Talk:Thomas Edison/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Later years

The "Edison's last breath" section could be removed to the improvement of the article. It is doubtful and of little importance. A citation is needed. Edison 23:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I found a link to show that the Greenfield Village (Henry Ford) Museum does indeed have a test tube of air from the room where Edison died, kept as a memento like a plaster death mask or a lock of hair might be. Will try and put the factoid back into the article. Edison 18:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Oriental telephone company

This section is of less importance than other sections, and could be removed. Lacks citation as well.Edison 23:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Just a note, I recently reformatted this article, so the prose is pretty disorganized; if I find time I will probably patch up the prose. Andy t 02:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Menlo Park

This sentence is awkward and misleading. As is, it literally says Edison bought one patent from all the men named, which is clearly not the case: "Several designs had already been developed by earlier inventors including the patent he purchased from Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans, Moses G. Farmer,[4] Joseph Swan, James Bowman Lindsay, William Sawyer, Humphry Davy, and Heinrich Göbel." Whose patent did he supposedly buy? Humphrey Davy certainly lived long before Edison and had no patent to sell. From reading several histories of the electric light, it is more likely the General Electric conglomerate bought a patent or patents. The Sawyer patent, perhaps? The Swan patent? None of their bulbs worked to any practical extent before Edison's work. Edison 04:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The most recent things I've read indicate Swan was about at the same level of development as Edison in the home stretch of bringing out a light bulb with commercially useful characteristics. But he did not announce public demonstrations and go full speed ahead with illuminating cities and devising the generators and distribution system as Edison did. The really funny thing is how the leading men of electrical science (e.g. Tyndall) insisted that it was folly to try to make electric lights small enough to illuminate one room of a house, the so called "subdividing of the electric light." All they could picture were small arc lights, which wouldn't work. It's all easy and obvious in retrospect, but it was folly to the scientific world in prospect.Edison 22:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
There were indeed public demonstrations and installations of Swan's patent in the UK (see Joseph Swan). No industrial production until 1881 however. Hakluyt bean 23:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Incandescent era paragraph 2 includes a link to one "William Sawyer", who it would seem patented a design for a lightbulb before Edison. However, the included link directs to a cricket player. Is Sawyer misspelled/the wrong name or is this correct and just no link exists?

I think it's the American William S. Sawyer and there doesn't appear to be an article. Hakluyt bean 21:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to the element of glowing wire carrying the current, although English inventor Joseph Swan had used the term prior to this. I'm not clear about this sentence. Is Edison credited here with inventing terminology that was invented previously? (No laughing at the back). I presume this was original use of an older term, but it'd be nice to see what Swan meant by filament, & why Edison changed that meaning. Hakluyt bean 21:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Tesla bulb history?

This article is about Edison, yet there is a long section about Tesla including: "Other designs for a light bulb included Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla's idea of utilizing radio frequency waves emitted (in the Tesla effect) from the side electrode plates to light a wireless bulb. He also developed plans to light a bulb with only one wire with the energy refocused back into the center of the bulb by the glass envelope with a center "button" to emit an incandescent glow." Did this bear on Edison's incandescent light bulb development? What year was the Tesla incandescent light bulb developed? If it were in the timespan of Edison's development work, then it has a place in this article. If it was after even the patent litigation was concluded and the patent expired, then it is relevant only in the Tesla article, where I did not see it described, unless in the bare mention of an 1893 "single node bulb." The material would be more at home in the Tesla article. In about a week I will delete it from this article unless good reasons are furnished otherwise.Edison 17:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Edison info belongs in the Edison article and Tesla info in the Tesla article. Tesla got too little recognition of his acomplishments for much of the 20th century, but the solution to this is to improve our information on Tesla rather than trying to turn discussion of other inventors into a discussion of Tesla, as some folks have seemed to do. The contributions of various inventors who all made contributions to various aspects of technology are best listed in articles about those specific technology. -- Infrogmation

Alexander Crawford redirect?

