Briefly about the article: Biography of Thomas Edison - a workaholic, plagiarist and genius who turned science into a profitable business.
Profession: genius
Thomas Edison
If Edison needed to find a needle in a haystack, he would begin to examine each straw with the painstakingness of a bee until he found what he was looking for.
Nikola Tesla
8 ohms, 10 newtons, 50 hertz, 220 volts, 1000 amps, a million tesla... Please note - no one says “4 Edisons”. Does this mean that our today's hero does not deserve to be immortalized in the SI system? On the one hand, for some reason relativity is not measured by Einsteins, and geometric angles by Euclideans. On the other hand, to turn his last name into a unit of measurement, a person must do something truly great. And extremely useful in everyday life, so inventing dynamite or setting fire to the Temple of Artemis are not suitable here.
Edison went down in history as the author of the phonograph, the electric chair and the “Hello” telephone greeting. Should we consider this nosy American a genius? Or is he just a successful businessman who made a lot of money from a little scientific fame - and a lot of scientific fame from a little money?
Stupid
Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan. With the same success, he could have been born in St. Petersburg or Moscow - there are 10 “golden-headed” ones in the USA alone. Seven years later, his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. Edison himself claimed that he had Dutch roots.
The father of the future inventor Sam Edison came to Milan from Canada. He brought with him his wife Nancy and four offspring. Thomas was their last child. The parents took care of the boy as best they could, because before that, two of their children died, and the third died shortly before his birth.
Edison himself did not like to remember his childhood. He only said that once he was taken to Canada, and the most severe shock was the death of a friend who drowned while they were swimming in a stream. It is also known that Edison had the nickname “El” in Milan.
In 1854 the family moved to Michigan. Edison was left alone with his parents, as the older “chicks” started their own families and began to live separately. The boy was sent to school, but somehow things didn’t work out for him there. He showed no special talents, and the teacher called him a stupid idiot to his face.
A caring mother organized home schooling for the boy. A tutor was hired who was able to switch Thomas from reading science fiction to popular science literature, and then textbooks. Soon Edison turned from a slob into a “bookworm”, a kind of “street nerd” - lively, inquisitive, slightly deaf. It is assumed that Thomas's hearing problems began in childhood after he suffered from scarlet fever, and subsequently did not pay attention to inflammation of the middle ear.
Edison later said that he began to hear poorly after the conductor hit him, a boy, in the ear and threw him off the train at full speed. Towards the end of his life, Edison claimed that the conductor, on the contrary, “helped” him not to miss the departing train by dragging him into the carriage by his ears.
From the age of 12, his life was connected with trains. Edison went to earn extra money: he sold sweets, vegetables and newspapers on trains going to Detroit. And in Detroit itself, the boy spent time at the library tables.
Then his commercial vein suddenly opened up: Thomas began to hire other hawker boys, and he himself only delivered food from Detroit for sale. Free time appeared, which the guy spent in a very unique way. Having agreed with the conductor, he equipped a chemical laboratory and a printing press in the baggage car, on which he began to publish his own newspaper, the Weekly Herald.
The enterprise went bankrupt in the literal sense of the word: Thomas almost burned the train with his chemical experiments, and (according to the legend mentioned above) the angry conductor threw Edison down the slope along with all his scientific belongings.
Science is a profitable business!
At the end of 1862, an event occurred without which Edison could have sold newspapers on the train for the rest of his life. While passing through the town of Mount Clemens, he saved the three-year-old son of the stationmaster, James Mackenzie, from being killed under the wheels of a handcar. In gratitude, he taught Edison telegraphy. In the mid-19th century, telegraph communication was something like nanotechnology is today - the latest peak of fashion, the pinnacle of progress and a ticket to a great future.
A year later, 16-year-old Edison left his parents and began to travel around the cities of the United States. It should be explained that telegraph operators at that time were like cyberpunk hackers. Young people had their own subculture, they wandered from city to city and could, without ever meeting their colleagues in person, recognize them by their “handwriting” of working with a key.
Thomas preferred night shifts, which gave him time to work on inventions and read a lot. The first of his “know-how” was a telegraph answering machine, which allowed a tired young man to sleep at work. Edison also invented a universal ticker machine - the forerunner of a printer that received telegraph messages with stock quotes and printed them, not in Morse code, but in English.
