Geniuses being jerks

 Ah, it's been a while, hasn't it? With the volley of tests being thrown at me, I didn't get much time to churn out any posts for my blog but I finally managed to get some time to type one out.

The title says it all, Geniuses being jerks(eloquent isn't it?). A genius is defined as a person with exceptional intellectual, creative, or natural ability. Geniuses make great strides in their respective fields and we are certainly indebted to them and their contributions to society. However it is often that we can observe some geniuses getting quite a bit egotistical once they realize they achieve success, this steadily develops into a sort of superiority complex leading them to believe that they are infallible and that they can do no wrong. Nevertheless, they do end up doing more good than bad and we remember them as pioneers of their field.

I shall utilize an example to prove my point about this trend.

Electricity... a ubiquitous resource that we can't imagine our daily life without. Certainly, Humanity owes a lot to electricity, it has provided us with the energy to develop at a rapid pace and become the technological powerhouse we now are. It has a myriad number of uses as well. You can't assign a "creator" of electricity since we have several contributors to this field, from Thales to Faraday. Each of them has contributed significantly to the progress of electricity. Among this plethora of inventors and scientists, one name, in particular, stands out as the pioneer of bringing electricity to the masses, Thomas Alva Edison.

 You have probably heard about Edison at some point. The Wizard of Menlo Park, as he was commonly known, was and still is considered to be a fantastic visionary, certainly, his inventions spanned a large number of fields such as mass communication, sound recording, motion pictures, and the one most important for us right now, electric power generation. Edison was a proponent of the DC(Direct Current) system of electricity and at the time his discovery was revolutionary. He created this system to power the light bulb which he perfected (more on that later). This system comfortably overpowered the prevalent method of gaslight utilities and soon Edison started making the big bucks.

 However DC was not without its failings, the most significant drawback was its woefully low coverage of an area. Very simply put a DC generator could only supply power to people in a mile's range. This made it inefficient and costly to use on a large scale, but Edison stood behind his invention and still kept on with it. This was all fine and dandy until another brilliant scientist of the time entered the fray with his invention of Alternating Current(AC)- Nikola Tesla. Tesla was a brilliant scientist and he developed the much more efficient and rational AC system, it could provide electricity to much greater distances and was the obvious choice to deliver electricity to the masses. It is also worth mentioning that Tesla had a bone to pick with Edison from his short stint at working at the Continental Edison Company where he got shortchanged by Edison.

Nikola Tesla

Thomas Alva Edison

Visionaries-you gotta love em

However, in a striking display of arrogance Edison declared that AC was incredibly dangerous and should not be trusted. Perhaps this was a legitimate concern but regardless it certainly had the intention to stop the public from buying into the AC system. Tesla in retaliation held several displays where he proved that AC was nowhere near as dangerous as Edison was hyping it up to be by passing current through his body and lighting light bulbs in his hands without the use of wires.

 This went back and forth and is now known as the "War of the Currents". Frankly, some of the things that Edison did during the entire episode makes the reader question his sanity. Among other things he electrocuted a "mad" elephant, tried to conduct a public execution of a convict using an electric chair(which failed, giving the convict immeasurable amounts of pain until he was finally executed) all to just make a point that AC electricity was dangerous and people should switch over to DC.

 Thankfully people took the side of AC and now it's used for virtually all types of electricity. Of course, DC still has its uses but why did Edison want to prioritize DC over the much more AC. Quite simple actually, human nature. Edison saw that Tesla had created a much more efficient system yet his ego could not simply accept that someone else had made a better system. So he went to great lengths to satisfy his ego only to eventually end up failing.

                    Topsy the elephant who was electrocuted (R.I.P you beautiful pachyderm)   

                                        

                                                    William Kemmler the convict executed.

(George Westinghouse founder of Westinghouse the company which distributed AC systems remarked, "They would have done better using an axe).

Now about that light bulb, notice how I have not said that Edison created the light bulb? That was intentional, many inventors had created working versions of the light bulb but Edison was the first to create a more efficient version of a light bulb. Don't these other men and women deserve recognition? Alas! Edison is touted as the creator of the light bulb. Edison did indeed perfect the light bulb but he most certainly did not single-handedly create it.

Many other instances can be given about how Edison wasn't perfect however I don't want to turn this into an "Edison sucks" post. Edison did play a very important role in modern-day electricity however he shouldn't be the only one remembered. Neither should he be considered a god among scientists. However, his feats should be appreciated knowing his faults and shortcomings.

One more thing, however, Edison passed away leaving a considerable fortune with his family however Tesla died alone in a hotel room unrecognized for his talents. Perhaps we owe geniuses like Tesla more...

Adios

Aby