Thomas Edison: Inventor or Patent Thief?

Tesla won the war over energy because Edison’s direct current died out and became obsolete. However, Edison remained a powerhouse, creating a multitude of patents; meanwhile, Tesla started many projects, but many failed, and he was forced to file for bankruptcy. Also, Nikola Tesla suffered from a mental breakdown during his career and had to temporarily stop working. When Tesla returned, he was never the same. His ideas became more and more crazy and impractical. Meanwhile, Edison remained active, working for the government, but at a slower pace than in his youth. Edison dies in 1931; Tesla passed in

The success done by Thomas Edison lined up the competitor, who were shocked by the great invention of Thomas Edison. The biggest competitor to Thomas Edison Company was George Westinghouse and his company which patented a new technique to deliver electrical power through long distances. George Westinghouse noticed that Edison low voltage DC motors were not able to transmit the electrical power effectively for more than half a mile [1]. The efficiency of DC generators was not effective to transmit the electric power to long distances because of the high impedance and the resistivity of the wires. In 1982, one of the world's true eccentric geniuses, Nicola Tesla, traveled from Austria to solve the problem of the DC generators by using AC motor design. However,

Imagine a world with no phones, computers, or even an easily accessible light source. If there were no technological inventions in the previous centuries, then our technology would not exist. Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. He had an entrepreneurial spirit at an early age and was very talented. Edison took out his first patent when he was 20 years old and his last one was taken out before his death. Overall, Thomas took out 1,093 patents. He is one of the most famous and influential inventors in the history of the world. Thomas Edison's inventions were numerous, but his most important contributions are the first electric light bulb, the phonograph, and motion pictures.

To start off, Thomas Edison was a hero because he had pushed the technological world far into the future for his lifetime. Thomas Edison had created over 1,000 innovations and inventions much of which are still being improved today. The phonograph is considered to be the first great Edison innovation (Edison Innovation Foundation) . Other inventions include the practical light bulb, motion pictures, and the electrographic voice recorder, just to name a few. Edison had also had seen the ideas of others and guided the idea into the right direction. Some of these examples are the practical lightbulb, Synthetic Carbolic Acid, and many more. Thomas Edison stated “My principal business consists of giving commercial value to the brilliant, but misdirected,

Nikola Tesla invented the way almost all of the world’s electricity is generated today, envisioned and created wireless communication, spoke eight languages, and had a photographic memory (Carlson, The Untold Story of Larry Page's Incredible Comeback, 2014). However, the inventor was lousy at business. After making a deal and then betrayed by his former employer, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla spent the rest of his life searching, to no avail, for investors to fund his

While working in the engineering field for Einstein Tesla had the urge to not work for someone, but to be the head man. So he began developing another kind of electrical current called, A.C, alternate current. With months of learning about how Albert Einstein’s, D.C, direct current works Tesla would apply the same knowledge to this A.C electricity. This is proof that Tesla wanted more than to be an apprentice. Not long after Tesla left Einstein to start a business out of his own Alternate current electricity.

J.P and Edison embark a new company The Edison Company. They begin to lay out 15 miles long over 1,000 ft of copper wire.A new era is started electric street lights line the cities and houses.Until now Rockefeller hasn’t been challenged,but now is challenged by electricity his standard oil is going out of business. Rockefeller is trying to figure a way to show people that electricity is dangerous. Railroads,Oil, Steel, and electricity have changed the world. Nicholas Tesla is one of Thomas Edison’s interns Tesla was very interested in Edison and electricity. Edison is ignoring his enterprise and his new successful invention “Alternating current.” Nicolas Tesla is one of many bright men that worked for Edison,nikola resigns after Thomas ignoring his invention.Edison is arrogant and wishes Tesla good-luck materializing his own company and having someone investing in him. Tesla eventually has a notable person invest in him named George Westinghouse,Westinghouse and Tesla believe that alternating current is more powerful than “DC.” Tesla then begins travelling the country showing the power of voltage going through his body to show people the ability and the power of “AC.” J.P Morgan finds himself in an

He worked there a year, impressing Edison with his diligence and ingenuity. At one point Edison told Nikola Tesla he would pay $50,000 for an improved design for his DC dynamos. After months of experimentation, Nikola Tesla presented a solution and asked for the money. Edison demurred, saying, “Nikola Tesla you don’t understand our American humor.” Nikola Tesla quit soon after.

