Nikola Tesla/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Main
  • YMMV
  • WMG
  • Wikipedia
  • All Subpages
  • Create New
    /wiki/Nikola Teslawork
    • Fan Dumb: Many Tesla fans are convinced that not only is Tesla a bigger martyr to Technology than Alan Turing but that Edison is incapable of anything besides Tesla's triumphs, and that anyone who disagrees is clearly part of the American government's conspiracy to keep Tesla suppressed because they're the fascist government from Nineteen Eighty-Four. There's nothing wrong with one getting the recognition they deserve, but inflating that reputation until other noteworthy achievements are eclipsed? Tesla, like many brilliant minds, had a thousand ideas he either never got around to proving (or working on) or which he liked a certain way regardless of how marketable or dangerous it was, while Edison was something of a specialist in technological Adaptation Distillation, taking previously-raised concepts and working at it until it was safer and could sell. It's unfortunate that Tesla didn't get recognized until after his death, but he's hardly the first person to be good at X and bad at business or the first time patents made things worse, so how did it go from 'giving Tesla his due' to 'Edison is a self-serving cunt I want to give beatings to'? You don't see the Internet hanging Alexander Graham Bell in effigy because the government acknowledged his patent instead of Elisha Gray's caveat, and no-one even mentions Heinrich Göbel's claim to the lightbulb unless they're defending/promoting Tesla.