Hello, all, and I just thought I would jump in here since I am employed by an activity that considers Edison a founding father. Edison's preference for a system of D.C. power generation and distribution is a matter of record and has already been discuseed in this thread. What we should remember is that Edison was an inventor that did not concentrate solely on power generation and distribution apparatus (even though many of his inventions required electric power). Tesla, OTOH and Westinghouse were specifically interested in this technology and Tesla in particular could be considered as much an electrical engineer as an inventor. Tesla's explanation of electromagnetic wave propagation, however, would indicate that he did not appreciate/comprehend the work of J.C. Maxwell.
In the realm of electrical metrics named for experimentalists and inventors Edison has been ignored. Ditto for Benjamin Franklin. In the international system (SI) of units the "Tesla" is used for magnetic flux density and we also have the "bel" (after A.G. Bell) to denote power ratio. Sincerely,
John Wood (Code 5550) e-mail: snipped-for-privacy@itd.nrl.navy.mil Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20375-5337