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I can't understand why the writer is reacting so much to the comic

Because the comic is spreading non-sense as it is clearly evidenced in the article?

I don't believe Edison could spell Tesla on his best day

This is exactly the attitude I believe the article is opposed to, that I personally find naive as well - mythologizing people and single contributions and making science/engineering look like a game of who is more awesome. This is a conception that some popular science writing installs in many people and that could easily be cured by tracking the long history of many things we consider simple, in which at least tens of people contributed ideas that made the final invention tick. The article sums it up very well:

First of all, I’d contend that nearly every invention in the engineering or sciences is an improvement on what has come before – such as Tesla’s improvements to alternating current. That’s what innovation is. It’s a social process that occurs in a social context.

I don't even really care if Edison invented anything or not, because he was a douchebag. I don't even care if he ultimately believed AC was dangerous, advocating its use in electric chairs and electrocuting animals publicly is an attempt to use FUD and hysteria to win an argument that he was apparently unable to win by civilized means (and for good reason, because he was wrong).

Also, his aggressive filing of patents doesn't exactly endear me to him either. He held 1,093 patents at his death; did he really invent 1,093 things? He seems to have been an early player in the game of patenting every incremental improvement to everything, which as we see in software hinders rather than promotes "the progress of science and useful art."

>I don't even really care if Edison invented anything or not, because he was a douchebag

This is a textbook case of argumentum ad hominem. You may not care for what he did but that doesn't change the fact that he did it.

Ad hominem would be "a douche like that could never have invented anything."

What I'm saying is "he was a douche so I don't care if he invented anything."

I think you might be right that he was an early player of a patent filing game that has grown to become rather controversial in some spheres, namely software. The only way to know, besides being alive at that time, is to do the historical research.

Can you recommend any primary sources to learn more about this history (besides the patents themelves)? It sounds like you have read some?

On the bright side, not everyone took the Edison approach. Are you familiar with the history of Hans Bessemer and his approach to patents?

It may be naive but I think the best science and creation happens in a mindset of creativity, imagination, possibility and experimentation instead of doubt.

Tesla clearly invented things that did not exist before him, and also improved other things.

To me, those are on an order of magnitude different.

So did Edison. It might very well be that Edison would not be able to spell Tesla at his best but also that Tesla would not be able to spell Edison at his best. The point is they both made very valuable contributions using their unique talents, we build upon the work of both of them today and there is no need to turn it into some sort of competition. There is no meaningful way to compare creative achievements anyway. The article has this right in some places, to be fair in others it really seems biased in the opposite direction to the comic.

I'm not really making it a competition, or a comparison. The comic did. The writer did too.

I don't mean to fuel a comparison either, but that's what's being discussed. Instead of simply giving an opinion, I listed why I believe Tesla has more of an impact on my life every day today than Edison.

It's cool if others feel different.

> I can't understand why the writer is reacting so much to the comic. Sure, it uses blunt language, but is the writer related to Edison distantly or his childhood hero or something?

Reading the article, I would bet the comic under the second paragraph of "Tesla Wasn’t The First Person To Discover X-Rays" was what started the article. The comic is out-and-out false.

As to being a comic so why should he care. I would point the the Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Both are listed as comedies, but a lot of people report what they say as fact. The Oatmeal got a lot of play for the Game of Thrones comic so people use it as a source also.

To give a bit of political example. If I were to ask for a description of President Ford one of the first words to come to mind during the 70's would have been "clumsy" or "physically inept". This is the result of comedy sketches on SNL and not reality. Reality is he slipped on camera. He was probably one of the most physically gifted of the modern Presidents as he played center and linebacker in college. He was a star athlete.

Letting popular untruths sit, no matter the medium, tends to make them "common knowledge".

It's one thing to correct the falsehoods vs trying to minimize Tesla's accomplishments in light of Edison, which the article also did.

There's a big difference between editorial/opinion and journalistic pieces, sadly the comic can't be held to a standard, but neither can the writer to know the difference.

Blurring the line between editorial/opinion pieces and journalistic pieces starts to present or promote an opinion as fact.

This is also known as propaganda, and once that word was made dirty, called public relations.

