Most Everything You Know About Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison is Probably Wrong

For most of history between the point Nikola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison were respectively doing their things to the present day, if you asked just about anyone which of these men were greater, you’d likely have gotten a response akin to “Nikola who? …I mean, Edison of course? He and God gave us light!” That said, if you asked someone when both were in their prime, you may have gotten a more mixed answer with, contrary to popular belief, Tesla in his day one of the most preeminent celebrity scientists in the world along with Edison. At least until extremely modern times when the internet masses have jumped on the Nikola Tesla hype train and generally vilified Edison as nothing but a charlatan, and someone largely responsible for Tesla’s fall from grace. But what is the truth here? Were either or even potentially both nothing but media hyping narcissists taking credit for others’ work? Were either or potentially both actually great men of history? What is the story between them and why are they so often compared? And overall, which one was actually a greater cog in the human technological advancement machine? And before you go answering this in the comments based on your current knowledge of the pair, let us caution you because in the history of researching and writing on all manner of topics to the tune of over 5,000 articles on our Todayifoundout website and over 2,000 videos here, we have never found any topic we’ve covered more rife with widespread and generally accepted myths when it came to BOTH the individuals we are going to cover today. So, dear viewers, get out your dinner and snacks or, if you’re watching this on the porcelain throne, prepare to have your legs fall thoroughly asleep while others in your household begin to wonder if you’ve died in there, because we are going to leave no stone unturned in order to try to rectify the rampant misinformation on both men

Author: Daven Hiskey
Host: Simon Whistler
Producer: Daven Hiskey

0:00 Intro
3:38 The Myth of the Edison vs Tesla Feud (And the Many Myths Embedded)
14:48 Why Tesla Stopped Working for Edison
17:40 The Love of Tesla's Life
19:57 War of the Currents Myth
33:20 Did Edison Torpedo Tesla's Invention of Radar?
36:23 What Tesla and Edison Had to Say About Each Other
42:46 The Real Story of Nikola Tesla
47:25 Tesla's Visions
55:48 King of the Castle, A Master of His Domain
1:13:53 Tesla Coil
1:15:36 Magnifying Transmitter
1:16:37 X-Rays
1:17:17 Neon Lamp
1:18:04 Earthquake Machine
1:19:27 Making Students Bright
1:20:18 Solving the Enigma of Death
1:23:29 The Thought Camera
1:24:05 The Ozone Device
1:24:25 Tesla's Rising and Falling Fame
1:34:18 Remote Control Boat
1:36:08 Inventing Radio
1:40:56 Ending the Tour and Rocky Mountain High
1:43:20 Talking to Aliens
1:52:35 The Tesla World System
1:58:45 Tesla's Tower and Downfall
2:11:48 A Breakdown
2:13:13 The Tesla Turbine
2:17:03 The Bizarro Years
2:23:49 Tesla vs Einstein
2:26:13 Tesla's Peculiar Habits
2:31:23 Tesla's Legacy
2:40:20 Thomas Edison
2:42:27 A 12 Year Old on a Mission
2:46:51 You'll Put Your Eye Out
2:49:17 Relentless Optimism
2:52:10 The Life You Save May Be Your Own
2:55:14 Whoopsadoodle
2:57:35 First Invention and Life Lessons
3:00:35 Making a Million Dollars By Keeping His Mouth Shut
3:05:17 A Kid In a Candy Shop And The Next Great Invention
3:07:09 Edison's Actual Greatest Invention
3:10:56 Did He Actually Invent Hello?
3:13:10 Inventing The First Device to Play Back Sound
3:18:44 The Real Story of the Lightbulb
3:26:44 His Accidental Inventions That Massively Changed the World That Nobody Talks About
3:29:21 More Power Mister Scott!
3:30:41 A Death and an Adorable Nerdy Marriage Proposal
3:35:38 The Future of Inventing
3:38:14 The Motion Picture
3:41:02 Edison the Miner
3:42:43 Electric Cars
3:46:21 Stepping Back
3:47:56 Do No Harm And More WWI
3:50:07 His Last Work and Death
3:50:59 How Much was Edison and How Much was Other People's Work?
3:54:07 The Face of the Brand
3:54:44 Working Style and what Did Edison s Workers Think of Him?
3:57:53 Working Environment
4:01:38 Stealing Ideas Part 2
4:03:34 Parents and a Ruthless Businessman
4:08:53 The Truth About Killing Animals
4:09:39 The Elephant Killing Myth
4:12:39 The Real Story of the War of the Currents and the Animal Thing
4:16:51 The Truth About the X-Ray
4:19:17 Back to the Truth About the War of the Currents, Animal Thing, and Electric Chair
4:25:29 Summing Up the Animal Killing Thing
4:26:56 Summing Edison Up
4:29:54 Who was Greater? Edison vs Tesla

