This article i found on the subject is pretty interesting...Personal i hate edison and think that not only is tesla better, but he is the best inventer who has ever lived....

What do you guys think? 

Thomas Edison is widely known as the greatest inventor the world has ever known. Nikola Tesla is also known as a great inventor and many people say he was more brilliant than Edison was. In our last post, two weeks ago, we discussed Edison’s 5 million page note-taking system and received a reaction from some of Tesla’s fans.

Should we really care who was brighter? Or is it productivity that really counts? Who was the more productive of these two famous men?
Edison is famous for inventing the phonograph, incandescent light bulb, cement making technology, motion picture camera, DC motors and electric power generation systems, battery and several other things we use every day and don’t think much about. Tesla similarly invented radio, fluorescent light, AC motors and electric power generation systems. Both these men lived long lives, well into their 80s, at around the same time a century ago.

There are big differences between Edison and Tesla. The main one seems to be based on who got the credit for what. Many Tesla fans accuse Edison of having stolen much from Tesla who worked for Edison during his early years. They claim Edison was a thief and that he died a rich and powerful man surrounded by friends because he robbed Tesla and others like him. Meanwhile, Tesla died broke and miserable and lonely with his closest friends being wild pigeons he had enticed into his room at the Hotel New Yorker. Edison fans similarly suggest Tesla was a swindler who deceived investors into financing his ideas with promises he rarely kept. They suggest Tesla got his just rewards.
Both versions appear to be true. For example, Edison did not invent the light bulb. Joseph Swan was installing them in homes and landmarks in England years before Edison got his light bulb patented and working. Edison was buying out other people’s patents and when Swan eventually sued Edison and won, Edison had to take him in as a partner in Edison’s British company. Likewise, a deceitful Tesla managed to convince J.P. Morgan, the world’s most powerful financier at the time, to finance his concept for wireless free electricity production under the guise of sending radio messages across the oceans and to and from ships at sea. Tesla was making artificial lightning with Morgan’s money that was eventually cut off.

Edison and Tesla came to technological blows in the late 1800s when Tesla’s AC (alternating current) power systems that are used all over the world today came into competition with Edison’s DC (direct current) power systems. As it turns out, Tesla’s system was the better one. Tesla’s technologies were bought by railway air brake inventor George Westinghouse who developed them into what became the multinational Westinghouse company. Edison is the godfather of General Electric, presently the world’s 12^th largest company. Both these guys were prolific inventors and became famous for it. But comparing them on a point by point basis, the reasons why Edison died rich and famous while Tesla died broke and lonely become clear based on relative productivity.

tesla reminds me of those good old tesla coils

From physics lab or C&C Red Alert?

Anyway, I say Edison since he invented the telephone.

red alert

didn't bell invented the telephone?

He reminds me of Tesla Drives.

They make robots fly...

In videogames....

Cracked is here to help again :D!

#1.Thomas Edison


Thomas Edison. The "Wizard of Menlo Park." Described as one of the "world's most prolific inventors" with a record-breaking 1,093 patents to his name. You know, a guy could round up and kidnap a buttload of children and keep them forever, but would you call that guy the "world's most prolific father?" No, of course not. A "soulless monster," maybe. A "skilled thief," if you're being generous. Perhaps even the "King of Pop." But you wouldn't call that guy "the world's most prolific father," because those aren't his kids. He stole them. Such is the case with Thomas Edison.

Sure, Cracked's staunchly anti-Thomas Edison stance is already fairly well documented, but we're afraid one article detailing what a prick this prick was just isn't enough. Edison is still celebrated in schools across the country for inventing the light bulb, the motion picture, electricity and a shit-ton of other important crap he had very little to do with.


Edison's only original invention, the "Face Vacuum."

Since there literally isn't enough space on the internet to cover all of the inventions that Edison didn't invent, we're just going to focus on the light bulb today.

Who Actually Invented It?
Everyone else. We all know how Edison exploited and took advantage of the poor, but brilliant Nikola Tesla, but who else did Edison step on? Sit back.

Plenty of people messed around with the idea of the light bulb, (Jean Foucault, Humphrey Davy, J.W. Starr, some other guys you'll never read about in a history text book), but Heinrich Goebel was likely the first person to have actually invented it, back in 1854. He tried selling it to Edison, who saw no practical use in Goebel's invention and refused. Shortly thereafter, Goebel died and, shortly after that, Edison bought Goebel's patent, (you know, the one he saw no merit in), off of Goebel's impoverished widow at a cost much lower than what it was worth.


One of nine light bulbs Edison accidentally got wedged in his anus during its development

Screwing over just one inventor might be alright for Galileo, but Edison was a dreamer and he couldn't be satisfied with just one, dead disgraced inventor under his belt. So, after Goebel, and a year before Edison "invented" his light bulb, Joseph Wilson Swan developed and patented a working light bulb. When it was clear Edison's "Fuck Swan" defense wouldn't hold up in court, he made Swan a partner, forming the Ediswan United Company and effectively buying Swan and his patent.

Soon enough, Edison acquired even more power and bought out Swan completely leaving all records of the light bulb under the care of the Edison Company. Sure, Swan had money, but in buying all of the records, Edison could take sole credit for the light bulb. So, he's got a laundry list of inventors he's either stepped on, bullied, exploited or bought out to his name, but what do they say about Edison in the textbooks? Father of the fucking light bulb.

Gyro Gearloose.

No seriously, I dunno. But 5 million pages of notes?? :O Wow man, that's insane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents

If we had listened to Edison and used his foolish DC power distribution methods the industrial revolution would never have occurred. Although I should not call his plan foolish but instead manipulative as it was simply to further his own wealth. Without Tesla would I even be able to type this message right now? Tesla is called the father of the 20th century for a reason.

Tesla is the better inventor. AC current is way better than DC current. Edison did not invent the camera, but he did monopolize the American film industry by patenting it and slowing it to a grinding halt, which is why all the best films in the world for the first few decades came from France, Germany, and the Soviet Union.


In fact, Edison was behind the film Electrocuting an Elephant, in 1903. An elephant, Topsy, had killed a human, and was being executed. Edison, who ruled the American film business at the time, decided that it should be killed with Tesla's AC current and filmed, so that the whole world would think that Tesla's AC current was dangerous and deadly and could kill the world's largest land animal. Either current could have been used, but Edison would never miss an opportunity to defame his opponents with lies and propaganda.

Here is the film:




And there's the time a few decades before that, when Tesla worked for Edison, and Edison asked Tesla for help fixing his new invention, DC current. DC current sucked and had tons of bugs, so Edison couldn't get electricity into houses. He offered Tesla tons of cash if he could re-wire the whole lab and make it work. Tesla accepted the challenge and fixed everything up, saving Edison over $100,000, which would be a ridiculous amount of millions in today's money. Edison told Tesla that it wasn't a serious offer, and they had no contract, but it was just "something Americans say" that Tesla didn't understand as a foreigner and took too seriously. Tesla immediately quit, after being tricked into helping build Edison's evil empire. And Edison spent the rest of his life attacking and defaming Tesla, The Grand Fucking Wizard of Lightning Magic. And who was Edison? The Wizard of Menlo Park? What a loser.

Yeah I'm retarded. It was Bell; I was thinking about the phonograph.