Before I ask you anything, here is my stand.
I can not compare the contributions of Edison and Einstein at all, both are immense and absolutely unrelated.
Now, what, in your opinion, are the contributions of Einstein?
Regards,
Anoop.
Originally posted by Gubbi
Edison was a tinkerer. Infact he employed a team of people to develop things in his lab, but took all the credit for himself.
Quote:
Menlo Park became the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Edison was legally attributed with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development work under his direction. His staff was generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research, and he drove them hard to produce results. The large research group included engineers and other workers.
My grandfather was a tinkerer and had a couple of patents to his name. He was just a 10th pass but lived off the royalty his 'inventions' generated. That was before the computerization replaced 'mechanical' mechanisms.
Einstein OTOH, was a genius. His contribution for which he won the Nobel prize - the explanation of the Photoeletric effect in the paper titled "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" led to the development of a slew of modern technologies including night vision goggles, image sensors etc!
Bottom line - tinkerers abound a dozen by the dime while original thinkers are rare to come by.
Originally posted by justanobserver
What about the spats between Edison and Tesla ?
I read a book a long time ago which detailed the contributions of various scientists winning the Noble prize as seen through the Nobel prize awarding committee 's lens ,
I am assuming here you are aware the the guiding principle of awarding the Noble prize ( in the words of Alfred Noble ) has always been " To those who have accorded the greatest service to humanity"
and in keeping with this principle the first noble in physics went to Wilhelm Roentgen ( X ray discovery ). Einstein was awarded the prize after intense deliberation for almost 5 years ......
and Mark you not for his much celebrated work of Relativity but for the his work in the explanation of the photoelectric effect.
the reason for his delay in receiving the prize was in the words of the Professors who nominated him for the prize and also the panel of profs who was asked to summerize his work because Einstein 's work was highly theoritical and no lab experiments could be performed to realize the validity of his claims
at that time.....I am quoting from the book which said “ questions were raised whether Einstein work was indeed purely original or was instead a brilliant elucidation of the work of earlier masters and philosophers “…..
Most of Einstein ‘s work was theoretical if if you notice , Bose-Einstein statistics, Quantum theory, Wave-particle duality,General and special relativity etc…and Robert Andrew Millikan verified Einstein’s work in his famous Oil-drop experiment years after Einstein expounded it. So hence as Einstein ‘s work was basically theoretical ….and given that the man was an absolute genius decades ahead of his time …..
My point about engineers being more vitally important is because it is these engineers who understand the intricacies and deficiencies of industrializing these highly theoretical ideas to create products which which benefit humanity,
Were it not for them , these ideas would have simply remained on paper incomprehensible to laymen and of no
practical use to them. It is the engineers who are responsible for making these modern tech wonders come true not scientists and while scientists make claim so called “
Intellectual superiority" and "
rarity" as some of my friends here happen to suggest the ground reality about the bare necessity of engineers remain unchanged.
PS. Edison was just a random example .Even though he is conventionally not called an engineer, his inventions ( or those of his understudy’s whichever way people prefer ) show a concentration towards overcoming the industrial challenges from a piece of theory on paper and thereby bringing a new product into being which immensely benefited the people of his time …….this is the exact principle on which modern engineering is based and drawing a
parallel here I happened to take his name . Of course there are several others …..unfortunately not known or credited even in current times in the mainstream anything close to the way in which scientists are
worshiped…..
And apologies to all for being vague in my descriptions of sources(names of people and books) from which I take my material . I no longer have the originals with me and am unable to retrieve them being at great length…..
Due regards ……
Urbanized Greyhound