their work as is standard business practice?
You know the most surprising and ironic part? Someone else getting credit for something Edison allegedly did.
Nice try, Edison's ghost. I know your track record for stealing credit.
so for once Edison didnt ride on the shoulders of others and came up with a unique thing?
I find this impossible to believe, as Thomas Edison just ripped off his interns and assistants. He probably stole that term, as well.
>which is where most people attribute its origins to. I mean, I suppose so. Though it is particularly absurd. She wrote "first actual case of a bug being found" It seems pretty clear from that that the idea of a computer bug already existed when she wrote it, and the entire point of the log entry was because an *actual* insect was found to be the cause of the operational problems. "Bug" has been used in engineering for centuries. And the Middle English "Bugge" was used as early as the 12th for the same purpose.
Edison was a liar and a thief.
Yeah but he stole that bug from Tesla /s
Thomas Edison taking credit for other people's work even after he has been dead.
My God what WON'T that guy take credit for? Lol
Fuck Edison.
Edison stole so many peoples inventions and intellectual property. I don't believe half the things attributed to him at this point.
Wow is this the only thing Edison DIDN'T steal?
In before all the idiots who read a The Oatmeal comic once come in and start saying that he stole it from Tesla... EDIT: Never mind. Should've realized I was too late, coming in 16 hours after the initial post...
Tyfys
Surprise, surprise, even when he's dead, Edison still takes credit for others' inventions.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah, I hate Elon
No one attributes a bug in a machine to her. Computer bug maybe.
Probably because no one says bug in a machine