Why was the "Alexander Crawford" article set up to redirect to Edison? I couldn't see any reason for it, so I have removed the redirect. Jwillbur 00:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticism: he hired people to work on his inventions

The article had a criticism section that said his employees really invented his inventions. One problem: most of them never invented anything until they came to work for him, and started carrying out the tasks he assigned them. And most of them never invented anything of consequence after they left his lab. In the beginning, he was the classic lone inventor, slaving away on the Gold and Stock ticker and the quadruplex telegraph. He had several noteworthy inventions on his own. Then he hired machinists, mathematicians, chemists, glassblowers and other hired guns to enable him to draw up a plan for a phonograph, write on it "Kreusi: make this" and get back a nicely machined little device that would for the first time in the world record and play back speech. Francis Jehl was there when the light bulb was invented, and in "Menlo Park Reminiscences" he detailed the complete involvement of Edison in the project. Upton wrote that Edison was the most skilled worked at carbonizing the filaments. He was in the lab all hours, going from one worker to another with assignments and suggestions for improvements. A thousand lines would be followed for each grand success. Alexander Graham Bell did not build the first telephone: Thomas Watson, his employee, did. Morse did not invent the telegraph; Vail and others had the electrical and mechanical knowhow. In contrast, Edison was very knowledgable of all aspects of electricity and pretty good with chemistry, and surprisingly good with acoustics for one who was nearly deaf. A verifiable source is needed for the claim that Edison "stole" the Melies film. Then consider how every company in the US and abroad "stole" the successful lightbulb, just as the Bell company "stole" the carbon telephone transmitter.Edison 23:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

To quibble a bit Edison your post could stand a tiny bit of cleaning up. I cannot tell where the quotation ends, also you need to source it. I didn't know much about Edison when I read this (although I grew up in Edison, NJ) but I removed a sentence saying his "reputation was ruined" because generally now he is thought of very highly (I lived in Florida since I was 12 so not just in Edison, NJ). It may have been ruined at the time but saying "his reputation was ruined" implies permanence. I changed it to his "reputation was hurt" "ruined at the time" would be fine too if indeed that is the case.Quadzilla99 07:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I put in the other quote sign around the book "Menlo Park Reminiscences." I don't see another ambiguous quote. Do you refer to a quote in the article or on this talk page? I also deleted some material which recently appeared in the article which made unsupported POV claims and which duplicated material in other sections of the article. Besides the duplication, the new material made several untrue and unsupported criticisms. One criticism said Edison was in charge of the Kemler execution, which was certainly not true, and it said that his powerlines hung too low and electricuted people, whereas in fact he emphasized putting the conductors underground for safety. His conductors were 120volt-240volt DC in the Edison 3 wire system later used for single phase residential AC wiring in the 20th century. It was the 4,000 volt AC lines which were overhead and which electricuted many people. Tests also showed that at a given voltage, DC was less likely to produce electricution than AC. The new material also said Edison was "fired" from his company, and they took his name off it. Misleading at best. Check out Consolidated Edison in New York, Detroit Edison, Commonwealth Edison, and many other electric utilities which bear his name today. His main company, Edison General Electric, was merged in 1892 with Thompson-Houston Electric. see http://www.ge.com/en/company/companyinfo/at_a_glance/history_story.htm Thompson and Houston were not "fired" either. But financier J.P. Morgan was not going to have just Edison's name on the merged company. when his stock dealings gave him control, and Edison-Thompson-Houston General Electric would have been more than a mouthful.Edison 14:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I doubt any of you have patented anything either. When IBM, for example, has an engineer that patents something they do not patent it under the name of the CEO or founder of the company. The name of the actual inventor is listed. It does not matter if that was the person's first or last invention, they still get their name on it. IBM owns the royalties of course, but hopefully you can see the difference between this and Edison's scandalous and selfish method. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.204.181.144 (talk) 05:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC).
In the 19th century electrical inventions were often patented under tha name of the inventor who was head of the company. Vail invented the telegraph and Morse's name was on the patents. Watson built the telephone and Bell's name was on the patent. Morse and Bell knew nothing about electricity. Edison was, per the references, highly knowledgable about electrical gadgets and he was in the lab 18 hours a day at Menlo Park fronm about 1876 to 1882, drawing the sketches which guided the myriad development efforts of Bachelor, Upton, Kruesi, Jehl, and the others. The references also note that having the famous inventor's name on the patent was an asset in gaining financial backing: "Edison's new generator regulator" would get more investors than "Upton's new regulator." Upton in court documents gave all the credit to Edison. Jehl was basically a pair of hands. "scandalous and selfish" type comments just display POV which does not belong in an encyclopedia article. Edison 15:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

