June 15.1929: Edison's Error

摘要

ASKED IN 1929 to describe the current life stage of the electric age, its father, Thomas Edison, summed it up succinctly: "Yelling baby." In other words, it had a great future ahead of it-but a lot of growing up to do. Edison went further and boldly forecast what he expected would happen when the industry matured a little. He believed that "mankind will draw electrical energy on a large scale directly from the sun," Forbes' Dudley Nichols wrote. As Edison put it, "Man will always be able to create from nature as much power as he will need."