5 Geniuses Who Were Massive Assholes
By Sami on April 14th, 2009
History can be extremely forgiving if you are a genius. So much so, that most people seem to have forgotten that the following five geniuses were massive assholes when they were alive and kicking. Petty fights, driving people to suicide, and even electrocuting an elephant – it is all here.
1. Thomas Edison
The Genius:
Thomas Edison realized the benefits of teamwork in the invention process. He created one of the first industrial research laboratories with the purpose to profit from the patents behind the ideas it generated. The phonograph transformed entertainment and his version of the light bulb lit the night. Edison pushed the world into a modern industrial era by thinking up and implementing power generation and distribution. The secret to Edison’s success was fairly simple: own the rights, be first to market, mass produce, and relentlessly attack competitors.
The Asshole:
Unfortunately, Edison had a habit of stealing ideas. He famously promised Nikola Tesla $50,000 to improve his direct current generators and then balked when Tesla delivered, saying: “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” This, along with Edison’s dismissive attitude towards Tesla’s ideas on alternating current, led to the War of Currents. Edison took out page-sized newspaper ads, created the electric chair (which some people argue he stole from an employee), and even electrocuted an elephant to death to prove that Tesla’s ideas were unsafe. Edison also ruined groundbreaking French filmmaker Georges Méliès. Méliès had spent a fortune creating creating the popular film Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip To The Moon) but never saw a cent from the profits in the United States because Edison distributed pirated copies of it and ignored Méliès’ pleas. Méliès eventually went bankrupt and died a penniless vagabond.
2. Nikola Tesla
The Genius:
Nikola Tesla thought up, or invented, practically all of the technology we enjoy today. Edison’s light bulb would have been worthless if it wasn’t for Tesla’s genius. He crushed Edison in the War of Currents, making alternating current the basis for practically all electricity on the planet. Tesla was also the mind behind the X-Ray, wireless technology, radio, radar, and fluorescent lights but never got credit for any of it for various reasons. Tesla became obsessed with developing death rays in his later years and might have been responsible for the Tunguska explosion.
The Asshole:
While Edison later regretted his mistreatment of Tesla, Tesla never forgave. The only negative comment in coverage the New York Times ran after Edison’s death came from Tesla:
He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene. [...] His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 per cent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor’s instinct and practical American sense.
While this burning hatred might be justifiable, Tesla’s treatment of people he felt were below him earns him a spot on this list. He had an unmatched disgust for overweight people and once fired a secretary for knocking over equipment. When she begged for her job on her hands and knees, Tesla launched into a diatribe about her physique. An impeccable dresser, Tesla expected all of his staff to dress to the nines while in his laboratory. He frequently sent people home for not dressing to his standards.
3. Ludwig van Beethoven
The Genius:
Ludwig van Beethoven was damn good with the piano. The son of a piano teacher, Beethoven was considered a miraculous prodigy by the age of nine and was considered to be one of the most influential composers by his twenties. He even wrote some of his most famous pieces after going completely deaf. Most music historians consider him the most influential figure during the transition from the Classical era to the Romantic era.
The Asshole:
Beethoven redefined the term “crabby asshole”: he threw things at people speaking during his concerts and attacked anyone who asked him to repeat himself. Beethoven outdid himself after his brother passed away. Even though he never cared much for his nephew, Karl, but he hated his sister-in-law so much that he put composing on hold for a few years and doggedly focused on making sure she had no custody over the child. He used his connections to win guardianship and dragged his sister-in-law’s name through the mud in multiple trials. All of this was too much for young Karl, who attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. He survived and was eventually taken back to live with his mother.
4. Robert Hooke
The Genius:
Robert Hooke discovered the law of elasticity, pioneered use of the microscope, and coined the term “cell” to describe the smallest part of an organism that can be classified as living. Hooke was also an influential architect who was responsible for surveying London after the Great Fire. As the curator of the Royal Society, he was involved in hundreds of experiments. These led him to become one of the first people to promote evolution, to suggest that air expands when heated, and to develop one of the first gravitational models. Just like Tesla, he never received credit for large portions of his work.
The Asshole:
Unlike Tesla, who was an asshole to anyone he felt was beneath him, Hooke rarely received credit because he was a jealous douchebag who used his position to bully people around. He routinely claimed full credit for work that involved multiple researchers , would dramatically claim he had been plagiarized every few months, and was incredibly caustic towards anyone who stole his limelight. Hooke’s relationship with Isaac Newton transformed into an intense feud after Hooke forced Newton to present a working reflecting telescope and then openly tore his ideas apart. Newton was so offended that he refused to debate in public again and would respond to Hooke only by writing letters back to him. When Hooke claimed Newton stole his ideas about optics, Newton wrote back:
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
If you missed the masterstroke, I’ll explain it: Hooke was a short hunchback and Newton was implying that Hooke was both a physical and mental midget.
5. Isaac Newton
The Genius:
Isaac Newton was one of the most intelligent people, ever. He built the first practical reflecting telescope and figured out that white light was made up of many colors, all of which formed the visible spectrum of light. But, his biggest accomplishment was publishing Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It laid the core for classical mechanics by describing universal gravitation and the three laws of motion. Newton’s discoveries influenced practically every major scientific discovery for the next three centuries. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that most scientists consider him to be the most influential scientist that ever lived.
The Asshole:
Newton was also a passive-aggressive curmudgeon who spent his entire career involved in nerd battles with his peers. His behavior bordered on the bizarre so many times that many historians believe he might have suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome. His feud with Hooke ended with Hooke’s death, but Newton had the last laugh years later by pettily making the only authenticated portrait of Hooke disappear. Historians still debate Hooke’s appearance because of his action. When Newton disagreed with astronomer John Flamsteed’s zealous approach to research, Newton stole his work and published it under Edmund Halley, Flamsteed’s mortal enemy. Newton’s douchebaggery is most apparent in his feud with Gottfried Leibniz. Newton discovered calculus first but Leibniz was published first. Newton accused Leibniz of plagiarism, orchestrated a “review committee” filled with his personal friends, personally wrote the committee findings, and even wrote the anonymous review of those findings. Discredited and heartbroken, Leibniz died of a heart attack. When Newton heard about this, he reputedly commented that he had enjoyed breaking Leibniz’s heart.
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