More criticism

Owen214: please see Wikipedia:No personal attacks. An article can be edited collaboratively without namecalling. You added some material from the Nikola Tesla article in a "Criticism" section which was already covered in the "Work relations" section (Tesla) or in the "War of the currents" section (Edison's campaign against high voltage AC distribution, "Westinghousing"). This is properly covered in more depth in the article War of the currents. It is not necessary to go into calculations in this article. Please note that when voltage is stepped up, and power losses are decreased because of smaller I2R losses, the conductor is also made smaller, which is the whole point. To calculate the power loss at the high versus low voltage, you need to know the relatve sizes of the conductors. Utilities deliberately allow some I2R losses in transmission, with a goal of balancing off power loss versus the cost of installing and maintaining large conductors. This discussion belongs in War of the currents or Electric power transmission. Your section about Edison installing low hanging power lines which electrocuted people and animals is pretty unlikely at least for the Pearl Street system in New York, since the conductors were installed underground at enormous expense for safety. So I consider your claim to be original research, and very doubtful, unless you have a reliable published source. The same goes for your assertion that Edison did not understand how DC worked. Tesla's redesign of Edison's generators was not mentioned in any source I have seen before his 1919 autobiographical magazine articles, but I don't doubt he did some design work. There are some non-sequitors in your text. Edison never said long distance transmission of electricity should be by low voltage DC, and his systems were designed to supply electricity for about 1 1/2 miles around the generating station. The DC generating station in Chicago at Harrison Street, built in the 1890's, operated for many years into the 20th century and supplied the downtown very nicely with DC, with AC transmission from newer stations to more remote areas. Through interconnections, DC could be stored in battery banks for reliability. It could be changed to AC and vice versa with rotary convertors. There was no sudden abandonment of DC distribution in large downtown areas as you assume. Edison may have been "unscroupulous" with "few moral values" but it violates WO:NOR for you to make the claim without a good reference which substantiates it. It should also be put into perspective compared to Westinghouse getting control of Tesla's patents for next to nothing, Tesla defrauding hotelkeepers, Bell likely stealing credit for Gray's invention, and the exploits of Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. The article should also have a "neutral point of view," per WP:NPOV , and should not sound like an angry attack. Let's discuss revisions here on the talk page. I'm sure there's a lot of special insights you can provide to improve the article. But claims should have references to support them, and things covered in the article should not be duplicated. Regards. Edison 22:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I duplicated the thing on Edison because if someone just wanted to see the criticisms, they would know all the necessary information. I didn't bother covering those other people you mentioned because this is irrelevant. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I found that out about the low power lines but I'm pretty sure it's true and I have a feeling it wasn't in New York. Hopefully someone else has seen the information and can list a source. I never said that AC totally replaced DC quickly, so I'm sorry if it seemed I implied that. Also, since it's a criticism section, how can you have a neutral point of view? I don't believe that I need to source the view that Edison didn't understand DC because I have listed all the evidence that led to this conclusion. I was criticising DC because at the time it was innappropriate and I wanted to explain why. Besides the reasons listed, AC is used for many devices that need accuracy because they can base their timing on the phase difference. Anyway, I thought because it was the discussion section and not the article itself, I could say what I wanted, but obviously not. Sorry about that. Owen214 04:06, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The wires hanging down and electricuting people sounds more like AC. There were lots of violent public accidental electricutions of workmen on the poles that carried 4 kv ac. The 120/240 dc was on conductors an inch or more thick under the streets. Someone could have gotten electricuted in a manhole. "Criticism" sections are less desirable than having the info in the relevant section. Otherwise we talk about Tesla under work relations (in this article) and then under Criticism, and electricution under "War of the currents" and again under criticism. There might be a need for a section on "Business practices" but it should be neutral tone and put his sharp dealings in perspective with 19th century robber baron business men like I mentioned above. I could come up with examples where he gipped business partners which are documented. There was a Jesse Lippincott who invested a fortune in the phonograph business and lost it all, and his widow was on charity, but Edison eventually gave her a small pension. The Tesla claim is in the article, but there is some doubt about the $50,000, which is documented only in Tesla's recollections 30 years later. Another area of criticism not in the article is that when he got extremely old, he still wanted to run the business, and he did not move aggressinvely into new technology like radio in the 1920's, so the company shut down making phonographs and movies when the stock market crashed in 1929. If he had turned things over to his sons they might have kept the pioneering movie and phonograph businesses going. But he was close to 80 by then. Henry Ford had the same problem: got old and cantankerous and ran Ford Motors inefficiently, rather than turning it over to the next generation. But is is wrong to make him out as worse than all the other famous 19th century entrepreneurs. And he knew far more about electricity and electromagnets than Morse or Bell.Edison 17:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Sandusky?