By twenty-three he was considered one of the best electrical engineers in the country. In 1869 he partnered with Franklin Pope, and started a business called Pope. In 1870 he broke his partnership with Pope. In the fall of 1871 he created his own news service called News Reporting Telegraph Co. He also opened his own manufacturing company in Newark, New Jersey the same year. He sold his business in Newark in 1876. He had a lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey. In 1877 he found a way to improve Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone by putting tiny pieces of carbon in the mouthpiece. Thomas Edison called his workers “muckers”. The same year he gave mucker John Kruesi a sketch of the phonograph to make. In 1879 he made the first working light bulb. In 1882 he opened a successful electric power station in New York City. He built a lab about a mile away from Glenmont, New York. The lab was ten times the size of the Menlo Park lab; was three stories high and was 250 feet long. It was the largest, best equipped research lab in the world. The lab contained a physics lab, a chemistry lab, and a metallurgical lab. In 1886 he bought an abandoned factory in Schenectady, New York. In 1889 he started work on an instrument which “Does for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear” (Edison). He also opened the world’s first motion picture studio in 1893. During World War I he was asked by the secretary of the Navy to head the Naval Consultation Board. The board was made up of scientists, inventors, and mathematicians. He was known to skip meals and get little sleep when in the middle of inventing. Often he would be found to take cat naps around the

Imagine a world with a power-plant every two miles, a massive amount of wiring and overall more expensive power. This was the world that Thomas Edison envisioned for the world when he wanted to introduce Direct Current into the United States, but many knew this was an inferior system in comparison to Alternating Current. Nikola Tesla was the man who made AC power possible in the United States, and efficient power possible. Nikola Tesla indeed changed the world with his influence as an inventor and discoveries in the field of electricity. Tesla indeed changed the world through his inventions and was also an extremely interesting human being.

The basis of modern day electrical systems were all derived over a quarrel involving the light bulb, the electric chair, and a 28-year old Croatian immigrant.This dispute involved three of the biggest and most prominent names in the history of electrical engineering: Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse, who were all scientists and innovators who lived during the late 1800s. Edison and Tesla would get into a quite large argument over the best and most efficient kind of electrical currents. It would be Edison’s direct currents against Tesla’s alternating ones. This disagreement would go on to shape the course of electricity across the country. It would later be known as the War of Currents. The War of Currents had a great impact

I believe Edison was edified and Tesla was nearly forgotten due to the fact Edison was a better businessman. In the article The Rise & Fall of Nikola Tesla & his Tower, it clearly expresses that Tesla lacked the business knowledge that Edison and other men in his field did. “But what [Tesla’s] contemporaries may have been lacking in scientific talent, men like Edison and George Westinghouse clearly possessed the one trait that Tesla did not -- a mind for business” (King, pg. 1). Edison’s superior knack for business left a long standing impression on American culture, history, and its memory which Tesla could not do.

Edison was offered a job to be a telegrapher which helped get his foot in the door to all these new opportunities. Thomas Edison knew he had an interest in telegraphy and began to focus his time and energy on learning more. He began trying all new inventions and even though he was knocked down a few times and none of his inventions were quit a success yet that didn't stop him. Between his motivation for greatness and his constant devotion for achieving his invention Thomas Edison is the most influential inventors in history. ¨But among historians, Edison’s greatest achievement is widely agreed to be

Our fast-paced world has seen many inventions that has changed the shape of our society. Perhaps the most influential inventor who inspired many others to try their hand at changing the world, was Thomas Edison. Thomas Alva Edison is considered one of the greatest inventors of all time. He invented hundreds of items that we still use today in some form or another, including the electric lightbulb and the alkaline battery. His inventive mind started when he was just a little boy growing up in Michigan.

The paramount of his inventions was AC power distribution. Numerous times he had been told such an idea was impossible, yet he was persistent and changed the world once he made his dream come into fruition. At first, Direct Current power had been a revolutionary advanced idea that brought light to the world and started a golden age in technology. Tesla and Thomas Edison were major parties in this contemporary age of electricity. Edison exploited connections, questionable deals, and influence to undermine Tesla and maintain DC relevancy during their time period. However, for today’s modern world and industry AC holds highly superior advantages over DC. Early on, Tesla and Westinghouse realized that for electrical power to be practical, it was essential to be efficiently transmitted over extraordinarily long distances. AC allows the manipulation of higher voltages and therefore lower currents; making lighter conductors a cheaper and viable ameliorate option. Tesla took advantage of electromagnetic induction mechanical