29
Jul
Rivalry Best answer on the web
Author: jack // Category: xn--g7qx97f.comThank you.
There are many famous rivalries to choose from, but these are some of my favorites.
1. Mozart and Salieri
Despite the fact that the rivalry between these two fine composers is known throughout the world (due to the play and subsequent film "Amadeus"), there is very little evidence that the two men actually had any rivalry at all.
While it is true that very few people know the music of Salieri today, in his own time, Salieri was a deeply respected composer, and possibly enjoyed even more success than Mozart did in his lifetime. And the facts seem to point to the idea that Salieri not only didn't try to sabotage Mozart's career, but that he helped him achieve several good positions.
It is, true, however, that there was a rumor that Salieri killed Mozart. This was primarily because Mozart believed he was being poisoned, because a "man in grey" came to him anonymously commissioning "Mass for the Dead" (The Requiem)...although Mozart didn't believe him to be like his father...and that Salieri confessed to murdering Mozart. However, the confessions didn't come till many years later, when Salieri was in an asylum and utterly insane.
Historians believe that chances are slim that Salieri actually killed Mozart. Salieri was not a close friend of Mozart's in any way. (If Mozart had been poisoned, only someone close to him would have had the opportunity to continually feed him poison.) In fact, historians now believe that Mozart died from an attack of rheumatic fever--something he had suffered frequently with as a child.
Therefore, the famous rivalry between these two 18th century composers more than likely never existed.
For more information on the fact and myth aspect of this "rivalry," visit "Amadeus: Fact & Fiction:" http://members.tripod.com/~wamozart/amadeus.html
and "Some Remarks on Amadeus:"
http://www.musicolog.com/m_amadeus_about.asp
For other rivalries between composers, visit:
http://media9.fastclick.net/w/safepop.cgi?mid=15366&sid=2131&id=97814&geo=279268203&len=76&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.web-helper.net%2FPDMusic%2FArticles%2F101910%2Farticle3.asp&c=13
2. Dr. Denton Cooley and Dr. Michael DeBakey
In 1966, Dr. Michael DeBakey successfully implanted a partial artificial heart. Three years later, a total artificial heart was implanted in a patient by Dr. Denton Cooley, mentor of DeBakey. This surgery was not without controversy, largely because the implant patient died and his widow spoke out against the unnatural and unconscious state of her husband after the surgery. Cooley had performed the operation without permission from DeBakey, and--upsetting DeBakey even more--without permission from any regulatory body. This attitude of defiance could have given heart transplants such a bad name, the science could have been lost forever...or so DeBakey apparently felt. Cooley soon resigned from the hospital at which he'd been practicing. In the end, however, without DeBakey's careful research and surgery, and without Cooley's more hurried approach, heart transplants might not be as advanced as they are today.
3. Maria Callas and Renata Tabaldi
In the history of opera, there perhaps was never a rivalry so discussed as that between Renata Tabaldi and Maria Callas. The two singers seemed to be at the opposite end of the spectrum in so many ways. Callas was trying to revolutionize opera; Tabaldi sang in a traditional style. Callas spoke her mind and could be harsh and blunt; Tabaldi smiled sweetly. Callas was something of the woman of the world, while Tabaldi was portrayed in the press as a homely "good girl." Callas was reported to have told her mother to jump out the window if she couldn't earn enough to support herself; Tabaldi seriously considered becoming a nun after her mother died. The two battled over who would perform rival roles--and who performed them best--all throughout their careers. In a much publicized incident, Tabaldi admirers even held Callas responsible for Renata's removal from La Scala. But, in the end, the two managed to work together again--this time in concert...and even producing a recording of this notable event, late in the life of their careers.
4. Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland
These two actresses, both considered great in their Hollywood heydays, were not only sisters, but bitter rivals. Perhaps it all began when the two were in grade school, and Olivia instructed Joan never to speak to her in front of her friends. But the first major affair publicized about the two sisters' rivalry occurred in 1941, when they were both nominated for best actress Academy Awards. Joan won, and was the youngest actress to be given the award at the time. When Olivia won her first Academy Award in 1947, her sister Joan perhaps was more gracious; she congratulated Olivia--but received only disdain from her sister. The incident was caught in a photograph and soon all the world knew of the incident. Yet whatever their rivalries, they were still sisters. Joan helped Olivia financially during hard times, and Olivia sat beside Joan's bed when her sister grew gravely ill.
