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Originally Posted by drewprops
My dad has become a big fan of Edison in recent years and has an old book from the 30s or 40s hat documents Edison's history. He's offered it to me to read. I think I might.
Where's the citations in the Oatmeal thing? ( which has entertained me previously)
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I think the deal with Edison is that he was much less a great scientific mind / thinker (the way Tesla was or Newton was), than he was an incessant tinkerer and someone who would try an idea 1000x before getting it right. So basically rather than being a scientific genius, he was a business man who threw shit against a wall 1000x until something stuck. He has even been quoted to that effect though I don't recall the exact words. Something like "every time I got something right, it was only because I got it wrong hundreds of times first."
So there are things about Edison that are admirable (never-quit attitude, business savvy / making something scientific marketable to the world, etc) but as far as big thinkers, seems like there's not much comparison between Tesla and Edison based on the limited info I have. The former was the much "bigger mind", if what I've read previously is even mostly accurate.
In the end I guess the world needs both types of person... we need the Ive types who invent stuff on a technical level, and we need Jobs, to give it direction and make it workable to the masses? Tesla was Ive, Edison was Jobs (approximately)? IOW Tesla would be the guy with a scientific understanding of materials, physics, manufacturing processes and how to start creating things out of nothing... Edison is the guy who takes things that are partially created and envisions them as something different, and eventually arrives at that vision with the help of others? That's sort of how I've come to understand it but at some point I need to read some quality biographies.