Editor’s note: The claims below reflect the author’s view of long-running historical controversies. Historians still debate how much credit each of these inventors deserves.
What if most of what you were taught in science and history classes at school was wrong? What if the people who made history thanks to their creations didn’t actually invent anything? Perhaps one day we will have to rewrite history and talk about the real geniuses who don’t appear in the books and whose ideas were stolen.
Let’s start taking apart the story of the great inventors:
1. Thomas Edison never invented the light bulb
If you are asked on a TV quiz show who invented the light bulb, you should ask: “Do you want the usual answer or the real inventor?”
Edison didn’t invent the light bulb; he only bought the patent. Thomas Edison was not an intelligent person, but history describes him as a thief of ideas who took advantage of the poor. Edison had money, and that made him the person with the most patents in the world. He registered no fewer than 1,093 patents in his name, and probably none of them were his own invention.
Although many names have been put forward as the real inventor of the light bulb, everything ultimately points to Heinrich Goebel, in 1854. The story goes that Goebel tried to sell Edison the patent for the light bulb, but Edison was not willing to pay what Goebel was asking. When Goebel died, Edison drove a hard bargain with his widow, who badly needed money, and ended up buying the patent for very little.
2. Galileo Galilei did not invent the telescope
The Italian astronomer, physicist and mathematician could not have invented the telescope: his dates from 1609, while certain documents would indicate that in 1608 a certain Hans Lippershey tried to patent the telescope and, for unknown reasons, was refused.
A year later, Galileo Galilei turned up with a telescope which, it has to be said, could see further than Hans Lippershey’s. Gossips say that Galileo may have stolen the idea with the help of the patent registrars of the day.
3. Alexander Graham Bell did not invent the telephone
Alexander’s mother was deaf, and so was his wife, so inventing a telephone… wasn’t going to be much use in his family 🙂
In 1860 an Italian named Antonio Meucci presented the first telephone design in history. Eleven years later he patented it. In 1874 Meucci could not pay to renew the patent, which cost about 10 dollars (a small fortune at the time), and Bell got hold of it.
Meucci tried to sue Bell, but once again Alexander had money and connections, so it was not hard for him to get any records that might prove Meucci was the real inventor destroyed from inside the office itself.
Besides, Alexander already had other patents. Who were people going to believe?
These are just three of the many cases that share a common pattern: the real inventors were geniuses with no money or resources, while the inventors who went down in history without having invented anything usually came from well-off families, with the odd exception.
Marconi did not invent the radio (David Hughes did), the steam engine was not invented by James Watt, and if we kept going, even Albert Einstein himself would come in for criticism. He was certainly a genius, but it is also true that he never deigned to mention the other geniuses who worked with him on developing his theories. It is still said that Einstein owns 50% of the theory of relativity. The rest belongs to other authors he never named.
Conclusions:
- The history books need to be rewritten.
- I’ll let you draw this one yourselves.
Featured image: Edison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva), 1847-1931 ( NARA record: 10569067 ), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