At (13:56, 1 August 2006) editor Badbilltucker added the category that Edison was from Sandusky, Ohio. I am deleting that, because Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. Google Maps shows about 12 miles from Milan to Sandusky. How was Edison "from Sandusky?"Edison 16:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


quotations

I fear this article is missing one of Edison's greatest contributions, his words. I am working on an edit of the article to include some of this work. Any suggestions would be helpful.--Cciborek 19:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


Montessori trivia?

Edison was often interviewed about his philosophy, his ideas on education, or religion, and many other factors. If he supported Montessori schools, perhaps that should be part of a section on Edison's philosophy rather than 'trivia.' Wikipedia articles rarely benefit when a lot of unsupported statenments are added in a "Trivia" section. Please provide a verifiable source for this. Edison 22:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


Edison as Hitman?

Removed an accusation of assassination which just cites another Wikipedia article as evidence, as well as a website that says some guy disappeared in the 1890's, not even that he was murdered, and that some photo was found of "a drown man ressembling to the odd disappeared." No credible evidence the guy was murdered or that Edison had any role in his disappearance. Edison is accused of stealing the work of every other 19th century inventor without killing any of them, why would he have made an exception for this guy? Lacks a credible and verifiable source. No conviction, no indictment, no contemporary accusation. Random odd conspiracy theories are not encyclopedic. Edison 15:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

vegetarian?

Why is he under category: amrican vegitarians. I could not find a source that says he is a vegetarian. Thanks.nids(♂) 18:02, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

See http://www.ivu.org/history/northam20a/edison.html Q0 01:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

So he appears to have been a vegetarian for some span of time starting in 1908, if this is a reputable website. I have checked several books about Edison, and find nothing about his being a vegetarian. I do find in several books that he did experiments in preserving steaks, chops and grouse in vacuum sealed glass jars, which is something no vegetarian I know would consider doing. Thus the category is suspect at best, and it is incumbent on its proponents to come up with a more convincing reference in a verifiable source. Edison 03:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Strange logic. I am a vegetarian and would have no problem handling meat. Indeed I have performed dissections for classes in the past without any problems. The quote in the ref above seems like a reasonably verifiable one I would think. --Guinnog 03:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
It would not be shocking in any way if he were, but I'm surprised not to have seen it mentioned in several biographies. Vegetarians I know will not even feed meat to a cat, or put a goldfish in an aquarium for a turtle to enjoy. They leave that chore to me. Do vegetarians work as butchers? Do they cook or serve meat to others?Edison 05:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
You are wrong if you say that vegetarians do not even feed meat to a cat or put a goldfish in an aquarium. Vegetarianism just means refraining from meat products. You will find many Jains in India, who never even touch eggs, but would have performed dissections in their biology classes. These things do not affect their vegetarian status under any circumstances.nids(♂) 22:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
An archived version of the reference [1] adds another quote from 1891 stating that Edison is a vegetarian. Though it seems a bit confusing since the quote from 1908 said he 'recently' became a vegetarian, unless he became a vegetarian sometime before 1891, started eating meat again between 1891 and 1908, and then became a vegetarian again by 1908. Q0 04:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
In regard to the assertions that Edison did experiments in meat preservation: is there any information about what time period Edison did those experiments? It might make sense if he did those experiments at a time when he was eating meat. Q0 04:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

why no introductory sentence?

