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[JMeganSnow]

Tesla wasn't a genius, he was a wizard. Also quite bizarrely eccentric.

[D'kian]

Withdrawing one's labor is called quitting.

Quitting means walking out on a contract or a commitment for good. A strike is a temporary measure.

A strike, to me, means: standing in front of someone's business with picket signs and it is a form of coercion, not only to the owner but to those who would like to replace you.

Isn't picketing someone a form of free speech?

I agree that blocking access, or brawling with replacements, or even yelling obscenities at them, is a form of intimidation and coercion. That kind of thing should not be allowed by the law.

I can find no justification for picketing a rational man whose judgement is different from yours,

Let's say the owner makes a verbal promise to pay his employees a bonus this year if certain productivity goals are met. Let's say the employees meet wuch goals. Then let's say the owner thinks he's not bound by a verbal promise and instead of handing out bonuses he decides to keep the money.

Legally he may not be bound by a verbal promise. Morally he is. His employees would be entirely right to demand he deliver on what he promised, too. What if it takes a strike?

That's one example, I can think of several more. For instance, what if working conditions are bad and the employer won't improve them?

Mind you, some fairly straightforward issues can get horribly complicated by government regulations, especially when it comes to salaries and benefits.

after all, whose judgement is the final arbiter: the business owner's or his employees'?

The final arbiter is reality and reason. A man is not right just because he pays a salary. He does have a right to set conditions because he pays a salary, but that's a different matter.

[Marc K.]

I can find no justification for picketing a rational man whose judgement is different from yours,

Well, these are examples of an irrational employer. I thought we were talking about rational employers and rational employees.

In the first example I would say the employer can be held to a verbal promise and if it was worth my time, I would take him to court. You seem to want to strike him and hope to get your job back. Why? What job is it that you hope to get back? The one where your irrational boss doesn't pay what he promises?

As to the second example: do you think it would be rational to continue to work for an employer who put your life in danger every day?

after all, whose judgement is the final arbiter: the business owner's or his employees'?

Reality is the final arbiter and if the business owner is irrational he will get what he deserves. However, as far as his property is concerned, he gets to decide how to dispose of it. In all decisions business, as long as the business survives, it is the owner's judgement that is the final say.

[Marc K.]

Ideas do not grow in a vacuum.

If this is an affirmation of the hierarchy of knowledge, and how all knowledge is logically and necessarily dependent upon previous knowledge, then I agree.

If this is an affirmation of the advantages inherent in a culture and society of reason and freedom, then I agree.

But none of this is dependent upon random chance, in fact, it is the opposite. The proper use of your rational/volitional mind is not random. (Notice how so called "fortunate accidents" never happen to failures? They probably do, but it's only fortunate if you recognize it as such.)

Ideas do not grow in a vacuum, they grow in the fertile soil of a prepared and thoughtful mind.

Darwin inferred a great deal empirically but he never got hold of the mechanism by which traits are passed from one generation to the next. [...]

[...] Both men got as much as empirical methodology could give.

To say that this understates Darwin's accomplishment would be an understatement.

First of all, inferences are made from the empirical evidence. So while it is true that Darwin was an expert at gathering and organizing empirical evidence, he knew that this was only a means to an end -- his greatest achievement was theoretical in nature. He's the one who discovered the Theory of Evolution. In it he names the mechanism by which evolution occurs.

You seem to fault Darwin for not discovering DNA but just remember the "vacuum" of technology present at the time. (X-ray diffraction machines were not invented for almost 100 years.)

If you want to consider DNA then please do. You should consider the discovery of DNA to be the most elegant proof of Darwin's theory.

Darwin did for biological inheritance and variation what Mendeleyev did for Chemistry.

Darwin's genius is on the level of Newton and it cannot be overstated what his achievements did for Biology. He provided a framework upon which all knowledge of Biology before and since can be hung. He not only integrated all biological knowledge (and all of the other ideas that were "knocking about") but also provided organizing principles and supporting evidence for the study of Geology and Paleontology. Darwin's Theory provided and continues to provide entirely new fields of study in several disciplines.

Darwin did for Biology what Newton did for Physics.

