You're missing the point of the story. There are ways to measure things
that are quick and elegant -- rather than applying a brute-force
approach.

No. Edison asked the engineer: "calculate the volume of a light bulb".
He did not ask to measure it.

So why did Edison make the guy look like a fool?

That's the perogative of the boss/mentor/idol, to make the little guy look
like a fool even if he is right.

Okay. But you're still taking the wrong lesson from the story.

I've never liked Edison. There's no question that he was an idiot, and a POS.
There's the story that he hired the then-reputationless Tesla to re-engineer
his generator design, promising him $50,000 for the work. When the work was
done, he refused to pay Tesla, saying "You have a lot to learn about American
business practice".