I know Edison was a scumbag who didn’t actually invent the lightbulb (just made a more efficient lightbulb and marketed it well), but what about the phonograph and motion picture projector? I know the French inventor Edouard Leon Scott invented a machine that made sound recordings, but he never had any intention of playing them back.
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (28 August 1841 – vanished 16 September 1890) was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion picture camera, possibly the first person to shoot a moving picture sequence using a single lens camera and a strip of (paper) film. Le Prince was never able to perform a planned public demonstration in the US because he mysteriously vanished; he was last known to be boarding a train on 16 September 1890. The reason for his disappearance is not known and his family and supporters invented a series of conspiracy theories, including: a murder set up by Edison… 👀
