TheStatutoryApe said:
From what I had read AC was one of Tesla's first big discoveries. The biography I read also indicated, if I remember correctly, that the war was partially fueled by an Edison/Tesla feud and involved attacks directed at Tesla himself. Both Edison and Tesla were actively involved in the campaigning I believe.
When I was a kid, there were always these little quizzes asked of kids, focusing on major inventions and the responsible inventors. I thought nothing of it then, I thought the men (and rarely women) were being given due credit for brilliant work.
Now, I'm not sure at all of that. I've realized assigning honor to a single person for a discovery or invention is a far more nebulous exercise than most people realize, or care to admit. But it seems people need a popular icon of some sort; we're often more comfortable with giving the wrong person all the credit than admitting we don't know any better.
Did Tesla even invent AC ? I don't know - I've seen very compelling writeups that claim it was Charles Proteus Steinmetz all along. In fact, as Russ pointed out, the vociferous "cult of personality" crackpots surrounding Tesla actually detract from serious study about the assignation of credit for the inventions that may or may not have come from him.
Russ made another excellent point here :
Russ said:
As is often the case, the enabling technology (AC power) is forgotton, and the invention we use every day (the light bulb) is remembered. That's life - anyone who isn't an engineer or physicist probably doesn't know the first thing about how electricity works, so there is no reason for them to know that Tesla is the reason for AC power. But they do know that they can't live without light bulbs.
There's a kernel of profound truth in that observation. Take the car for instance. Get a random poll of people off the street and ask them who invented the car. Let's leave what I think will turn out to be the most common answer to later.
The "more knowledgeable" among those polled may answer "Karl Benz". Yet even this is forgetting Etienne Lenoir, the (supposed) inventor of the internal combustion engine, who essentially enabled all this. Pertaining to the car itself, Cugnot is most likely to be ignored, even though he came up with the steam propelled prototype (we think).
All of the above are answers that I would consider fairly reasonable. But I expect that the most common answer would turn out to be "Henry Ford", even though he had little to do with the invention of the basic concept, but a lot to do with making and marketing a commercially viable model.
So the paradigm holds : Enablers are hardly known, inventors are occasionally known and oft forgotten, marketers are enshrined in popular culture.
But does it really matter anyway ? Society moves on through these inventions - and don't we all "stand on the shoulders of giants" ? Zoobyshoe also made a great point in this respect.
I know that last aphorism was said by someone great, but I couldn't initially remember who it was (I had to google). But in the spirit of non-attribution which I'm beginning to favor over mis-attribution, I shall leave the quote unacknowledged.
don't you be telling Zz he doesn't understand what this forum is about!
It was just the book I read that made it seem that way.
