"... Thomas Edison was
more responsible than any one else for creating
the modern world .... No one did more to shape
the physical/cultural makeup of present day
civilization.... Accordingly, he was the most
influential figure of the millennium...."
The Heroes Of The Age:
Electricity And Man
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October
18, 1931) was an American inventor of Dutch
origin and businessman who developed many
devices that greatly influenced life around the
world, including the phonograph and a long
lasting light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo
Park" by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the
first inventors to apply the principles of mass
production to the process of invention, and
therefore is often credited with the creation of
the first industrial research laboratory.
Edison is considered one of the most prolific
inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents
in his name, as well as many patents in the
United Kingdom, France and Germany.
Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and was
raised in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the
seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison,
Jr. (1804–1896) (born in Marshalltown, Nova
Scotia, Canada) and Nancy Matthews Edison nee
Elliott (1810–1871). His family was of Dutch
origin.
Edison's greatest contribution was the first
practical electric lighting. He not only
invented the first successful electric light
bulb, but also set up the first electrical power
distribution company. Edison invented the
phonograph, and made improvements to the
telegraph, telephone and motion picture
technology. He also founded the first modern
research laboratory.
Edison was also a good businessman. He not only
designed important new devices, he created
companies worldwide for the manufacture and sale
of his inventions. Along with other
manufacturing pioneers of his era, Edison helped
make the United States a world industrial power.
He and Henry Ford became friends after Edison
encouraged Ford to use the gasoline powered
engine for the automobile.
Edison was also a ruthless businessman who
fought viciously to defeat his competitors. One
of the most notorious examples of his
competitive vigor were the lengths he went to to
discredit Nicola Tesla's Alternating Current
system, which is the system of electrical
distribution in use today.
Edison had great faith in progress and industry,
and valued long, hard work. He used to say,
"Genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent
perspiration." Edison believed that inventing
useful products offered everyone the opportunity
for fame and fortune while benefiting society. -
Source
Over Five Million Pages of Documents...
chronicle one of the most creative technical
innovators in the history of the world—Thomas
Alva Edison. Thanks to the tireless work of the
Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey, the daily record of
Edison's extraordinary life and achievements is
coming to light.
While Edison’s genius spawned many seminal
inventions of the modern world, his greatest
invention may have been the first industrial
research laboratory—a prototype for today’s
large corporate research and development
centers.
Edison was also a savvy businessman and shrewd
manager with enormous talent for transferring
technology from laboratory to market. He
designed economic considerations into nearly all
of his inventions and recognized the critical
role that promotion and hustle play in a
product’s success. His insight sets a powerful,
instructive model for corporate leaders even
today.
In
1868 Edison became an independent inventor in
Boston. Moving to New York the next year, he
undertook inventive work for major telegraph
companies. With money from those contracts he
established a series of manufacturing shops in
Newark, New Jersey, where he also employed
experimental machinists to assist in his
inventive work.
Edison soon acquired a reputation as a
first-rank inventor. His work included stock
tickers, fire alarms, methods of sending
simultaneous messages on one wire, and an
electrochemical telegraph to send messages by
automatic machinery. The crowning achievement of
this period was the quadruplex telegraph, which
sent two messages simultaneously in each
direction on one wire.
The problems of interfering signals in multiple
telegraphy and high speed in automatic
transmission forced Edison to extend his study
of electromagnetism and chemistry. As a result,
he introduced electrical and chemical
laboratories into his experimental machine
shops.
Near the end of 1875, observations of strange
sparks in telegraph instruments led Edison into
a public scientific controversy over what he
called "etheric force," which only later was
understood to be radio waves.
In
1876, Edison created a freestanding industrial
research facility incorporating both a machine
shop and laboratories. Here in Menlo Park, on
the rail line between New York City and
Philadelphia, he developed three of his greatest
inventions.
Urged by Western Union to develop a telephone
that could compete with Alexander Graham Bell's,
Edison invented a transmitter in which a button
of compressed carbon changed its resistance as
it was vibrated by the sound of the user's
voice, a new principle that was used in
telephones for the next century.
While working on the telephone in the summer of
1877, Edison discovered a method of recording
sound, and in the late fall he unveiled the
phonograph. This astounding instrument brought
him world fame as the "Wizard of Menlo Park" and
the "inventor of the age."
Finally, beginning in the fall of 1878, Edison
devoted thirty months to developing a complete
system of incandescent electric lighting. During
his lamp experiments, he noticed an electrical
phenomenon that became known as the "Edison
effect," the basis for vacuum-tube electronics.
He
left Menlo Park in 1881 to establish factories
and offices in New York and elsewhere. Over the
next five years he manufactured, improved, and
installed his electrical system around the
world.
In
1887, Edison built an industrial research
laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, that
remained unsurpassed until the twentieth
century. For four years it was the primary
research facility for the Edison lighting
companies, and Edison spent most of his time on
that work. In 1888 and 1889, he concentrated for
several months on a new version of the
phonograph that recorded on wax cylinders.
Edison worked with William Dickson from 1888
till 1893 on a motion picture camera. Although
Edison had always had experimental assistants,
this was the clearest instance of a co-invention
for which Edison received sole credit.
In 1887 Edison also returned to experiments on
the electromagnetic separation and concentration
of low-grade iron and gold ores, work he had
begun in 1879. During the 1890's he built a
full-scale plant in northern New Jersey to
process iron ore. This venture was Edison's most
notable commercial failure.
After the mining failure, Edison adapted some of
the machinery to process Portland cement. A
roasting kiln he developed became an industry
standard. Edison cement was used for buildings,
dams, and even Yankee Stadium.
In
the early years of the automobile industry there
were hopes for an electric vehicle, and Edison
spent the first decade of the twentieth century
trying to develop a suitable storage battery.
Although gas power won out, Edison's battery was
used extensively in industry.
In
World War I the federal government asked Edison
to head the Naval Consulting Board, which
examined inventions submitted for military use.
Edison worked on several problems, including
submarine detectors and gun location techniques.
By
the time of his death in 1931, Edison had
received 1,093 U.S. patents, a total still
untouched by any other inventor. Even more
important, he created a model for modern
industrial research. -
Source
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