2 Responses

1. I think Tesla, but the U.S. doesn’t like to admit it.

2. Tesla probably had something, but from what I know about him and what I know about aspergers, I don’t think that was it. Einstein was more likely to suffer from that particular disorder, given his problems relating to people and his particular skills and deficits, but I’m no expert. (My wife knows a decent amound about that and I’ve picked up some from her).

   Anyway, I would absolutely say Einstein was the bigger genius, even with the difficulties in defining such a concept. Tesla was brilliant and one of the greatest engineers in history, but the leaps Einstein made were far and away beyond anything that preceeded him. Reinventing space-time twice impresses me a lot more than inventing wireless technology 80+ years before its time.

   Einstein also better understood the consequences of his work, arguing against atomic bombs, while Tesla claimed to have invented many deadly products that never seem to have actually existed, like his famous death ray.

   In Tesla’s favor, I have to say that installing the dynamo at Niagara Falls without ever testing it and having it work perfectly is quire impressive.