RE: Tesla Related Article

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ben McMillen <spoonman534@xxxxxxxxx>

There was a book published fairly recently called 'Empires of Light' 
which documents the power struggles (both political and electrical) 
between Edison (GE) and Westinghouse..

I had heard of the various things that had been done by Edison to try 
and push Westinghouse (and Tesla) out of the picture, but I had not 
realized the length he would go through to 'sieze the market' (so to speak)..

For those of you who have read this book, I'm sure you'll agree that 
it was a very good read..

For those of you that haven't:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375758844/sr=1-12/qid=1151017124/ref=sr_1_12/104-3757513-0661528?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books

Coiling In Pittsburgh
- Ben McMillen


Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Original poster: "Mark Dunn"



>When I worked for GE, all they talked about was Edison..

>Now, don't get me wrong... it's not that I don't like Edison, but I
>always felt that the 'real truth' was swept under the rug and Tesla
>mostly went unnoticed and forgotten..

My son recently did a paper for school on Thomas Edison. I was shocked
to learn that his research uncovered that Joeseph Swan invented the
carbon filament light bulb in 1878 and applied for and was eventually
granted a UK patent. Both Thomas Edison and Joeseph Swan had tried
thousands(maybe 10's of thousands) different filaments. Joeseph Swan
presented his technology at a seminar (which Thomas Edison) attended and
8 months later Thomas Edison "invented" the carbon filament light bulb
which he applied for patent in the US in 1879. In or about 1881 Joeseph
Swan sued Thomas Edison for patent infringement and began proceedings to
overturn the Edison US patent. The actions were dropped when Joeseph
Swan was made a 50% partner in the UK version of the Edison Electric
Company in 1882.

He also found ~(10) other Edison patents where an apparent previous
"inventor" of the technology was compensated in some way by Edison to
prevent challenge of his patent. I should point out that he did not not
research many of the Edison patents. Of course, with 1100 patents there
are bound to be a few hiccups.

I was quite shocked when I heard all this as Edison was always an icon
to me. But I got to thinking about the propaganda that Edison wrote
when trying to support DC power distribution and kill AC power
distribution and it is apparent that Edison may not have been the
scientist that we give him credit.

Mark