electrocuting an elephant to death, and for no better reason than tabloid advertising, kind of stands out in the historical record
that’s not to say Edison was PURE EVIL, just that I always remember the elephant alongside the more humanizing factoids. [Once, he asked a math student to find the volume of a lightbulb. The student started doing all kinds of caliper measurements and geometry calculations. Edison just filled the bulb with sand and tipped it out into a measuring cup]
electrocuting an elephant to death, and for no better reason than tabloid advertising, kind of stands out in the historical record
that’s not to say Edison was PURE EVIL, just that I always remember the elephant alongside the more humanizing factoids. [Once, he asked a math student to find the volume of a lightbulb. The student started doing all kinds of caliper measurements and geometry calculations. Edison just filled the bulb with sand and tipped it out into a measuring cup]