Propoganda/Public Relations was created by Edward Bernays in the 20's for manufacturing ongoing demands for goods, known as consumerism. He was a nephew of Freud, and a fascinating read.

I didn't get the impression he was trying to minimize Tesla's actual accomplishments. He seems to be a pretty big fan of all the inventors of the era. He did point out where the comic had exaggerated the actual accomplishments. Tesla was pretty amazing, but so was Edison.

I don't think medium is the defining item for being held to a standard. Comics, as a form, have long been used for commentary. This particular artist did it prior to this with the Game of Thrones commentary that resulted in a lot of serious discussion.

I'm also not very concerned with something listed as editorial or opinion. If you make a statement of fact in error then corrections are needed. It looks like one whole wall of text panel was untrue.

Tesla did not invent Unlimted wireless electricity. He got low efficiency wireless power transfer working, but never worked out that inducing a current acts as a drain on the source aka you can use a high tension power line to light a few light bulbs just fine but the power company can measure the drain on the line. IMO, his problem was he was getting such low efficiency transfers that the drain was not obvious.

PS: If you still think his idea of charging the ionosphere could work, watch this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXhZvyGtMrk But, you can see people walking around the field prevents the bulbs from lighting up. Just, ignore the audio on this as they don't know what their talking about.

Tesla may have talked about ionizing the atmosphere in his earlier patents which required raising the termination of the antenna miles into the atmosphere, but it's clear from his later writings, especially "tesla on his work with alternating currents", that later iterations called for preventing the energy from leaking into the atmosphere as much as possible. You can see from the design of the toroid on top of the final proposed magnifying transmitter, which is covered with half spheres to increase the surface area, thus reducing the electrical tension at each point on the surface, reducing the possibility of breakdown. (ionization)

Lighting flourescent bulbs with high frequency rf energy is nothing special, and really has nothing to do with serious discussion of tesla. In tesla on his work with ac this is what he refers to as "parlor tricks" along with the opposite spectrum of rf energy, the single extremely large capacitive discharge, which he could vaporize wires and sheets of tinfoil with.

Tesla on his work with ac was not available until the mid 90s, and the resurgence of interest in tesla in the 80s was not able to benefit from the information, thus much of the experimentation today hasn't taken into account what tesla actually said. These "parlor tricks" are what the wireless energy charger people are pushing today, and it's laughable. It's not at all what tesla was talking about.

Look, he was a pioneer the only thing he could consult with to double check his ideas was reality. So, he made some bad assumptions and said some things that where less than accurate. That in no way takes away from what he accomplished, but just because his comtemeratires had no idea what was going on does not mean he has a trove of secret knowledge that we still don't understand.

Study electrical engineering then go back and study the man. It's a more interesting story, and just because he made some mistakes does not mean you need to make the same ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8DxGsR6NLs you can see here the ground is required. Losses fall off by the square of the distance through the atmosphere with rf radiation, but not with the tesla magnifying transmitter with the receiver at a nodal point. (a point where the traveling waves around the sphere of the earth interact to create a standing wave)

Who invented wireless electricity? Would love to learn more.

Read "Tesla On his work with alternating currents." Tesla was able to transmit electricity efficiently using standing waves in the earth. The engineering precision required to do this is still unmatched today, and in fact it's because even tesla had such difficulty tuning all of the required parameters that radio in the sense it is used today, which requires tuning fewer parameters, won out in the 1910s.

If you read "tesla on his work with ac" you will see his transmitters could be tuned to close to 100% efficiency, minus heat and spark losses from the power plant at the transmitter. This has been replicated using single ground wires instead of the earth at a small scale and at higher frequencies recently in various open source hardware forums on the Internet. Note these smaller devices use higher frequencies which generate much more rf radiation than tesla suggests, thus not being able to achieve the efficiencies tesla was talking about -- tesla was working with a 50 foot diameter by 10 foot tall primary and secondary, plus an extra coil about 8 feet tall and wide and frequencies around 50khz, pretty much unused today.

