Comments
pier4r OP t1_j8vff33 wrote
I strongly believe that the "being famous" is related to nowadays. everyone today knows Tesla but not the other guy.
If I read your comment correctly you want to say that Westinghouse was famous before Tesla in his prime time and then Tesla was famous later. Thus independently from the situation nowadays.
Cerulean_IsFancyBlue t1_j8vo9uh wrote
Not everyone knows Tesla.
There’s a huge awareness of the Tesla brand.
There’s a pop-culture, geek level awareness of Nicky Tesla, usually a distorted idea of him not strictly historical or biographical.
There are just also a bunch of other people that have no clue. Tesla has not yet reach the level of Napoleon or Einstein for example.
It’s also true that Westinghouse was a major brand itself. Westinghouse was a household name for lightbulbs for example, up until at least the early 2000’s. Westinghouse himself was not as colorful as Tesla, so, even when the brand was famous, there was definitely not as much of a cult of personality around the individual.
Long-term, I think Tesla, as a character has more staying power. His inventions were more spectacular (if less practical for the most part), and he benefits from the kind of retro futurism chic that Da Vinci does.
Add so often happens, popularity will come and go based on current events. Look at how Alexander Hamilton is having a resurgence among the USA founding fathers thanks to a hit Broadway musical. If the Tesla brand fades, and somebody makes a musical about Edison versus Westinghouse, maybe Westinghouse will take his place in the pantheon of historical figures with pop-culture credentials.
Potatoswatter t1_j8w5wku wrote
Besides lightbulbs, Westinghouse Electric was one of the biggest companies in the US in the postwar period. They made nuclear reactors and invested heavily in media.
We don’t hear the name much anymore because it was diluted so much by being a conglomerate. They pursued a lot of research and high tech ideas that didn’t pan out. There was no kernel to form the core of a new company, so the divisions were all sold off and renamed.
tampering t1_j8wnu2d wrote
They were the equal to GE in terms of the range of what they produced. They even had CBS to match GE's NBC.
A problem was that at the end Westinghouse's strongest business divisions (ones that bore the brand) were not consumer facing and strong units that were (like CBS) didn't really carry the Westinghouse name. So over time the brand faded.
In the 1990s, GE which actually grew stronger as a brand as it got rid of its consumer facing businesses like consumer electronics (radios and the like). To replace the consumer recognition, remember all those ads in the Jack Welch era promoting GE products that your average joe Blow would never buy (MRI machines and such). Sure they had to create that equipment but if they didn't advertise would you know what brand your doctor used for a medical imager.
buldozr t1_j8wfyhw wrote
Westinghouse is still in the nuclear power business. That does not get them much brand recognition in the general public, though.
Terminus0 t1_j8wzi8z wrote
WABTEC (which used to be known as Westinghouse Airbrake company, and now stands for Wabtec), which acquired GE Transportation recently is also a 800 lb gorilla in the train industry but most people don't know about it.
tfks t1_j8wh96g wrote
That's probably the issue. People retain fame, not companies. Up until recently, there wasn't really a company trying to capitalize on Tesla's name and it was wholly his own.
CrabWoodsman t1_j8xo5fu wrote
Not to mention how much attention Nikola Tesla got from pseudo-scientific interpretations of some of the ideas he posed. In the sensationalist world of fringe beliefs, he's said to have invented machines that can cause earthquakes and control the weather, and apparently had ideas about a system from global wireless power transfer. Possibly there's some truth to some of them, but odds are his ideas didn't quite pan out.
He's essentially a poster child for the "independent genius cut down and buried by industrial titans" perspective which is quite a romantic perspective for the conspiracy spaces on the internet. Not to say he wasn't treated poorly, but I also doubt he'd solved all the theoretical problems of wireless power transfer over great distance, for example. And if he had a machine that made earthquakes, wouldn't networks of seismometers detect aberrations?
RibeyeRare t1_j8w9j8h wrote
I had a Westinghouse Walkman back in the 90’s. It was yellow and was basically a ripoff of the Sony sports Walkman, but I loved that battery eater and took it everywhere.
SoLetsReddit t1_j8xxxm8 wrote
Siemens bought Westinghouse Electric's power generation business. I think in the late 90s. A few smaller subsidiaries came with it as well, can't remember maybe Electrowatt came with it?
[deleted] t1_j8w59ik wrote
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Emu1981 t1_j99ds1x wrote
>There’s a pop-culture, geek level awareness of Nicky Tesla, usually a distorted idea of him not strictly historical or biographical.