[amaze]

Holy shit I was thirteen minutes in and thought “this was a good one, really cleared up the myths..” then saw the scrubber bar barely moved. Love it.

[xjunkxyrdxdog]

4.5 hours and it's NOT just a compilation of previous episodes??
LETS GO!

[fredyellowsnow]

"I have built, demonstrated and used it."
"Err... in your head?"
"Yes."

[krcmaine]

"Nerds gonna Nerd when in groups." -A Legend

[cphrpunk]

Four and a half hours?! I’m all in for long form content, but holy cow, I might have to go on the payroll for this one.

[Tiedgetherr]

Everyone in the comments talking about how long this video or answering the question title and I’m over here like “Tesla was in love with a pigeon” 🤯🤯🤯😂😂😂🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

[garyhardman]

From someone who's almost completed the entire Whistlerverse, I've only a few old bio and geographics and old BBs to get through.. Long stuff like this is a blessing, I work from home and am very used to spending 8hrs a day 5 days a week playing anything from the Whistlerverse while I work

[patrickeisert]

I feel Simons writers are having a dick swinging competitions on who can write the longest script

[TodayIFoundOut]

0:00 Intro
3:38 The Myth of the Edison vs Tesla Feud (And the Many Myths Embedded)
14:48 Why Tesla Stopped Working for Edison
17:40 The Love of Tesla's Life
19:57 War of the Currents Myth
33:20 Did Edison Torpedo Tesla's Invention of Radar?
36:23 What Tesla and Edison Had to Say About Each Other
42:46 The Real Story of Nikola Tesla
47:25 Tesla's Visions
55:48 King of the Castle, A Master of His Domain
1:13:53 Tesla Coil
1:15:36 Magnifying Transmitter
1:16:37 X-Rays
1:17:17 Neon Lamp
1:18:04 Earthquake Machine
1:19:27 Making Students Bright
1:20:18 Solving the Enigma of Death
1:23:29 The Thought Camera
1:24:05 The Ozone Device
1:24:25 Tesla's Rising and Falling Fame
1:34:18 Remote Control Boat
1:36:08 Inventing Radio
1:40:56 Ending the Tour and Rocky Mountain High
1:43:20 Talking to Aliens
1:52:35 The Tesla World System
1:58:45 Tesla's Tower and Downfall
2:11:48 A Breakdown
2:13:13 The Tesla Turbine
2:17:03 The Bizarro Years
2:23:49 Tesla vs Einstein
2:26:13 Tesla's Peculiar Habits
2:31:23 Tesla's Legacy
2:40:20 Thomas Edison
2:42:27 A 12 Year Old on a Mission
2:46:51 You'll Put Your Eye Out
2:49:17 Relentless Optimism
2:52:10 The Life You Save May Be Your Own
2:55:14 Whoopsadoodle
2:57:35 First Invention and Life Lessons
3:00:35 Making a Million Dollars By Keeping His Mouth Shut
3:05:17 A Kid In a Candy Shop And The Next Great Invention
3:07:09 Edison's Actual Greatest Invention
3:10:56 Did He Actually Invent Hello?
3:13:10 Inventing The First Device to Play Back Sound
3:18:44 The Real Story of the Lightbulb
3:26:44 His Accidental Inventions That Massively Changed the World That Nobody Talks About
3:29:21 More Power Mister Scott!
3:30:41 A Death and an Adorable Nerdy Marriage Proposal
3:35:38 The Future of Inventing
3:38:14 The Motion Picture
3:41:02 Edison the Miner
3:42:43 Electric Cars
3:46:21 Stepping Back
3:47:56 Do No Harm And More WWI
3:50:07 His Last Work and Death
3:50:59 How Much was Edison and How Much was Other People's Work?
3:54:07 The Face of the Brand
3:54:44 Working Style and what Did Edison s Workers Think of Him?
3:57:53 Working Environment
4:01:38 Stealing Ideas Part 2
4:03:34 Parents and a Ruthless Businessman
4:08:53 The Truth About Killing Animals
4:09:39 The Elephant Killing Myth
4:12:39 The Real Story of the War of the Currents and the Animal Thing
4:16:51 The Truth About the X-Ray
4:19:17 Back to the Truth About the War of the Currents, Animal Thing, and Electric Chair
4:25:29 Summing Up the Animal Killing Thing
4:26:56 Summing Edison Up
4:29:54 Who was Greater? Edison vs Tesla