However, this did not end well - in 1867, Edison, working for the Associated Press, accidentally spilled sulfuric acid from a battery on the floor. It leaked through the boards on the floor below and straight onto the boss’s table. The next day, Thomas was fired.
Young Edison had outgrown everything the province had to offer him. He moved to New Jersey and took up inventing. In 1874, Thomas sold a four-line telegraph to Western Union. He didn't know whether to ask for 4 or 5 thousand dollars for it, and suggested that the buyer set the price himself. Western Union paid 10 thousand. With this money, a laboratory was equipped in Menlo Park (New Jersey) and workers were hired to conduct brainstorming sessions.
Edison and his phonograph. |
A semi-anecdotal legend says that near Edison’s house there was a gate that was very difficult to open. One day, friends quipped that the great inventor could have put together a better gate, to which Edison replied: “It seems to me that the gate is designed ingeniously. It is connected to my water supply pump, and every time you open it, twenty liters of water are pumped into the tank.”
While exploring the possibility of converting telegraph messages into sound, Thomas unwittingly invented the phonograph in 1877. Using a needle and foil, a recording of the song “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was made.
The device created a sensation. Recording and reproducing sound was considered science fiction at the time, so Edison earned the nickname “The Wizard of Menlo Park” (the area was later renamed “Edison”).
Edison was even frightened by the fame that had befallen him, saying that he did not trust things that worked the first time. The foil wore off after a few plays, but soon discs (records) appeared, followed by a multimillion-dollar recording industry.
Things were going well. Over the course of 10 years, the laboratory in Menlo Park grew and began to occupy 2 city blocks. By order of Edison, it contained “almost every substance available to mankind” - from radioactive ore to the hair of exotic animals. Thomas founded several subsidiaries and representative offices in other countries. His motto (and the main requirement for employees) was: “Invent only what will be in demand.”
| Edison in space | ||
In 1897-1898, the New York Journal published Garrett Servis's novel Edison's Conquest of Mars. This was a continuation of Serviss's previous brainchild - "Fighters from Mars" (a banal plagiarism from Wells's "War of the Worlds"). In the sequel, Edison personally went to take revenge on the Martians using the disintegration rays he invented. The inventor liked the book, but Wells, naturally, did not. The era of radio had already begun, but earthling ships maintained communication using flags. However, the pathetic plagiarist made several correct predictions: in this book, abductions of people to other planets were mentioned for the first time, a space suit and pyramids on Mars were described for the first time, and scenes of large-scale space battles were also shown.
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Let there be light!
And there was a demand for light. At the end of the 19th century, arc lamps were used for electric lighting - bright and powerful Yablochkov candles (nicknamed in Europe “Russian light”), which cost 20 kopecks and worked for about an hour and a half. Edison, with his characteristic impudence, announced in the newspapers that soon all of New York would be illuminated with his “fireproof lamps,” and electricity would be so cheap that only the rich would start burning candles.
By that time, Edison was many years behind other developers of incandescent lamps (Lodygin, Swan, Gebel), so he decided not to “reinvent the wheel,” but, as usual, to steal other people’s ideas, slightly improve them and pass them off as his own. This is where the warehouse of “every substance in the world” came in handy: Edison went through about 6,000 different materials for the filament, eventually settling on carbon fiber made from Japanese bamboo, which burned for 13.5 hours. Subsequently, the service life of such lamps was increased to 1200 hours.
Historians unanimously give Edison priority in the invention of the commercial incandescent lamp. Compared to analogues from other inventors, they were better vacuum-sealed, durable, and most importantly - cheap. In 1878, he founded the Edison Electric Light Co. (now General Electric) and started litigation with competitors that lasted for decades. By the beginning of the 20th century, the initiative was lost. Lamps with inert gas and tungsten filaments appeared. Edison was never able to take over this business.
Time for a change
The “War of Currents,” which lasted from 1882 to 2007 (in November 2007, the chief engineer of Consolidated Edison symbolically cut the last cable supplying direct current to New York), Edison also lost. He was a supporter of direct current, which was transmitted without loss only over short distances. All over the world, Edison built his power plants, connecting consumers to direct current.
Industrialist Westinghouse and his protégé Nikola Tesla, deceived by Edison, introduced alternating current, transmitted over hundreds of kilometers with almost no losses. Edison sensed competition and did what he always did: he started suing. He lost the trials, which infuriated him. Thomas lost his head so much that he launched a “black PR” company and even abandoned his pacifism.
His assistants were ordered to publicly kill animals with alternating current to convince the public of the mortal danger of the latter. The apotheosis was the execution of the elephant Topsy on January 4, 1903, who trampled three people (before that they tried to poison her with cyanide in carrots).
Edison did not calm down and paid for the creation of the first electric chair (naturally, running on alternating current) for William Kemmler, who killed his wife with an ax. The first 17-second discharge did not kill him, but left him with severe burns. The poor fellow was finished off with the second category. The sight was terrible - Kemmler was smoking, and the room smelled of burnt meat. Westinghouse commented: “It would have been better if he had been executed with an axe.”
In 1893, Westinghouse won a bid to build a power plant at Niagara Falls, promising to provide electricity to everyone. After this defeat, Edison also switched to alternating current machines, but continued to advertise constant current until his death.
And death was not far off. The last 30 years of his life, Edison did not shine with discoveries, devoting himself mainly to business. He worked until the end and died from complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931. Henry Ford sealed the air from Edison's room into a glass flask. The inventor's "last breath" is kept in the Ford Museum.
| Edison family | |
Mary Stilwell- Edison's first wife (December 25, 1871). Met Thomas at the telegraph office. She got married at the age of 16. She gave birth to three children and died on August 9, 1884 at the age of 29. Marion Edison(1872), nicknamed “Dot” by his father after the Morse code sign. She went to live in Germany. Thomas Edison youngest (1876), logically called “Dash” in the family. He led a chaotic life, sold his last name for advertising, and tried to grow mushrooms. William Edison(1878) - was smart, served in the army, but quarreled with his father and raised chickens for the rest of his life. Mina Miller married Edison in 1886 (she was 20 years old) after Thomas proposed to her in Morse code. She died in 1947, giving birth to three children. Madeline Edison(1888) was smart and proactive. She ran for Congress. The only one of Edison's children who gave him grandchildren. Charles Edison(1890) took over the business from his father and was a member of President Roosevelt's cabinet. Theodore Edison(1898) the only one in his family to graduate from college. Worked for his father, founded his own company, registered 80 patents, fought for the environment and against the Vietnam War. |
On the verge of fantasy
Despite all his dubious moral qualities, Americans idolize Edison. After all, he tried to be first at any cost - and this is very American. Even in other countries, Edison is usually presented as an omnipotent genius, able to get a star from the stars and make steam from a stone.
For example, in the book “ Future Eve“(written in 1883, that is, at the peak of Edison’s fame) by the French symbolist Villiers de Lisle-Adam, our hero designs for his friend an ideal android woman capable of feeling and love.
In the novel by Donald Bensen “And it was written...”(1978) the Tunguska meteorite turned out to be a crashed spaceship, the crew of which decided to accelerate the development of earthlings with the help of the First World War (after which people would develop the technologies they needed to return home). Interestingly, Edison becomes President of the United States and puts the aliens under arrest, trying to find out their technological secrets.
Edison worked for some time with Superman, who, however, preferred to collaborate with Tesla (one of the issues of the comics " American Justice League", 2003). Edison's ghost helped Roosevelt fight Hitler, who was trying to start a civil war between the blue and green Martians (comic book Tales from the Bully Pulpit, 2004), and in Tip Powers' novel " Best before date“The ghost of Edison is being hunted and he possesses a little boy.
In addition to worship, there was also ridicule. In one of the episodes " Simpsons Homer begins to imitate Edison and invents all sorts of nonsense like an electric hammer or extra chair legs. In the end, it turns out that Edison was the same loser who tried to imitate Leonardo da Vinci.
Edison also had a chance to be an anti-hero - for example, in the comic book “ Five fists of science"(2006) he prevented Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain from establishing world peace. According to some historians, Frank Baum copied the image the wizard of oz from Edison (remember: the trickster who passes off technical tricks as miracles and flies home at the end of the story in a hot air balloon).
Homer Simpson as Edison. |
| No tie | ||
Who are you, Mr. Edison? A workaholic who works 19 hours a day (while selecting material for an incandescent filament, he spent 45 hours without sleep). An experimenter who makes great discoveries by mechanically trying out all the options. A swindler who steals other people's ideas. He promised young Tesla $50,000 for improving the electric generator. The trusting Serb worked days and nights for a year, and when the desired was achieved, Edison announced with a laugh that he was joking about the reward. Edison spent his entire life in the “scientific business.” He had no interests or hobbies - only towards the end of his life did he become interested in proper nutrition, supposedly drinking half a liter of milk every hour. Edison's best friend was Henry Ford, who lived next door to him.
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Edison never delved into “high matters,” because fundamental science did not bring any profit. He did not have a classical scientific education, never thought abstractly and worked not according to brilliant intuition, but extensively, preferring to go through all possible options. He was not a scientist, but a businessman and a talented craftsman. Edison did not pave the way for us into space and did not discover the secrets of the atom. But he did a very important thing - he turned highbrow science onto a commercial track. The inventions made before him found everyday use only a hundred years later. Nowadays, useful inventions are introduced into everyday life within 5-10 years. Only the First World War spurred progress more than Edison.
On February 11, 1847, Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, an incredibly successful inventor, scientist and businessman who received 1,093 patents during his life.
Edison registered his first patent at the age of 22. Later, in his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, he was so productive in creating revolutionary new products that he once promised to produce one minor invention every 10 days and one major invention every six months. And although many of the discoveries attributed to him were created by other people, in any case, Edison played a significant role in shaping the modern world. And today we remember the most important technical achievements of the American engineer, which had the greatest impact on the modern world.
This was Edison's first patent. The device allowed voters to press “yes” or “no” buttons instead of writing on paper. Unfortunately, there was no demand for this device - as it turned out, when using it, politicians could no longer so shamelessly deceive those present and, through manipulation of the results, persuade colleagues to change their opinions. Parliament abandoned the invention in favor of the usual written account.
2. Automatic telegraph.
To improve the telegraph, Edison created another one - based on the perforated bur he had invented - which did not require a person to type a message at the other end. This new technology increased the number of words transmitted per minute from 25-40 to 1000! Edison also became the inventor of the "talking telegraph".
3. Elektrobor.
The forerunner of the perforated bur, which made holes in telegraphs, was the electric bur, which created a stencil for the writer that could be used to stamp ink onto paper and make duplicates.
4. Phonograph.
The phonograph recorded and reproduced audible sounds, first using paraffin paper and then using metal foil on a cylinder. Edison created many versions over several years, improving each model more and more.
5. Coal telephone.
Edison improved the weak point of Alexander Bell's telephone - the microphone. The original version used a carbon rod, but Edison decided to use a carbon battery, which significantly increased the stability and range of the signal.
6. Incandescent lamp with carbon filament.
Edison's carbon filament incandescent lamp represented the first commercially viable source of electric lighting. Previous versions were not as powerful and were made from very expensive materials such as platinum.
7. Electric lighting system.
Edison designed his electric lighting system to maintain the same amount of electricity throughout the device. He established his first permanent station in Lower Manhattan.
8. Electric generator.
Edison designed a device to control the flow of electricity between devices, an idea used in many of his creations such as the incandescent light bulb.
9. Motograph (speaking telephone).
This device lowered electrical currents from high to low, allowing voice sounds to be transmitted over long distances and at higher volumes. Another Edison invention, the carbon rheostat, helped create the motorograph. Edison's loudspeaker telephone was used in England for several years.
10. Technology of using fuel cells.
Edison became one of many in a long line of inventors trying to create the modern fuel cell, a device that would produce energy from the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, leaving only water as a byproduct.
Although Edison did not invent the stock market telegraph, he improved his own telegraph technology to create a universal printer that was faster than the existing version.
Edison designed a device that separated magnetic and non-magnetic materials. In this way, iron ore could be separated from unusable low-grade ores. This development later formed the basis of milling technology.
Edison was looking for a way to create “an instrument that will do for the eye what a phonograph does for the ear.” The Kinetoscope showed photographs in rapid succession, making the image appear to be moving.
While experimenting with an iron-nickel battery, Edison used an alkaline solution, which made it possible to obtain a more “long-lasting” battery. This product subsequently became one of the best-selling.
Although cement already existed, Edison perfected its production using a rotary kiln. The inventor's developments, as well as his own company Edison Portland Cement, made this product commercially available.
Thomas Alva Edison - who is he?
Beginning his career as a teenager in 1863 at the telegraph office, when virtually the only source of electricity was a primitive battery, he worked until his death in 1931 to usher in the era of electricity. From his laboratories and workshops came the phonograph, the carbon capsule of a microphone, incandescent lamps, a revolutionary generator of unprecedented efficiency, the first commercial lighting and power supply system, experimental basic elements of film equipment and many other inventions.
Brief biography of his youth
Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milena, the son of Samuel Edison and Nancy Eliot. His parents fled to the United States from Canada after his father's participation in the Mackenzie Rebellion in 1837. When the boy turned 7, his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. Thomas Alva Edison, the youngest of seven children, lived here until he began life on his own at the age of sixteen. He studied very little at school, only a few months. He was taught reading, writing and arithmetic by his mother, a teacher. He was always a very inquisitive child and was drawn to knowledge himself.
Thomas Alva Edison spent his childhood reading a lot, and his sources of inspiration were the books “The School of Natural Philosophy” by R. Parker and “Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and the Arts.” The desire for self-improvement remained with him throughout his life.
Alva started working at an early age, like most children of that time. At 13, he got a job selling newspapers and candy on the local railroad that connected Port Huron with Detroit. He devoted most of his free time to reading scientific and technical books, and also took the opportunity to learn how to operate the telegraph. By the age of 16, Edison was already experienced enough to work full time as a telegraph operator.
First invention
The development of the telegraph was the first step in the communications revolution, and it grew at an enormous rate in the second half of the 19th century. This gave Edison and his colleagues the opportunity to travel, see the country and gain experience. Alva worked in a number of cities throughout the United States before arriving in Boston in 1868. Here Edison began to change his profession as a telegraph operator to an inventor. He patented an electrical vote recorder, a device intended for use in elected bodies such as Congress to speed up the process. The invention was a commercial failure. Edison decided that in the future he would only invent things that he was completely confident in the public demand for.
Thomas Alva Edison: biography of the inventor
In 1869, he moved to New York, where he continued to work on improvements to the telegraph and created his first successful device, the Universal Stock Printer. Thomas Alva Edison, whose inventions earned him $40,000, had the necessary funds in 1871 to open his first small laboratory and production facility in Newark, New Jersey. Over the next five years, he invented and made devices that greatly increased the speed and efficiency of the telegraph. Edison also found time to marry Mary Stilwell and start a family.
In 1876, he sold all his production in Newark and moved his wife, children and employees to the small village of Menlo Park, 40 km southwest of New York. Edison built a new facility that contained everything necessary for inventive work. This research laboratory was the first of its kind and became the model for later institutions such as Bell Laboratories. They say it was his greatest invention. Here Edison began to change the world.
The first phonograph
The first great invention in Menlo Park was the phonograph. The first machine that could record and reproduce sound created a sensation and brought Edison worldwide fame. He toured the country with it and in April 1878 was invited to the White House to demonstrate the phonograph to President Rutherford Hayes.
Electric light
Edison's next great endeavor was the development of a practical incandescent light bulb. The idea of electric lighting was not new, and several people were already working on it, even developing some forms of it. But until this time, nothing had been created that could be practical for home use.
Edison's merit is the invention of not only the incandescent lamp, but also an electrical supply system that had everything necessary to be practical, safe and economical. After a year and a half of work, he achieved success when an incandescent lamp, which used a carbonized filament, shone for 13.5 hours.
The first public demonstration of the lighting system took place in December 1879, when the entire Menlo Park laboratory complex was equipped with it. The inventor devoted the next few years to creating electric power. In September 1882, the first commercial power plant, located on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, began operating, providing electricity and light to customers in an area of one square mile. Thus began the era of electricity.