Why is there no introductory sentence (or paragraph) before the TOC stating, for example, that he was an American inventor and giving his dates? The article goes straight into his early life. Coughinink 07:05, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I went back in the history and got the last version of the intro before it was mysteriously deleted (seemingly by a bot, but I'm not very good at interpreting article histories). It's not perfect, but far less jarring than launching right into the Table of Contents block. 138.69.160.1 17:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Cultural depictions of Thomas Edison

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 18:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I was just popping in to see if there is anything like this as he has appeared n things like The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace. I have just sorted out Nikola Tesla in popular culture and Mark Twain in popular culture so Thomas Edison in popular culture would seem like the best first move which works better with the general naming conventions of the category they go in. (Emperor 17:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC))
The reason behind the more general title Cultural depictions of... is because important figures in history often get depicted in high culture as well as popular culture, so ...in popular culture tends to exclude public statues, stage plays, murals, and other high art. I've done a survey of Core Biography figures and am keeping a worksheet at User:Durova/Cultural depictions of core biography figures. I don't want to step on any toes so I'm deferring to active editors at particular articles. Regards, Durova 19:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I understand where you are coming from and perhaps the "in popular culture" entries may be a stepping stone to an eventual "Cultural depictions of" entry but they arise from a specific need. Editors were removing pop cultural references from entries. Statues dedicated to people as well as streets named after them, etc. see to be deemed OK and are usually put in a tribute section. So the "in popular culture" entry are there for the material that needs to be included but have been deemed unworthy of actually going in the main entry (it stops editting wars and back and forth). If there was ever a need to split up a main entry the sensible approach would be to take the "tribute" section and merge it into the pop culture and move the lot to a cultural depictions entry. This seems a longer term thing and the pop culture entry is really in response to an immediate need. Also Joan of Arc and Alexander the Great have been around a long time and have accumulated cities named after them and the like and these more recent figured haven't accreted such a large number of such things so the "tribute" sections aren't that overwhelming at the moment. I'll leave the final call to more dedicated Edison-editors as they'll have a full grasp of the amount of information that needs to be dealt with. (Emperor 21:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC))

Whatever we do we'll need things to go in it whatever it is called. So examples include:

Anyone know of any other examples? I can probably get things rolling with those but want to make sure it is fleshed out. (Emperor 03:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC))

Righto I've stuck with what I know and started Thomas Edison in popular culture feel free to expand it. (Emperor 03:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC))

Criticism

Edison received the credit for the inventions of the people who worked for him at Menlo Park. Sure, they didn't invent much before they worked for him, but maybe they were too busy doing their jobs. When they worked for Edison, it was their job to just think and invent all day and they had the right equipment to do it.

Thomas Edison deliberately electrocuted numerous animals with high voltage Alternating Current then said that it wasn't his fault; it was all because of Gearge Westinghouse and AC. It was Thomas Edison's idea to use electrocution for execution and he often said "Westinghoused" instead of "electrocuted" because he wanted to use AC to kill the victim. When the first criminal was executed by electrocution, blod was coming out of places all over his body, including his fingers and he was smouldering. The executioners assumed he was dead when they saw this about 10 seconds after the current was turned on, so they turned it off. He was actually alive and in extreme pain, so they turned it back on and he was finally dead after 17 seconds. Thomas Edison came up with the idea of electrocution and he designed the system that caused this disgusting torture.

izzy

 Thomas Edison invented 1,079 items. He was born in Minlo,ohio but grew up in Port Huran,Michigan.

izzy

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