For more information on this and other rivalries between Hollywood actresses, visit: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/classic_actresses/94404
5. Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray
On Feb. 14, 1876, Elisha Gray filed an announcement with the U.S. Patent Office, describing an apparatus "for transmitting vocal sounds telegraphically." Unbeknownst to Gray, only two hours earlier Alexander Graham Bell had applied for a patent on a similar apparatus. It was soon discovered that the Gray's device worked, while Bell's did not. What followed was years of litigation and bitterness--until Bell was finally named the inventor of the telephone. The validity of that finding is still debated to this day, however.
For more information, visit:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/telephone/peopleevents/pande02.html
6. Louis Comfort Tiffany and John La Farge
The two men who introduced opalescent glass into art and decorating, Louis Comfort Tiffany and John La Farge, were bitter rivals and competitors. In the 1870s, La Farge showed Tiffany some experiments he was conducting with plating opalescent glass. A friendly act, no doubt. Yet by the early 1880s, the two men seem to have become tangled in litigation with each other about just who held the original patent for opalescent glass windows. And for the next thirty years, the two men fought. At one point Tiffany contracted work from a man who'd been working with La Farge for years--only fueling the fire between them. At times, it seemed La Farge was *the* man of opalescent glass...but ultimately, it is Tiffany who is remembered for his remarkable glass work.
For more details on their rivalry, please visit:
http://www.jlsloan.com/lct3.htm
Keywords Used:
Amadeus film fact
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Amadeus+film+fact&btnG=Google+Search
"Denton Cooley" "Michael DeBakey" controversy
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Denton+Cooley%22+%22Michael+DeBakey%22+controversy&btnG=Google+Search
"Maria Callas" "Renata Tabaldi" rivalry
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Maria+Callas%22+%22Renata+Tebaldi%22+rivalry&spell=1
Hollywood actresses rivalry
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Hollywood+actresses+rivalry
"Louis Comfort Tiffany" "John La Farge" rivalry
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Louis+Comfort+Tiffany%22+%22John+La+Farge%22+rivalry&btnG=Google+Search
Hope this helps! :)
kriswrite
Two days would be fine =) Yes, I would like the rivalries Mozart / Salieri and Cooley / DeBakey to be included. If it helps, the focus of my article is on the fact that rivalry between two great professionals in their field leads to the best in them coming to the fore.
Thank you for all your help.
NELOFAR
I have started researching on your question and I have already finished two articles on rivalries between scientists. Do you need the completed answer very soon or do I have one or two additional days? Also, do you want the rivalries Mozart / Salieri and Cooley / DeBakey to be included under all circumstances, or do they only serve as examples for the kind of rivalries you have in mind?
Regards,
Scriptor
The rivalry between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton sounds very interesting-- I'd love to know more about it.
Thank you.
My fellow researcher kriswrite delivered a fine answer. However, I had some more extensive examples in mind. That's why I thought I would need more time. I will add what I had written, so my work is not wasted. Maybe it's of any value for you:
The rivalry between Othniel Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope might not be famous in a way that makes popular movies; nevertheless, it is very interesting since it took part before the background of a then very young branch of natural science and its aftermaths can still be recognized today. Othniel Marsh (1831-1899) was the first professor of paleontology in the United States. This discipline, the study of prehistoric fossils of animals and plants, was still young when Marsh in 1870 led a scientific expedition of the Yale University in Nebraska. He was searching for remains of dinosaurs, a species still hardly explored in those days, and he was successful. When the expedition returned in December, they brought 38 boxes of fossils with them, among them a bone of a pterodactyl, a giantic flying reptile. Marsh's discoveries made him instantly famous, thus raising the jealousy of his old friend, Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897), who was a renowned paleontologist himself. Cope tried to outclass Marsh by finding and identifying more new species of North American dinosaurs than his colleague, which made them bitter rivals. March did not uncramp the situation when he publically pointed out that Cope had, when reconstructing an elasmosaurus, mixed up the tail and the neck. After that, Cope regarded Marsh his enemy. In 1872 they got into a fight over who had rights to dig in Wyoming Territory and began luring away each other's collectors in what became a ruthless competition for fossils. This was the beginning of a rivalry that would enter the history of science as "The Great Bone Wars". Both scientists sent out field teams to collect as many fossils as only possible. Their crews became known for fighting over newly discovered remains like armies. They even blew up their opponents' and their own digging location with dynamite if they regarded it necessary in order to keep the others from finding fossils. If everything else failed, they sometimes stole what the opponent team had dug up. Both paleontologists wanted, from the tons and tons of fossils sent to them by their teams, to identify and name more new dinosaurs than the rival, at the disadvantage of scientific accurateness. Cope and Marsh identified 133 new dinosaur species in only 20 years, but since their ambition became stronger than their diligence, they misidentified many or double-named others. The two men carried their personal war to Washington DC and into the newspapers. At the end, both men's reputations were ruined and the United States Government refused any further funding of paleontological research. And as a result of their ambition-driven way of analyzing the fossils, of the 133 species the rivals identified, only 34 are regarded valid today. 47 are classified as invalid, the remaining 52 are classified "dubious".