And there are the nutters who think that Telsa created a way to provide free electricity to everyone wirelessly, that he developed a death ray and other sorts of kooky claims.
wittor t1_jaakhe8 wrote
I think that it is interesting to notice that nor Einstein nor newton were "sources" (historical Tesla is not the source for most part of the Tesla legend) of as many baseless stories as Tesla. Tesla motors did not created a hype over the name, the opposite is true.
Cerulean_IsFancyBlue t1_jadrze8 wrote
It’s hard to know without some survey data. I feel like Einstein is, in my culture, Ia widely recognized face and a man who is known for being very smart. If you drill down beyond that, with the average person, they might have an idea that he was smart, and also wise, which is why are you end up with so many sappy quotes attributed to Einstein that he never said. He is everybody’s genius, pacifist, kind grandpa with the crazy hair. In many ways, he fulfilled that role of eminent, trustable figure that Carl Sagan or Neil Degraase Tyson did/does later.
Tons of strange conspiracy stories just don’t make sense with Einstein. So he ends up with inspirational quotes instead.
I don’t think Newton is anywhere near as well, known by the average American. And when he is, it’s seldom more than the guy who “discovered” gravity, when an apple fell on him. You don’t hear about alchemy or calculus or astronomy or politics.
Tesla was a bit like Newton in America. Some people knew a lot about him. A ton of people who knew only one thing, probably do that. He did crazy experiments with electricity, like Tesla coils that were dramatic and cool in someway without knowing any of the details. He was a guy that was the epitome of not just alone genius but the unsuccessful doomed genius.
Edison was a revered figure who turn a heel turn in popular view and folks begin to weigh his politics, his greed, is intellectual property, theft, and such more than his stable of patents and financial success. Tesla made a good foil for that.
Even so, I think there’s not much comparison. Einstein is a figure on par with Napoleon in terms of recognition. Tesla, as a person, even as a highly fictionalized person, is a lot more obscure culturally.
MBH1800 t1_j8y3wo0 wrote
>everyone today knows Tesla
Tesla was less known for a long time, until a best-selling biography that centered around how he was very little known. Paradoxically, he became famous for not being famous, and for decades he was a household name always coupled with "but nobody knows who he is!"
Funny that another story now uses the same rhethoric about someone else.
aloz16 t1_j8xv01c wrote
I read a book about Tesla and found out about Westinghouse there, and have appreciation for him; I'd say whoever researches and studies Tesla knows, whoever doesn't, doesn't, which makes sense
frenchchevalierblanc t1_j911e1x wrote
30 years ago, almost nobody knew his story and he was not "famous" at all
jrhooo t1_j926ape wrote
realistically, I think a lot of "Tesla is so well known" (in the context of modern era, not his own time)
Is less about the popular interest in Tesla, and more about the popular fascination with "Hey, did you know Edison was actually a villain?!" articles.
Not because of any hate towards Edison specially, just the popularity of a "history got it wrong, and the hero is actually the villain" article
Blakut t1_j96dd80 wrote
outside the us tesla was and is well known and in europe, especially in eastern europe, he is tied to numerouw conspiracy theories since ages. This, plus most of the balkan nationalists trying to claim Tesla's origins are in their country.
zerepgn t1_j8uiksz wrote
Seeing firsthand how difficult it is for things to get patented, I would not refer to Tesla’s later years as having Nobelitis.
The dude had 112 patents in the US alone. That does not seem like some minor feat achieved by someone who had some breakthrough successes.
As for the Marconi argument, tesla states in his own words that his later pursuits of “wireless” transmission had more to do with conduction (through the earth) than radiation (omnidirectional, from an antenna).
One of my favorite reads so far on Nikola Tesla has been this. This poorly named book contains transcripts from Tesla’s patent dispute on what is today known as the ‘and’ gate. If you have technical background it is very much worth a read.
I am pretty sure what Tesla’s technology focused on (which is not a mainstream focus of Electrical Engineers today) is the fact that some of the terms in maxwell’s equations were written off by early scientists (Heaviside?) due to the fact that they did not resemble anything “physical.” Tesla (I believe) sought out the meaning in these terms and applied it to his technology.
Tesla is quoted as saying, "The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” I believe he was referencing the fact that the non-physical terms were omitted.
Blakut t1_j96dp2t wrote
what were the rules for being nominated for a Nobel Prize? Who could do it during Tesla's time?
pier4r OP t1_j8vg1ty wrote
>Seeing firsthand how difficult it is for things to get patented, I would not refer to Tesla’s later years as having Nobelitis
I'm not sure how the two things disprove each other. Winning the Nobel prize isn't easy either (I'd say is harder than making patents)
One can have a good career at first, achieving things that are pretty hard, and then due to this success one could start going in the Nobelitis direction.
