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Echoing my other comment on patents elsewhere in the thread, Edison's innovations had big, direct and lasting impact on the world. For example, his work is resp

Echoing my other comment on patents elsewhere in the thread, Edison's innovations had big, direct and lasting impact on the world. For example, his work is responsible for creating Hollywood as a place and symbol of US film industry - specifically because he owned most of the patents critical for movie production, and was so litigious that the filmmakers decided to all literally move to the other side of the continent to be able to infringe on those patents without consequences.

fumufumufumu 2y ago
No idea if this is trustworthy but a documentary on Westinghouse claimed that Edison took credit for all of his employee's inventions. Westinghouse did not. https://youtu.be/wuqodfC9WwY?t=3790 https://youtu.be/wuqodfC9WwY?t=3790
WalterBright 2y ago
Edison gets credit for inventing the inventing business. The Wrights get credit for the first directed research and development project. (The Apollo project took that to an extreme!)
- vl 2y ago
  Surely steam engines or other Industrial Revolution inventions should take credit for first directed research and development projects?
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Those inventions were incremental progress by individual inventors. Not a directed research and development project. If you know of one that existed prior to the Wright, I'd like to hear about it. The Apollo program is a stellar(!) example of a directed research and development project. They started with a goal, identified the problems, solved each problem in an organized manner, and put the solutions together and accomplished the goal.
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude#Government_initiatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude#Governmen... John Harrison invented very stable clocks that could be used on an unstable platform to solve the problem.
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        Harrison's work is very interesting. But it seems to have been a one-off.

fumufumufumu 2y ago

No idea if this is trustworthy but a documentary on Westinghouse claimed that Edison took credit for all of his employee's inventions. Westinghouse did not. https://youtu.be/wuqodfC9WwY?t=3790 https://youtu.be/wuqodfC9WwY?t=3790

WalterBright 2y ago

Edison gets credit for inventing the inventing business. The Wrights get credit for the first directed research and development project. (The Apollo project took that to an extreme!)

vl 2y ago
Surely steam engines or other Industrial Revolution inventions should take credit for first directed research and development projects?
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Those inventions were incremental progress by individual inventors. Not a directed research and development project. If you know of one that existed prior to the Wright, I'd like to hear about it. The Apollo program is a stellar(!) example of a directed research and development project. They started with a goal, identified the problems, solved each problem in an organized manner, and put the solutions together and accomplished the goal.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude#Government_initiatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude#Governmen... John Harrison invented very stable clocks that could be used on an unstable platform to solve the problem.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      Harrison's work is very interesting. But it seems to have been a one-off.