Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), "The Wizard of Menlo Park", was an ingenious American inventor who was not particularly kind towards his rivals. In fact, he was pretty much an all-around jerk and asshole.http://www.blastr.com/2011/03/6_beloved_scientists_who.php
==Inventions and patents==
Apart from the phonograph, most of his inventions were improvements and adaptations of existing products, although this should not detract from the fact that he brought, for instance, the incandescent light bulb from being a laboratory device to commercial viability.
Edison's major rivals, during the late 19th century, were George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla, who had once been an associate of Edison. In the so-called "War of Currents", Edison favored using "Direct Current" or "DC"-based power systems, arguing that DC power was safer than the more powerful "Alternating Current" or "AC" power systems which Westinghouse and Tesla were developing. Ultimately AC power came to be used much more widely, though Edison remains a more famous figure than his adversaries, due to his inventions and his business successes.
He claimed opposition to violence, stating; 
According to a quote of disputedhttps://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#Disputed As quoted in The A-V Magazine Vol. 89, No. 1 (January 1981), p. 18, and The Extended Circle : A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985) by Jon Wynne-Tyson, p. 75; this has been cited to "Harper's Magazine (1890)" but no occurence prior to the 1981 appearance has been located. authenticity, Edison's philosophy of nonviolence extended to animals as well, about which he allegedly stated:
These two quotes seem to be outright lies as Edison promoted use of the electric chair. However, he never electrocuted an elephant publicly and in fact "Topsy" was killed by a circus for reasons wholly unrelated to Edison.Myth Buster-Topsy the Elephant: Did Edison really electrocute Topsy the Elephant? The Thomas A. Edison Papers (Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences). While already obviously unrelated to the war of currents as it happened in 1903, approximately a decade after that conflict concluded, the only relationship the incident has with Edison is that his company's filmstock was used to record it. There was, however, the unfortunate bit that in his effort to convince people of the danger of AC he killed a number of animals...so maybe the consideration for living beings didn't really apply when his profits from electricity generation were at stake.http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/thomas-edison-history-electrocuting-dogs-horses-people-article-1.2969425
==On religion==
Edison has been accused of being an atheist based on some of his remarks, though it is almost certain that he was either an agnostic or most likely a deist. While he did make statements regarding religion such as these:
And while he also did not believe in an eternal soul or an afterlife:
It is also clear that he believed in a supreme being of some kind, which essentially lands him in the deist camp:
==Final words and death==
His final words are often taken by certain people with certain beliefs as a sign that he had a vision of the next world:
These have sometimes been reported as his last words, but were actually spoken several days before his death, as he awoke from a nap, gazing upwards, as reported by his physician Dr. Hubert S. Howe.Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor (1931) by Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ch. 25 : Edison's Views on Life — His Philosophy and Religion, p. 295. 
In an ironic finale, Edison's wife signaled his death to the press by turning a light on, not off, in a window of the house.
==See also==
*Nikola Tesla
==External links==
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*Interview with Thomas Edison on his 84th birthday in 1931 (alternate version)
*Two speeches by Thomas Edison (1929)
*Edison, Henry Ford, & Harvey Firestone Radio Talk (1929)
==References==
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Category:Scientists
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