[mringasa]

Love all the extra information regarding who the "real" inventors of various pieces of technology were. So refreshing to see the less well known getting some of the limelight rather than the focus on the usual suspects.
It's a shame there's so much hostility around these two great men. People trying to trash their reputations, from one side or the other, is just ridiculous. They were both tremendously intelligent in their own way, and both of them should be celebrated by everyone. It's becoming all too common for this sort of thing though. Everything has to become a competition rather than enjoying both sides of a thing.

[Daugueffxi]

Hour and a half in and all I know is Tesla really liked the smell of his own farts.

[oddpuppet]

Thank you for making this. I learned so much. At first i thought it was going to be a compilation, wow, I was hooked. Please do more of this. I was a Tesla myth guy for years, this was fascinating. Thanks again Fact Boy.

[daftmanx]

I’m loving this, about half way through now. Maybe Simon should start another channel for very long content, called like ‘Deep Cuts’, ‘Diving down the Rabbit Hole’, or just “Simon, Unapologetically Unabridged’

[breguera]

Finally. You would not believe how much hate I’ve gotten for daring to say “Tesla was a smart guy, but he’s not a super genius”

[DarkBiCin]

Excellent. I have night shift baby duty so I have to up the next 5 hours. Guess what im watching. Lets go

Edit: gonna lose the channel heart for editing but worth it. very informative and helped show me that I bought into misinformation. Sad to see all the comments who are offended by fact being presented. The world we live in now I guess. As a southern american, im sorry for some of the “merica” views in some of these comments.

[enriquehartmann]

I became a fan of Tesla, and learned about the beef between him and Edison, from the song "Edison's Medicine" by the band "Tesla"....yeah I guess Im a bit old...

I dig y'all's super -long format videos. I do a bit of driving and these videos are great for that. Thank you.

[Wrackey]

Thank you for changing my mind, and for giving me more context and nuance in 4.5h than I would have had in way more time if I had to do the research myself! Very much appreciated.

[LooseOnTheGoose]

After only listening to these for months in podcast form, putting a face to a voice is cool, you look like a genuinely good man my guy

[tideoftime]

Fantastic presentation. Clarified a number of things/misperceptions I (and likely many) had relative to the Edison/Tesla "debate".

[ceirwynsinclair]

to sum up ... in a battle between Tesla and Edison, neither one would win! :) Edison wouldn't think anything bringing to the battle would be commercially viable and therefore not want to work on it, and Tesla wouldn't bring anything that was likely functional for any amount of time (or maybe he only built it in his head)... but whatever Tesla did, it would look darn cool! (Also the fact they were both only in favor of defensive research....)