The secondary and extra coil in the tesla arrangement take the place of straight antennas that are in use for normal communications today. The transmission is effected through the ground, not through the air. If the device is emitting radio waves, then it is not a tesla magnifying transmitter. Most tesla coils built today are hopelessly out of tune... They have far too many turns and are far too tall in comparison to diameter. Each additional turn adds capacitance, and the narrow diameters used make for a small inductance. The capacitances are far too high and inductances too low in these arrangements, and thus they need extremely inefficient drivers.

"Colorado Springs Notes" is of course the definitive resource for this material, although "tesla on his work with ac" exposes the concepts in easier to understand language. The exact schematics and dimensions are given for the Colorado springs experiment. Scaling it down is not trivial, but in the late 80s golka built an exact replica and performed successful experiments.

I'm not contesting any of this, rather, the poster above me had said Tesla didn't invent wireless electric transmission, so I asked who did, so I could learn. :)

It was the 'Unlimted' part I was objecting to not the wireless part.

No need to attack the author here -- most likely, he is writing this article because of the glaring factual inaccuracies in Inman's comic. He brings a reasonable perspective where The Oatmeal did not.

The Oatmeal is a comic. He's supposed to be humorous, not "reasonable."

I don't think OP was "attacking" the author. Seemed like a reasonable critique.

That particular comic clearly isn't intended to be humorous. In fact it's quite humorless. Or are you saying the factual inaccuracies are some kind of ironic joke that Alex Knapp and I both missed?

I'm saying you shouldn't take everything you read at face value.

Other commenters talk about Edison is idolized throughout education and glossing over his imperfections.

The Oatmeal is providing an alternate viewpoint that takes some things to the extreme - but proves a point - Tesla was overlooked both in his time and in the education system.

Also, why you might not have found it at funny as his "reasons your cat is plotting to kill you" comic, if you could honestly read the comic and not laugh a couple times at least I'd be surprised.

I think its a bit dangerous because in general people read these and believe them to be true. People are already misinformed about the fact that Tesla created AC power and the comic only further promotes this misconception.

And really the part about Edison electrocuting animals is horrifying enough on its on merits, but to aggravate that by including that he paid little kids to steal pets so he could do it? What about the part where Oatmeal basically said Edison purposely experimented on humans with radiation and killed his assistant and amputated his arms? I am sure Edison was no saint but the author makes him out to be a monster which I think is irresponsible of the author of The Oatmeal to claim without never bothering to research. It seems as though the author just met someone who was a fervent Tesla supporter and took him at his word.

Being humorous is fine but when it comes to wanting to set the record straight on history, the comic should also be accurate.

> Marconi's patents for inventing radio were overturned in Tesla's prior invention of radio. Marconi didn't really invent the radio - though he is popularly given the credit for "inventing" it.

The Bengali polymath J. C. Bose demonstrated the practical uses of radiowaves - but he didn't patent it.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_radio

Although your sources indicate Bose did so after Tesla.

The electric car story appears to be an urban legend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_electric_car

FWIW, about half way down right before the first map:

http://www.tfcbooks.com/teslafaq/q&a_016.htm

"An article appearing in the New York Daily News, April 2, 1934 titled "Tesla's Wireless Power Dream Nears Reality" mentions the planned "test run of a motor car [for a distance of 30 or 40 miles] over a stretch of [Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe] railway track [running from Boise City, Oklahoma] to Farley, N. M." using wireless transmission of electrical energy to power the vehicle. The equipment was assembled by "two Californians" and is described as "including a high-powered radio transmitter with big coils and and short antenna."

That Wikipedia page is obviously the work of an Edison fanboy. Or some electric industry astroturfer covering up the truth about unlimited free energy from space.

Well, Forbes is a business magazine. Do you really think they will let the world think engineers, not CEOs, are gods? :)

This is naive. Do you not realize that Edison was an engineer? Just because he had a workshop of people (not so different from having a team of engineers) doesn't mean he didn't create tons of experiments.

Yes, I'm aware of that - but was simply referring to the characterization he got in the comic.

Has some truth to it IMHO. :) Whenever you hear people go on about how innovation is such a social endeavour and how nobody really invented anything you can be sure about one thing: that the author hasn't even tried inventing anything.

"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor." -Tesla