Parenthetically, I find that true genius usually involves integrating large swaths of knowledge like Newton, Darwin and Edison did. This may also speak to the true greatness of Ayn Rand. She may be the greatest genius of all time since she integrated all knowledge. (Hmmmm...that might be a good topic of discussion.)

[ruveyn ben yosef]

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Parenthetically, I find that true genius usually involves integrating large swaths of knowledge like Newton, Darwin and Edison did. This may also speak to the true greatness of Ayn Rand. She may be the greatest genius of all time since she integrated all knowledge. (Hmmmm...that might be a good topic of discussion.)

Edison is out of place in that collection of names.

He was a staunch anti-theorist. What he was, was a tireless, efficient tinkerer (2 hours of sleep a night) and he managed the efforts of the first industrial applied R&D organization at Menlo Park. He had no theoretical grasp of electricity which is why he completely misunderstood Tesla (who was a brilliant theorist as well as an inventor). Edison and Tesla were at the antipodes in terms of how their intellects operated.

In 1883 Edison accidentally invented the first diode. If he had understood what he had done, we would have had t.v. as early as 1900.

ruveyn

[Marc K.]

Edison is out of place in that collection of names.

He was a staunch anti-theorist.

You'll excuse me if I don't take your word for it considering how far off the mark your assessment of Darwin is.

He had no theoretical grasp of electricity

I find this hard to believe. I can't see Edison flying a kite in a lightning storm.

[ruveyn ben yosef]

You'll excuse me if I don't take your word for it considering how far off the mark your assessment of Darwin is.

I find this hard to believe. I can't see Edison flying a kite in a lightning storm.

Here is what Nikola Tesla had to say about Edison:

The day after Edison died, the New York Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla who was quoted as saying, "He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene" and that, "His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labour. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense." When Edison was a very old man and close to death, he said, in looking back, that the biggest mistake he had made was that he never respected Tesla or his work.

I got this from the Wiki article on Edison.

Edison's approach was ultra empirical. If Edison had read Maxwell's 1865 and 1868 treatises on electromagnetism, I suspect his head would have exploded from excessive exposure to partial differential equations.

None of this detracts from Edison's legendary concentration, focus, drive, ambition and single mindedness. His inventions (or the inventions whose development he initiated and managed) speak for the man. In addition to be a top notch tinkerer, he was more importantly a coordinator of industrial scale research and development. He was no lonely inventor in his garret (Caricatured by Doc Brown in -Back to the Future-). He created and ran a productive shop which synergized and coordinated the work of top flight technicians and engineers such as Frank Sprague who developed the high torque electric traction engines used on subways, trolleys and electrical railways, world wide. Sprague was a better mathematician than Edison and he corrected many of Edison's errors. Edison's approach is not called trial and error in vain.

Edison's errors also speak of the man. His single-minded concentration of direct current (in the context of the technology and theory of his time) was one of his major blunders. The future for long distance delivery of electrical current was clearly with alternating current. A grasp of the theory of resistance and inductance wound indicate the superiority of a.c. transmission. A.C. transmission at very high voltage is much less lossy and a.c. voltage can be stepped up and down by use of transformers. D.C. current can not be so regulated, at least not with the technology that existed at that time. To make d.c. "nice" one needs to regulate it with semi-conductors, not then available. In the face of he clear superiority of a.c., Edison resorted to cruel publicity stunts such as electrocuting elephants with a.c. to show how "unsafe" a.c. was. A curious side effect of Edison's campaign was the electric chair, a mode of execution used for six decades afterward.

Edison was a super businessman, something that Nikola Tesla was not. Edison was called "the Wizard of Menlo Park" by the newspapers, but in truth it was Tesla who was the Wizard. Edison was the Capitalist of Menlo Park, and for that we should be grateful.

ruveyn

Edited July 3, 2008 by ruveyn ben yosef

[D'kian]

From what is said about Edison, one would have to conclude the man couldn't possibly ahve amassed over 1,000 patents in his name. Yet he did. Whatever the flaws in his method, he was eminently successful in creating new inventions, which the theoreticians of the time did not.