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Less harmful for the reputation of the persons involved, and also fought with far less extreme methods, was the rivalry between Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). The two men belonged to the last real universal geniuses; they were philosophers, physicists, natural scientists and mathematicians, to name but a few of their fields of work. Independantly, they both developed over many years a mathematical principle dealing with the geometry of infinitesimals, the "calculus". Since 1673, Leibniz knew that Newton was also working on the calculus, but he had no knowledge of the particular approaches and methods his British colleague was using. In fact, Newton had already written his tract on the calculus, "De Methodis Serierum et Fluxionum", with a full solution to the mathematical problems involved, as early as 1671; but he failed to get it published, and it wouldn't see print before 1736. Finally, in November 1675, Leibniz had developed a working calculus, which he called Infinitesmalrechnung and used in a manuscript. Newton, alarmed that someone else might be trying to harvest what he sowed, wrote a letter to Leibniz which listed the results of his own approaches, but did not include a desciption of his methods. The consequence was that Leibniz now felt under pressure to quickly publish a fuller account of his own methods and intensified his work. In his second letter to the German mathematician from October 1676, which did not arrive in Hannover before June 1677, Newton made clear he believed that Leibniz had stolen his methods. To demonstrate that he was using methods he had developed himself, Leibniz gave some details of the principles of his differential calculus in his reply. But that did not convince Newton at all; he was still sure that Leibniz was nothing but a thief of intellectual property and that he had stolen the calculus when he had the opportunity to read unpublished scientific manuscripts at the Royal Society in London during a visit in England in 1673. His rage was growing, and came to a climax when Leibniz published his calculus version in 1684 as "Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis". This made Leibniz in the eyes of the scientific world the inventor of the new mathematical principle. The result was the "Priority Conflict" between the two scientists: For the next decades, Newton would not miss a single opportunity to depict Leibniz as a liar, thief and impostor, while Leibniz would, for the rest of his life, have to defend himself. The followers of both men were also involved in that conflict, writing polemic pamphlets and scientific essays to defend or attack either Newton or Leibniz and their adherers. The affair became a scandal, as British mathematicians asserted Newton’s claims before the public while their Continental colleagues hotly defended Leibniz’s priority. Even after Leibniz's death in 1716 the conflict went on. And though the facts are known today and most historians and mathematicians agree that both Leibniz and Newton deserve the honor of having developed the calculus, it still is the reason for controversies sometimes...
Sources:
Wie der Brontosaurus zum Apatosaurus wurde, by Gerhard Winter, 1997
http://www.senckenberg.uni-frankfurt.de/private/gwinter/apato.htm
Utah History To Go: Rivals Fought Tooth and Nail Over Dinosaurs, by Will Bagley, 2001 http://historytogo.utah.gov/hmnail.html
Today In Science History: 29 October
http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?http://www.todayinsci.com/10/10_29.htm
The History of Calculus, by Dan Cardamore
http://www.hld.ca/school/First_Year/hist_calc.html
Pausenhof.de: Biografien - Sir Isaac Newton
http://www.pausenhof.de/biographien/bion001.asp
The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context, by Anand Kandaswamy
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~cherlin/History/Papers2002/newton.html
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, by the University of St Andrews, Scotland, 1998 http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Leibniz.html
Sir Isaac Newton, by the University of St Andrews, Scotland, 1998
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Newton.html
Newton und Leibniz, by Werner Bäni, 2002
http://www.hta-bu.bfh.ch/hta/mat/newton-leibniz.htm
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