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In the popular culture the XIX-XX century competition between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla is well-known. The example could be the Prestige movie, where there are some "Edison's agents" who sabotage Tesla's efforts. From electrical engineers' point of view the most known problem between them is whether to use DC or AC (the War of Currents).

We can say that Edison is better known, because of the invention of a bulb or his first urban electricity system. Tesla is almost unknown, some people say about magic and so on. (That's why I recall the Prestige movie.)

In electricity it seems that Tesla has won, even if he's widely forgotten. We use AC mainly because of it's easy in transformers. We have an SI unit $\text{T}$ (tesla), which is for measuring magnetic induction.

But -- we can't forget Edison's impact on electricity. Even if he was mostly a great businessman, no-one can say he's done nothing but the bulb. Here is some list of his patents.

So why isn't he honored (like Tesla, Ampère, Volta, Siemens, Ohm, Faraday, ...) by his "own" unit in physics?

Řídící
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Voitcus
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4 Answers4

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(Attn: non-seriousness ahead.)

Since Helen, whose face could launch a thousand ships is the unit of beauty (as in a millihelen is a face that could launch one ship), perhaps Edison could be the unit of jerkishness. I base this, of course, on an entirely unbiased source.

Michael
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Patents are for inventions, which are feats of engineering, not advances in physics. Edison was a great businessman as well as a great inventor: he took understood principles of physics and turned them into useful machines. These machines are codified in the patents. He did not, however, contribute to the understanding of the laws of physics.

Now, admittedly, Tesla did not advance our understanding much either. He, too, was predominantly an engineer/inventor. However, by experimenting with high-voltage current, X-rays and radio waves, he indirectly helped our understanding of electromagnetic radiation and the electromagnetic force.

Timwi
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$$1~\text{edison}=100~\text{A}$$ It's on the Internet and therefore true. However, it doesn't appear very widespread.

Edison ($\text{edison}$) is a unit in the category of Electric current. It is also known as edisons. Edison
($\text{edison}$) has a dimension of $I$ where $I$ is electric current. It can be converted to the corresponding standard SI unit $\text{A}$ by multiplying its value by a factor of $100$.

eFunda: The Ultimate Online Reference for Engineers

Řídící
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He invented stuff, not physics ideas. Because of that, we have the Edison Screw, which is still the standard "light socket".

Aric TenEyck
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