From your comment I get the feeling that you didn't read the article (or watched the video) nor checked the Nobelitis part. Could it be?
zerepgn t1_j975cmf wrote
Patents have to essentially be proven to work in order for them to be accepted. From what I understand, “Nobelitis,” refers to the idea that some Nobel prize winners develop scientific ideas after that are “not scientifically sound.” Patents that aren’t “scientifically sound” would most likely not be granted because the principles they would be based on would not bear actual fruit.
So yeah I don’t think Nobelitis is relevant here.
The idea of Nobelitis in general seems like it could be interpreted subjectively in order to discredit alternative ways of thinking. That’s just an opinion though.
pier4r OP t1_j97cwwy wrote
The nobelitis part was referring to tesla's later period , there few patents are involved. Have you read the article?
One example:
> Tesla claimed that not only could he send electric power wirelessly for 50 million or 100 million miles at “rates of one hundred and ten thousand horsepower.” He also said that he had made a radio machine that “could easily kill, in an instant, three hundred thousand persons.” Even stranger Tesla swore that he received an unusual communication that he decided must have been from Martians. (Although he also added the thought that there could also be aliens on Venus or the moon as, “a frozen planet, such as our moon is supposed to be, intelligent beings may still dwell, in its interior, if not on its surface.”[58])
about "things that work"
> As the years passed, Tesla didn’t manage to demonstrate any significant communication nor transmission of power from his tower. Instead, on January 19, 1903, Marconi was the one who sent the first two-way transatlantic wireless signal from Roosevelt in America to King Edward of England and back, and Marconi appeared to everyone to be the winner of the wireless race.[62] Tesla was undeterred, but Morgan was done with Tesla and his promises and cut off funding. By the next year, Tesla wrote J. P. Morgan in desperation: “Since a year, Mr. Morgan, there has hardly been a night when my pillow was not bathed in tears.”[63] By 1906, he had to fire all his employees at his wireless tower, Wardenclyffe, where it remained empty for many years
Thus I still have the feeling you didn't bother to read the article.
zerepgn t1_j97nzb0 wrote
Ok so it seems like Tesla ‘only’ had 14 patents after 1903 (I chose 1903 because apparently the wireless ‘race’ is a big deal to popsci enthusiasts). According to a study published in 2017 in the journal Scientometrics, Nobel Prize winners in physics held an average of 2.9 patents each. Seems to be above average in that respect even after the arbitrary date that ‘Nobelitis’ is claimed.
As far as a race to get some sort of signal across the Atlantic, Marconi very much could have ‘won’. This signal was extremely crude and capable of nearly nothing in terms of data transfer or anything useful. The year before, Tesla was serving a deposition for a patent dispute regarding what we now know as the ‘AND’ gate.
Essentially, multiple coils were employed, each with their own characteristic resonant frequencies. Only when all resonant frequencies were sensed by the system, did the system respond. The and gate is currently described as “when both inputs are true, the output is true.” That is what is happening here. It is not commonly known that Tesla was the first to do this.
What Tesla was trying to do with wardenclyffe is often highly misconstrued. It consisted of an elevated terminal where voltage would be oscillating at very large values and a ground interface system (think like the ground rod that nearly every house has for their electrical system, but optimized) where the voltage was low but the current was massive. This system was much different than common radios at the time which Marconi was more alike. The difference was whether or not the system was optimized for radiation (common today for data and signals) vs conduction (through the earth itself, acting more as a compression wave than a transverse wave).
If you choose to research Tesla with an open mind, there is much more to be found than what is considered in this underselling article.
rastafunion t1_j8vrsam wrote
True story: Westinghouse stole a patent from my great-great granduncle or something. It was about a new type of brake. We have original documents at my parents' place and the salt is still real.
pier4r OP t1_j8w545v wrote
it is about air brakes? Maybe you can contact the author of the article because she would love to put things in perspective and revise her take (of course she needs reliable sources and documents).
pier4r OP t1_j8rwi10 wrote
Why I find it interesting:
The internet in the last decade hyped Tesla a lot. I didn't dig into his history, but I assumed he was someone unmatched, a polymath able to do everything.
The author is amazing, she went to a lot of primary sources and I was appalled to discover that practically Tesla got Nobelitis after some very successful patents.
Further Tesla was far from being mathematical. Apparently he had a great intuition, but couldn't follow his ideas with the proper mathematics. Last but not least his ideas weren't, like, decades ahead of everyone else. The 3 phase transmission was already implemented and perfected (not only patented) in Germany by a Polish-Russian Engineer, while wifi communications were done by G.Marconi pratically identical like Tesla's patent.
