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I know the point is accepting the process of failure, but it reminds me of Edison vs Tesla. Tesla supposedly said "If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack,
by alayne 16y ago
I know the point is accepting the process of failure, but it reminds me of Edison vs Tesla. Tesla supposedly said "If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search.
I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor."
- smanek 16y agoEdison: Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. Telsa: If Mr. Edison had thought a bit more he wouldn't have to sweat so much (full disclosure: I've never found an original source on the Tesla quote, so it's probably apocryphal).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- cubicle67 16y agoI think the point about accepting failure here probably gives an incorrect impression. He had the fundamental idea correct, and the many prototypes (I'm sceptical on the 5000 figure) were working on improving the design, not trying to make it work the stuff we expect a vacuum to pick up is not homogenous, but rather consists of a huge variety of materials and particle sizes. He found that one set of parameters would work well for certain particles, but not so well on others. Most of the prototypes consisted of tweaking dimensions and recording the resulting effectiveness.
- teralaser 16y agoFor those with some knowledge of electricity, what Tesla meant is nicely illustrated in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents