herbw t1_iyes6qg wrote on November 30, 2022 at 9:20 PM

Reply to comment by ramriot in TIL The inventor of the television was a 15 year old farm boy who got the idea for scanning an image in rows from the back and forth motion of plowing a field. by chapstickninja

Sorry you can't logically nor empirically do that to Edison. He showed it was possible and so then created a market for those. AND then they were improved because the markets made more efficient methods possible.

So you'd deny him the electric light because we use fluorescent lights & light diodes today? And tungsten filaments?

Preposterous!! Reductio ad absurdum refutations.

ramriot t1_iyf05al wrote on November 30, 2022 at 10:13 PM

Actually I'd deny Edison the electric light because he was never the first or even the 10th person to demonstrate the technology & he purchased several patents from others on his way to his "invention" . I will give him that he commercialised an integrated power distribution & lighting system (although it was DC).

Going back to the phonograph, that he perhaps was the first. I used that as a demonstration of the absurdity of calling Farnsworth the inventor of television when he clearly was not the 1st, given that his idea had more legs.