ELI5 Whats the drama between Nikola Tesla and Eddison, if there is any.

Both Telsa and Edison were scientists and inventors, but Edison was also an aggressive business person and entrepreneur.

They both studied electricity in the earliest days of our learning how to harness it as a utility, the deliver electricity to homes and buildings. Tesla mainly studied a form of electricity called "Direct Current", think of water coming out of a hose, just a constant flow.

Edison mainly studied a form of electricity called "alternating current", think of waves breaking on a beach, back and forth, back and forth.

Both forms of electricity have positives and negatives (pun intended) but that's beyond the point. The point is that Edison wanted his alternating current to be adopted as the standard form mainly as a business venture, he owned or controlled most of the patents and could make a lot of money off the business. Tesla preferred his direct current but wasn't as interested in the business side.

Edison pulled some extremely shady publicity stunts to show that direct current was dangerous, most famously he publicly electrocuted an elephant. Even though both forms of electricity are just as dangerous, he swayed public perception enough that the US adopted alternating current as the standard and Edison's businesses thrived while Tesla died in poverty and obscurity.

The science is irrelevant, arguable alternating current is the superior method for electrical distribution, but the memory is that Edison was just so cruel and aggressive about it. Edison's memory is rightly tarnished as being a malicious and duplicitous businessman who only desired money and power. Tesla therefore receives attention as being a poor, weak idealist who was destroyed by the evils of Capitalism, from those who care to look at the world in lenses like that.

/r/explainlikeimfive Thread