When Thomas Edison Electrocuted An Elephant

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Thomas Edison was a genius but a very stubborn man. Caught in a war of currents versus George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla over DC vs AC, Edison created the electric chair in order to prove the lethality and dangers of Tesla's AC system. He tested it with various small animals but in 1903 an elephant named Topsy - which had killed three men - was electrocuted. This is the footage:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkBU3aYsf0Q[/youtube]

Wow, that's awesome.

i could not watch this, just the thought of barbecuing this animal to death is beyond the pale. a .456 pill between the eyes would have been far more merciful.

that's horrible

It was awesomely horrible.

Unkind. A shot to the brain would have been more humane.

BTW sufficiently high voltage, high amperage DC will kill also.

ruveyn

Edison was actually against corporal punishment. To think that he would commit such a cruel act in order to serve his own ego says alot about the nature of genius.

with greatness often comes a tincture of madness as well.

Yes, he saw AC as an attack on his reputation and refused to see its advantages.

This is referenced in relation to the Pokemon Raichu since the first game, I believe.

No. It says a lot about Edison. He did not like being crossed or opposed. Edison was one of the early motion picture makers and he and friends with similar interests organized matters to make it hard for Jews to get in the business. As a result, Jews who saw making movies a great opportunity moved out west to California. The rest is history.

Have a look at this:
http://www.erichufschmid.net/TFC/Edison ... -Jews.html

ruveyn

Brutal.
As mentioned , the animal should have been destroyed at the first killing.
What were the circumstances that led up to the of the elephant's ' rampage' on the 3 men?

Edison actually sold the Japanese emperor on DC around the turn of the 20th century, and the emperor ordered the construction of DC electric lines across Japan, to run on 100 vDC. After a couple years of trying, the Japanese quietly abandoned the project. The lines strung were converted to AC. But to this day, Japanese AC is 100v. They use the same style plug as the US, which given the numbers of Americans and Japanese who cross between the two countries regularly, undoubtedly causes LOTS of problems.

Antisemitism was quite fashionable among the elite in the early 20th century. Henry Ford supplied the needs of the Nazis and Japanese even AFTER the US declared war, and only stopped when FDR threatened to seize Ford Motor Company, whose plants were desperately needed to produce jeeps and other motorized military vehicles. Charles Lindbergh led an organization that aimed to keep the US out of the war and allow Hitler to win. When challenged, Lindy tended to let loose ugly anti-Jewish tirades, which eventually led to the feds shutting down his group.

There were countless others-Charles Goethe of California was a staunch supporter of eugenics, and decreed that his mansion be devoted to a museum promoting it. By the time of his death in 1966, the area it was located in was a slum, so the new owners, a state university, simply boarded it up. Eventually, it was restored-as The Julia Morgan House, the name of the architect. Goethe's name was also applied to an arboretum and a school, both of which were eventually renamed.

Lawrence Shockley, the inventor of the transistor (or maybe the integrated circuit, can't remember) devoted the later years of his life towards promoting eugenics and other Nazi theories. This was in the 1960s, and most still vividly remembered Auschwitz. As a result, Shockley was ostracized. Amusingly, he thought that his kids were an evolutionary regression from himself, and blamed his ex wife.

Edison was more thief than genius, His most famous "invention" was the light bulb but didn't he have to admit it had been patented 1 year earlier by Joseph Swann and his was an exact copy of the Swann patent, infact he had to call his bulb producing company Ediswan and pay royalties to Joseph Swann or face legal action. And wasn't he suspected of involvement in the murder of someone on a ship bound for America to contest another one of his patents. Then there was the Canadian scientist whose light bulb ideas were copied before the Swann episode. Edison was just the figurehead of a large company and took the credit for all his companys inventions irrespective of who actually did the inventing, a bit like calling Mr DuPont a genius because of his discoveries.

Tesla was 3 times the genius that Edison was!