New inventions are always something very intriguing and exciting for people. However, it is undeniable that we put less and less of our attention on them as the world we live in develops. Before the invention of advanced technological devices, the world of inventions were much more outlandish to people. They always put so much effort in making the new invention heard, making them headlines on newspapers and even organizing fairs where the said invention gets introduced. Electricity was one of those inventions that changed people’s life drastically. Both Edison and Tesla made great and priceless contributions to the invention and development of electricity.
Thomas Alva Edison was a tinkerer. He was a consequential inventor. He was also known as a workaholic and a ruthless businessman. It cannot be denied that the amount of experiments he conducted in a lifetime has contributed greatly to the world of science and lit the way for so many scientists. However being a scientist who was extremely competitive and generally closed to different opinions was a painful path to walk. Edison was someone who is willing to do anything to prove that his idea is the right one.
On the contrary, people often described Tesla as a “human calculator”. Nikola Tesla was born a genius, and he was able to solve complex math and physics equations in his mind, which was
the main reason why he gained success at an early age. He also had an eidetic memory, which means that he was able to visualize intricate 3D objects and it allowed him to build proper and working prototypes by only using rough sketches.
It is very clear that both men were significantly talented in their own way, but they had very different thinking methods. It eventually caused them to clash, which was called “The Battle of Currents”. The main reason of this is the fact that they came up with two different type of currents and did not approve each other’s ideas. Edison wanted to use direct current (DC), which was a lot safer compared to the alternative current (AC) Tesla wanted to use. However AC was a lot more efficient and strong. At the time, the world was already being lighten up by electricity and only one type of current could be used. After a long battle, it was decided that using AC would be better as it was able to reach places DC could not and Tesla ended up being the winner of the contention between these two men.
Even though they actually ended up calling a truce, the competition between them ended up coming until today and it was discussed by so many scientists up until now. However if I were to state my opinion, I find the question that has been going around for years about these two being “real scientists” extremely disrespectful, given to the fact that regardless of what happened, they respected each other deeply. In addition, both of these men had so many other crucial and life changing inventions and made great contributions to the world of science. What even is science if it is not competitive? To summarize my words, I can confidently say that they were both amazing scientists that left great marks on this world.