Further: there is also a video on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSyGFEjoYOM
bigperm8645 t1_j8uxlvf wrote
If you're ever in Barcelona, visit Cosmo Caixa, they have an excellent exhibit on Tesla, he was a pretty remarkable guy, with a lot of self doubt, and eventually did kinda lose it later in life. A lot of other fun stuff at that musuem as well
TeaBoy24 t1_j8wemsd wrote
Yeah. It's was interesting to see the hype wave as someone whom known of Tesla and his work prior to it and knew that he wasn't well known.
I would actually attribute a lot of the sensation to the Company Tesla... As the name obviously makes people search and curious about the company's name's meaning.
It's really weird how idealised be became. The Awkward Autro-Hungarian of Serbian decent whim fell in love with a Pigeon due to severe loneliness, likely depression and desperation. Pretty much forgotten compared to his peers like Edison when though his tech would be what especially appears as "Victorian Schi-fi". He died poor and alone, surrounded by pigeons in his New York apartment.
So i would really not call him recognised... Idealised or Unknown is what first most people's ideas of him. He was Clever, but he was nowhere near Davinci level of Clever ... Relative to each others times respectively.
jrhooo t1_j927yqh wrote
> Yeah. It's was interesting to see the hype wave as someone whom known of Tesla and his work prior to it and knew that he wasn't well known.
Mentioned this above, but short version, I think Tesla got a huge notoriety bump in pop culture for a while, not because he's Tesla, but just because he was written as the "face" in one streak of the ever popular "things your teachers told you wrong, the hero was a heel" type stories (Edison)
GareksApprentice t1_j93hl2v wrote
I have a feeling The Prestige also had something to do with it. That'll happen when David Bowie portrays you in a Christopher Nolan movie and you make an entrance like this
Rutger77 t1_j8vnyjx wrote
Nikola Tesla is dead, and Westinghouse was responsible for bringing power to America along with all the appliances that ran off power. They are one of the most famous companies in the world.
WinkDanWink t1_j8w8owf wrote
I really enjoyed this well researched, well written article for a subject that was always fuzzy. Thank you
kimthealan101 t1_j8vrvjm wrote
Edison and Westinghouse both built fame and success on the minds and labors of their employees. Most engineers don't get famous. Tesla was just a particularly good engineer. He died in relative obscurity, but his ideas have given him posthumous fame after standing up so well and because of people's love of a good conspiracy.
I would say, before that car company, more people recognize the word 'westinghouse' than 'tesla'. The Westinghouse label is used for a brand of AC equipment, because of the name recognition. 50 years ago, when Westinghouse was a major appliance manufacturer, that would be more true.
[deleted] t1_j97du27 wrote
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Lehike08 t1_j8w2i4d wrote
I think Nicola Tesla is over fantasied, due to the fact early media and average people couldn't understand basic electricity yet and it all seemed magic to them.
As for his inventions he mostly improved on others earlier ideas than to invent something trully new. Like the electric motor/generator. Scientists played with something similar even befor Faraday, but it was useless without a reliable electric network. Thats where Edison and Westinghouse come in...
darklining t1_j8wdozs wrote
What an article, do you know what is messing?
A photo of the man you complain he is not famous enough.
pier4r OP t1_j8wv8up wrote
I'm not the author of the article
darklining t1_j8wy2s8 wrote
YeH I know, I was referring to the author.
IndelibleIguana t1_j8wtekx wrote
Tesla is famous for being a crackpot scientist. Despite the fact that he was one of the cleverest men who ever lived.
This is deliberate.
DoggyRocker t1_j8w6dgb wrote
From a purely ignorant, audio file perspective, Westinghouse, vacuum tubes are highly sought after and much more value than anything Tesla ever produced!
don_tomlinsoni t1_j8waev1 wrote
You think that vacuum tubes are more valuable than alternating current - i.e. the thing that provides electricity to every home and business in the world?
mediocrecowpowers t1_j8xsa3l wrote
I don't agree with what the original commenter is saying. But if you are arguing that Tesla invented AC, you should read the article above. Edited: a typo
don_tomlinsoni t1_j8ymvu7 wrote
Fair enough. I stand corrected
DoggyRocker t1_j8x0j72 wrote
Absolutely! My world… Not yours!
don_tomlinsoni t1_j8x5bbo wrote
Fair enough, though I think you might have trouble achieving high quality music reproduction without electricity :)
Edit: so it seems that AC was also Westinghouse, ignore me :)
ArkyBeagle t1_j8wq6n0 wrote
The triode is much more of a Lee de Forrest thing - the Audion.
Whether a tube is Westinghouse, RCA, Telefunken is a matter of manufacturing. Tubes are sought after because they're "cool" , not because they are, strictly speaking, necessary any longer in most domains.
KnudsonRegime t1_j8ux2ta wrote
Westinghouse was famous in his own time. Which, importantly, ended 30 years earlier than Tesla’s. It’s not really a very fair comparison.