Edison General Electric
The success of electric lighting catapulted the inventor to fame and fortune as the new technology quickly spread throughout the world. Electric companies continued to grow until they merged in 1889 to form Edison General Electric. Despite the use of the inventor's last name in the name of the corporation, he did not control it. The enormous amounts of capital required to develop the lighting industry required the involvement of investment banks such as J.P. Morgan. When Edison General Electric merged with its main competitor, Thompson-Houston, in 1892, the inventor's name was dropped from its name.
Widowhood and second marriage
Thomas Alva Edison, whose personal life was overshadowed by the death of his wife Mary in 1884, began to devote less time to Menlo Park. And because of his involvement in business, he began to visit there even less. Instead, he and his three children—Marion Estelle, Thomas Alva Edison, Jr., and William Leslie—lived in New York City. A year later, while vacationing at a friend's house in New England, Edison met twenty-year-old Mina Miller and fell in love with her. The marriage took place in February 1886, and the couple moved to West Orange, New Jersey, where the groom purchased the Glenmont estate for his bride. The couple lived here until their death.
Laboratory in West Orange
After the move, Thomas Alva Edison experimented in a makeshift workshop at a light bulb plant in nearby Harrison, New Jersey. A few months after his marriage, he decided to build a new laboratory in West Orange, a mile from his home. By that time, he had sufficient resources and experience to build the best equipped and largest laboratory, superior to all others, for the rapid and inexpensive development of inventions.
The new complex of five buildings opened in November 1887. The three-story main building housed a power plant, mechanical workshops, warehouses, experimental facilities, and a large library. Four smaller buildings, built perpendicular to the main one, housed physical, chemical and metallurgical laboratories, a sample workshop and a chemical storage facility. The large size of the complex allowed Edison to work on not just one, but ten or twenty projects at the same time. Buildings were added or rebuilt to meet the inventor's changing needs until his death in 1931. Over the years, factories were built around the laboratory to produce Edison's creations. The entire complex eventually covered more than 8 hectares, and 10,000 people worked there during the First World War.
Recording industry
After opening the new laboratory, Thomas Alva Edison continued work on the phonograph, but then put it aside to work on electric lighting in the late 1870s. By 1890, he began producing phonographs for home and commercial use. As with electric lights, he developed everything needed to make them work, including devices for playing and recording sound, as well as equipment for releasing them. At the same time, Edison created an entire recording industry. The development and improvement of the phonograph proceeded continuously and continued almost until the death of the inventor.
Cinema
At the same time, Edison set about creating a device that could do for the eyes what a phonograph does for the ears. Cinema became it. The inventor demonstrated it in 1891, and two years later industrial production of “films” began in a tiny film studio built in a laboratory known as “Black Maria.”
As with electric lighting and the phonograph, a complete system for making and exhibiting motion pictures had previously been developed. Edison's initial work in cinema was innovative and original. However, many people became interested in this new industry and wanted to improve on the inventor's early cinematic works. Therefore, many people contributed to the rapid development of cinema. The new industry was already thriving in the late 1890s, and by 1918 it had become so competitive that Edison left the business altogether.
Iron ore failure
Advances in phonographs and motion pictures in the 1890s helped offset the greatest failure of Edison's career. For ten years he worked in his laboratory and in old iron mines in northwestern New Jersey on methods for extracting iron ore to satisfy the insatiable demand of Pennsylvania iron and steel mills. To finance this work, Edison sold all his shares in General Electric.
Despite ten years of work and millions of dollars spent on research and development, he was unable to make the process commercially viable and lost all of his investment. This would have meant financial ruin if Edison had not continued to develop the phonograph and cinema simultaneously. Be that as it may, the inventor entered the new century still financially secure and ready to take on a new challenge.
Alkaline battery
Edison's new challenge was the development of a battery for use in electric vehicles. The inventor was very fond of cars, and throughout his life he owned many types of them, powered by different energy sources. Edison believed that electricity was the best fuel for them, but the capacity of conventional lead-acid batteries was not enough for this. In 1899 he began work on an alkaline battery. This project turned out to be the most difficult and took ten years. By the time the new alkaline batteries were ready, gasoline cars had improved so much that electric cars were being used less frequently, mostly as delivery vehicles in cities. However, alkaline batteries proved useful for lighting railroad cars and cabins, marine buoys, and Unlike iron ore, the significant investment paid off handsomely, and the battery eventually became Edison's most profitable product.
