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TIL: Edison shocked elephants with AC to disprove Tesla, trying to prove that DC is safer
(science.howstuffworks.com)
RIP Topsy.
You didn't deserve that.
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
246 points (92.1% liked)
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They'll say "awww, topsy"
At my autopsy
Gene wrote this...?
That's nothing. Have you seen Die Hard - The Musical: A One Gene Show? WOW!
🎵 Electric LOOOOOooooOOOOooooOOOOve🎶
The more you read about that shithead edison, the worse it gets. The asshole acted with an impunity that defies modern logic.
As it was, there was no social media and our current sensibilities back then, information took much more effort to spread, so way too many people have revered him as some sort of saintly hero. Word didn't spread about how narcissistic and petty, how cruel to the point of savagery, he was.
That goes ditto for Marconi, his "billion-dollar innovation" consisted of stealing every academic research idea and design within reach, and patenting every single one as his own.
The asshole acted with an impunity that defies modern logic.
... have you not seen how our modern billionaires act?
It was in my mind, but I think Edison got away with some things that exceed the current crop of billionaires, by at least one length, as they say in horse racing. Especially during his no-holds-barred attack on Westinghouse/Tesla and their alternating current, while Edison pushed direct current, which included his inventions to create and deliver it. He had the whole goddamned infrastructure planned out, world domination for decades and decades was at stake here.
But even as Edison pushed every vicious tactic to discredit DC as unsafe, Nikolai Tesla came out the winner, and he did it with dignity and style. Remember the famous photos of Tesla by the arcing electric wires and stuff? Those were publicity shots to show the world (well... mostly NYC at the time, where the AC vs DC war was being fought) that DC was safe enough for even the inventor to sit there casually and read the newspaper.
Have you insinuated that there is logic to back that?
Of course there is. It may not be morally justified, but it's still logical.
Their logic isn't "We need to better society so that all may live in harmony", it's "I must control as much as possible to stave off the inevitable nothingness of death".
Assuming all things that are repugnant to you have no logic to them at all is an easy way to misunderstand and underestimate those who can do the most harm to you.
nobody granted them this attribute
Man literally invented the electric chair entirely to showcase how bad going out this way is, and the psychopaths of the prison industrial complex wonder why people are becoming sceptical of the notion that the death penalty can be administered in any way that isn't cruel and unusual.
The whole point of punitive death is to be cruel and unusual to the alleged transgressor, to offer their corpse as a blood sacrifice on the altar of sadistic vengeance to the victims or the next of kin thereof
Quick and painless execution was solved long ago. Shotgun from behind them. Like a light switch turning off. But it is rough on the guards.
The real problem is we keep finding innocent people on death row. People that SCOTUS can't even hand waive away. Until recently anyways, SCOTUS just up and ruled that new evidence can't be considered by federal courts. So now innocent people on Death Row are pretty much just relying on the good will of the governor.
So yeah, we know we're killing innocent people and we refuse to stop.
Nitrogen gas is a no-brainer. But FFS drop the face mask and flood the room.
Firing squads are often partially equipped with blanks so the shooters don't know it was them. But then again, I'm pretty sure an experienced shooter could tell if it's live or blank ammo from how the gun behaves. Idk tho never shot a gun my life.
Edison shocked animals with AC to disprove Tesla, trying to prove that DC is safer. That is fact. However, the article already states in the beginning:
Edison’s link to the death of Topsy the elephant may not be entirely grounded in reality.
As I posted a while back, this is a rumor that comes along often, The killing of Topsy was done by her handlers as they wanted to get rid of her, they could not handle her anymore after an incident with her original handler. The film of the killing was released by Edison films yes, but Topsy was killed a decade after the war of the currents, and Edison wasn't even in charge anymore of the company after the merger with General Electric. He wasn't present during the electrocution of Topsy, did not have any electric business anymore, and again there is no evidence whatsoever that he was involved.
I learned about the killing of Topsy because I am very interested in the life of Nicolai Tesla and his inventions. I dislike Edison because imo he did Tesla wrong, but I learned quickly that the most despicable thing attributed to him is very likely not true.
Topsy was also electrocuted at the request of the ASPCA because otherwise she was going to be hanged and it was seen as more humane, which always seems to get left out.
To clarify, Edison wasn't trying to 'disprove' Tesla, the War of the Currents was Edison vs Westinghouse. Tesla didn't invent AC, he would've learned about that in engineering school, he invented the 3 phase motor, which made AC significantly more practical. Tesla had an argument with one of Edison's managers over pay, not with Edison. Tesla and Edison wrote each other letters later on and generally spoke positively of each other in public.
Tesla's an interesting guy but unfortunately went off the deep end pretty steeply. His 'death ray' was a 'blueprint' he sold to his landlord instead of paying rent and is basically gibberish. Wardenclyffe tower was doomed by not understanding wireless transmission and is basically a Bond villain device. Turning the Ionosphere and Mantel in to halves of a capacitor would both take more energy than humans have ever generated and be really really really bad for anything tall and conductive, which would be basically everything with the energies involved.
she was going to be hanged and it was seen as more humane
Yikes! The .45-70 Government existed and they considered electrocution and hanging?!
Turning the Ionosphere and Mantel in to halves of a capacitor would both take more energy than humans have ever generated and be really really really bad for anything tall and conductive
This is the first time I've heard of this hypothesis, as I've just generally avoided media talking about the secrets of Tesla's free energy or whatever, but I am very curious how this would work and what such tripple really bad would happen, sounds like a sweet soft sci fi setting.
Tesla's design [for Wardenclyffe] used a concept of a charged conductive upper layer in the atmosphere, a theory dating back to an 1872 idea for a proposed wireless power system by Mahlon Loomis. Tesla not only believed that he could use this layer as his return path in his electrical conduction system, but that the power flowing through it would make it glow, providing night time lighting for cities and shipping lanes.
It's a very Victorian / Steampunk idea that is also kind of horrifying. It's working off theories of what electricity "is" that we now know aren't accurate, but if you try to scale them to actually working every building and tree and person is now a lightning rod.
Agreed, Tesla is way overvalued. It doesn't help that he gets picked up by free energy cranks. When one shows up at my makerspace, they almost always cite Tesla somewhere.
Not that Tesla did nothing, but people can't leave it at his actual accomplishments. The fact that so much of his work can't be reproduced is seen as deep magic rather than a failure of science.
And they'll say "aww Topsy" at my autopsy!
First he wanted to kill her off, now they found electric love
TIL Edison didn't kill Topsy the elephant, but did electrocute a bunch of stray animals.
Oh boy do I have a book for you all. Elephants on Acid So they took acid then gave the elephant acid. When it freaked out they electrocuted it.
Do you know about Mary the elephant who was sentenced to death by hanging? I lived in both the towns involved in that.
What the hell do folk have against elephants!!!
Trunk envy
It ain't the trunk I'm envious of.
For me personally it's the sense of Community and moon worshipping. That and the ears.
He sounds like a real asshole.
Content warning: barf
"I am inventing electricity...and you look like an ASSHOLE."
I've seen electrocuted being wrongly use when referring to being shocked, but not the viceversa
The OG Mr.Burns
⚡🐘
You kids these days with your hieroglyphs!
People still repeating this is a real proof no amount of facts or access to information matters if the lie is a fun one that fits your existing biases
Didn't have anything to do with Thomas.
They've seen it before, they weren't that impressed.
theyre not even necessarily evil, theyre just dingdong regular people that ran into a situation and learned to live with it