Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!

There is no such thing as PC. PC is one of those straw man issues that is *always* discussed as what someone else is doing.

Anytime I hear someone complaining about something being PC I know they have reached the limit of what they can support and have to resort to blaming their lack of valid points on others.

Nah, some sloppy snippage on my part. Socialist or not, Martin's no dummy--no need for that.

Klaus Bahner schrieb:

Hello,

he wanted to discredit alternating current as more dangerous than direct current and he proposed the word "to westinghouse" for the electric chair. He even organised public electrocutions of several animals to show the danger of alternating current. But the voltages used for electrocution was much higher than that used for his direct current transmission.

Bye

After Edison invented the light bulb, within a few years he created the first electrical utility which electrified New York City (not starting small). I don't think the deployment was the work of a publicist. Did Swan electrify a city? Was the phonograph and multiplexed communications also the work of Edison's publicist? Edison had so many inventions before and after this, if one of them was simultaneous with someone else then so what.

ng the person who invented the light bulb, he actually improved upon previo us inventions to create the first commercially efficient, widely used light bulb. The creation of the light bulb is thought to have begun in 1800 with Italian inventor Alessandro Volta s invention of the voltaic wire, which p rovided the first electrical current. That same year, English scientist Hum phrey Davy created the first electric light. Throughout the next several de cades, it is estimated that as many as 20 inventors worked on inventing a l ong-lasting incandescent light bulb. In 1879, Edison became the first to su cceed. His bulb could burn for about 1,500 hours, compared with previous ve rsions that lasted only minutes."

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Practicality has nothing to do with it--it's still an invention. Did they or did they not invent a means and describe the construction of an operational solid-state transfer-resistor? If a later improvement relies on the original concept, then even if novel and patentable in its own right, it's still a derivative work.

W.r.t. the light bulb it's impossible to say much of anything about the merits without knowing who was patenting what, which we currently don't. The possibilities range from "no overlap whatsoever," to "complete duplication."

You probably think that Bell invented the telephone too.

So, if someone said women are generally physically weaker than men, unfit for heavy combat, and/or less career-oriented, that person wouldn't be censured?

Barack Obama's campaign site sponsored a section called "African- Americans for Obama." Would a "White People for Romney" page on the Romney site have been as well tolerated? Or considered offensive? (To me they're both offensive.)

We've got a well-respected organization called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People historically doing fine work. How about a National Association for the Advancement of White People, would that be okay? Why is one offensive and the other not? Political correctness.

Yawn, where does the need arise to credit Edison with so many firsts?

It is established by historians that Swan invented the light bulb, of a carbon filament in an evacuated envelope.

I'm not sure of the relevance to who electrified New York City and its "first electrical utility", but again historians don't generally credit New York as being the first electrified city, depending on the definition of an "electrified city" of course.

Edison saw no reason to cooperate, and he continued his experiments at varying levels of voltage with dozens of stray dogs purchased from neighborhood boys in Orange, New Jersey at 25 cents each.

At his West Orange laboratory, the inventor wired electrodes to several calves and a horse

Kemmler wheezed and gasped before the horrified witnesses as the electricity began to course through his body. Some witnesses fainted while others vomited, as it appeared that Kemmler was on the verge of regaining consciousness. The back of his coat briefly caught fire. Minutes passed until Kemmler finally went rigid.

Topsy the Elephant was electrocuted by Thomas Edison's technicians at Coney Island before a crowd of thousands.

Yawn, taking them individually, the need to credit him with the first multiplexed communications arose when he invented it, not only on paper but making it work. The same applies to the others.

By a few months. As I said, so what. He didn't develop it beyond lighting one building, and that taken together with the near simultaneity means TAE deserves most of the credit.

Then there's little hope of explaining why a thing that huge is relevant.

Edison started with the densest part of the city, which is more of a city than most complete cities. Small cities might have been finished first, but again so what. Laborers can only work so fast, and it was the first to be started.

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Edison wasn't so much an inventor as a developer of new products. The probl em with new products is that you have to inform the buying public that ther e is a new product out there for them to buy. A better mousetrap may sell i tself, but people have got to be in the habit of buying mousetraps in the f irst place for this to work.

Newspaper reports that depicted him as an inventive genius filled more colu mn inches than more realistic stories. You do have to keep in mind that the most attention-getting stories aren't always those that are precisely corr ect.

the person who invented the light bulb, he actually improved upon previous inventions to create the first commercially efficient, widely used light bulb. The creation of the light bulb is thought to have begun in 1800 with Italian inventor Alessandro Volta s invention of the voltaic wire, which provided the first electrical current. That same year, English scientist Humphrey Davy created the first electric light. Throughout the next several decades, it is estimated that as many as 20 inventors worked on inventing a long-lasting incandescent light bulb. In 1879, Edison became the first to succeed. His bulb could burn for about 1,500 hours, compared with previous versions that lasted only minutes."

I think it is clear that according to your principles, Humphrey Davy was the inventor of the electric light. Everything else would be derivative work.

Yes, but because of the facts, not because it isn't "PC". The facts are that women, just like men, vary. Some are suitable for "heavy combat" and others aren't. Do they accept *all* men in the military? No, they have qualifications. Gender doesn't have a use as one the qualifications.

Ok, they are offensive. Who would be the judge on whether it is PC or not? NO ONE! PC doesn't exist in the sense that people use it.

I don't find a NAAWP offensive. I might find it silly or otherwise odd, but I don't find it offensive, but then that all depends on their stated purposes and functions doesn't it?

You mean because Edison and Swan competing companies chose to merge you see that as reason to credit Edison with the invention?

As you suggest, it was done in parts and Edison's insistence on being a DC system meant it was never going to happen fully using Edison technology.

I wouldn't be so disingenuous with his inventive abilities. It was because he had a flare for business such that he could put his ideas into practice.

Brimstone loses its punch, without plenty of fire. :)

AKA: Edison's prototype of the "Hot Dogger".

The word you are looking for isn't "disingenuous". I'm not minimising his a bilities as an inventor - just pointing out that his publicity machine put more emphasis on this aspect of his career because it made for more attenti on-grabbing stories. Like all myths, the myth of Edison-the-inventor is bas ed on real facts, but - as in every other mythologisation - the truth has b een distorted to create a more entertaining and absorbing narrative.

PC is in the mind of the beholder... mostly in the mind of the speaker.