I want to add two things. First, Edison would not have gone out in a lighting storm with a kite because Franklin had already done it. Second, a quote from Isaac Asimov "Happines is doing things rotten your way."

[ruveyn ben yosef]

From what is said about Edison, one would have to conclude the man couldn't possibly ahve amassed over 1,000 patents in his name. Yet he did. Whatever the flaws in his method, he was eminently successful in creating new inventions, which the theoreticians of the time did not.

Tesla was a theory-first man and he invented and patented lots of stuff including the power generation and delivery system we use most (a.c high voltage delivery, low voltage end use) and the transformer system required for efficient and effective a.c. power (the Tesla coil). Tesla was also the true inventor of practical radio transmission (not Marconi). In 1942 the courts finally recognized Tesla's priority in the invention of radio transmission of data and intelligence. Tesla was an old man at this time and did not profit from the recognition he finally attained. Tesla's inventions were a consequence of his theoretical mastery.

Of the thousand Edison patents, not all were his work exclusively. As I mentioned he had one the earliest (and most effective) industrial applied R and D head shops. He had a stellar crew and he knew how to goad and inspire them to produce highly profitable inventions and improvements. One of Edison's little known attainments was his system of notes. He was the world's champion note writer (would you believe over a million pages?). He also developed a cross referencing system for his notes so he could easily find older stuff related to current work. In short, he invented a database system which not only ensured that he did not re-invent his own wheel, but was potent documentation to solidly establish his patents. When he came to court on a patent matter, he was loaded for bear.

Edison was the consummate practical inventor. Which was good news and bad news. In 1883 he developed what amounted to a thermionic vacuum tube (a diode). He came upon it by accident as there was no well-known theory (Hertz had not yet tested Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic fields and light). If he had been more theoretic he would have had the makings of fairly broadband wireless broadcasting which would have been greatly in advance of Marconi's wireless telegraph system. Alas, Edison did not fully understand what he had in hand. Edison was well developed on the empirical end, but somewhat under powered on the theoretic end (see Tesla's comment on that in a previous post I made). Voice radio had to wait for Armstrong 30 years later.

Many theoretical giants were productive inventors. For example, Newton. As a boy he was well known for his model machines and windmills. Later his method was to develop hypotheses from experiments. His experimental work in optics, still evokes admiration. Among other things, Newton, the theorist, invented the reflecting telescope which bypassed many of the problems that refracting telescopes had in his day (distortion and chromatic abberation). Even in modern times parabolic reflectors (both optical and radio) are the workhorses of astronomy.

Maxwell was an inventor and a equipment designer who is best known for his theoretical achievements. Michael Faraday is best known for his experiments, equipment design and the invention of the electric motor. But Faraday had a nearly unequaled conceptual grasp of electric effects and their related magnetic effects. It was his notion of lines of force that gave rise to the theory of electromagnetic fields. Ironically, Faraday had almost no formal mathematics, but his ability to visualize and express those visualizations in metaphor was grist for Maxwell's mill. Maxwell was the greatest mathematical physicist (in his day) since Newton. He invented field theory, but only because of Faraday's seminal work. So, in his way, Michael Faraday was a great theorist but he is best known for his inventions in the fields of electromagnetism and his work in gases. Faraday succeeded in liquifying chlorine gas, for example. He was a giant.

ruveyn

[Marc K.]

In 1883 Edison accidentally invented the first diode. If he had understood what he had done, we would have had t.v. as early as 1900.

I'm not going to argue about Edison's theoretical accomplishments versus his applied genius as I don't know enough about him or his state of mind. However, the above just doesn't ring true to me.

You seem to be denying the hierarchy of knowledge. Are you telling me that all of the other knowledge that went into making a TV was available in 1883? That there were no other technological advancements fifty years after 1883 required to make a TV except a diode? It sounds as though you are blaming the caveman who invented the first wheel for not inventing gears and roller bearings.

The reason genius was brought-up was to demonstrate the efficacy of the mind. I invite you now to acknowledge that man's mind is potent and that the proper use of it has nothing to do with chance.

If you want to continue this discussion I suggest you to start or split off a new thread as we are sufficiently off topic at this point.