Between the two, who has had the most influence on our daily lives?

Hi Razer,

Good question, although I am not sure it is really a valid question. As I see it Einstein was a great scientist, whereas Tesla was a great engineer. Einstein and his peers were laying the ground work by creating the various theories for our observable universe, whereas Tesla took those theories and made something practical out of them. So to me it is a little like comparing apples and pears

In the end, I voted Einstein as I have my doubts that Tesla could have created anything from scratch without the basis formed by others

Cheers,
Badeskov

I think Tesla, but it's sort of like the Bill Gates thing. Gates is the software mogul, but he really just marketed someone elses idea. Same with Tesla and Einstein as far as I can tell.

I vote tesla, as badeskov said, tesla made more practical stuff...

I voted for Einstein, he had more publicity than tesla.

Tesla was cool but Einstein broke the ice

Einstein introduced a complete jump in theoretical physics and gave a new picture of reality. He also made many discoveries and studies vital in history.

unfortunately Einstein, from what I can tell most regular people don't even know who Tesla was.

Edit: If that's unclear, I voted "Einstein" as having more influence.

So Einstein probably had more influence??

I believe Einstein had a greater influence on me personally, but as for society, I am not sure... Tesla has many patents and was creative and a good engineer, but in the end all of the really wild things that he talked about were never really built...I am not trying to take away from his accomplishments, but there are some people who hold him in almost mystical light, and I just dont see it that way. He was a genius no doubt, and he came up with some amazing inventions, but he was a human, and a rather flawed one at that.

While Tesla had the mad scientist thing going for him, the popularity of Einstein was very high, which was odd for a physicist...but he was charming and witty and a good interview as well. Even in Princeton he was kind of a rock star at the time. He made science popular and accessable to people.

His science has given us a lot over the years and we understand our place in the universe much better now because of him...