Thomas A. Edison Inc.
By 1911, Thomas Alva Edison had developed extensive industrial activities in West Orange. Numerous factories were built around the laboratory, and the complex's workforce grew to several thousand people. To better manage the work, Edison gathered all the companies he founded into one corporation, Thomas A. Edison Inc., of which he himself became president and chairman. He was 64 years old, and his role in the company and in his life was beginning to change. Edison delegated much of his daily work to others. The laboratory itself engaged in less original experiments and improved existing products. Although Edison continued to file and receive patents for new inventions, the days of creating new things that changed lives and created new industries were behind him.
Work for defense
In 1915, Edison was asked to chair the Naval Advisory Committee. The United States was approaching participation in World War I, and the creation of the committee was an attempt to organize the talents of the country's leading scientists and inventors for the benefit of the American military. Edison accepted the appointment. The council did not contribute significantly to the final victory, but it served as a precedent for future successful collaboration between scientists, inventors, and the US military. During the war, at the age of seventy, Edison spent several months on Long Island on a Navy ship experimenting with methods of detecting submarines.
Golden Jubilee
Thomas Alva Edison went from being an inventor and industrialist to a cultural icon, a symbol of American enterprise. In 1928, in recognition of his achievements, the US Congress awarded him a special Medal of Honor. In 1929, the country celebrated the golden anniversary of electric lighting. The culmination of the celebration was a banquet in honor of Edison, given by Henry Ford at Greenfield Village, the Museum of New American History (it included a complete recreation of the Menlo Park laboratory). The honor was attended by the President and many presenters and inventors.
Replacement for rubber
Edison did his last experiments in life at the request of his good friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone in the late 1920s. They wanted to find an alternative source of rubber for use in car tires. Until that time, tire production used natural rubber, extracted from the rubber tree, which does not grow in the United States. Crude rubber was imported and became more and more expensive. With his characteristic energy and thoroughness, Edison tested thousands of different plants to find suitable substitutes, eventually finding that goldenrod was a substitute for rubber. Work on this project continued until the death of the inventor.
Last years
During the last two years of Edison's life, his health deteriorated significantly. He spent a lot of time away from the laboratory, working instead from home in Glenmont. Trips to the family villa in Fort Myers, Florida, became longer. Edison was past eighty and suffering from a number of ailments. In August 1931 he became very ill. Edison's health steadily deteriorated, and at 3:21 a.m. on October 18, 1931, the great inventor died.
A city in New Jersey, two colleges and many schools are named in his honor.
There are different stories about Thomas Edison. His life is so extraordinary and bizarre, and his genius is so tireless and practical that the biography of this man always presents something new.
Almost everyone knows about this prolific inventor. Everyone has heard the concept of "Edison's light bulb." This is Thomas Alva Edison, who recently celebrated his 170th birthday. The personality is gifted and contradictory. There are many legends and myths about him.
About Edison“He is truly one of the least famous of all known men, and much of what everyone thinks about him is no more reliable than a fairy tale” (historian Keith Nier).
For many Americans, Thomas Edison, whose biography is full of unexpected twists of fate, will forever remain the real embodiment of the American dream, the most successful success and respectability. We use telephones and mail, ride trains, listen to music, and we owe it to him. 1093 patented inventions, and according to unofficial data - almost three thousand. A great inventor, talented and successful with an extraordinary biography. And this person was called “limited”!?
Comes from childhood
We travel back to 1847 to the bustling port of Milan, Ohio. Here, on February 11, a child, the seventh in a row, was born into the family of a political emigrant from Canada and his wife. Named Thomas. By the way, his three older sisters and brothers did not live to be 10 years old.
Little Al didn't speak until he was almost four years old. But as soon as we started, there was no way for adults. I had to explain to the inquisitive boy the workings of everything he had to deal with. No one could refuse. Another question would follow: “Why?”
When Thomas was 7, the family settled in the town of Port Huron in Michigan. It is known that the boy had a wide forehead and a head much larger than that of children of his age.
He started going to primary school, but after three months he continued his education at home.
There are different versions of why this happened:
- The teacher did not like his persistent interrogations too much. He considered the student hyperactive and his brain “complicated.” And when the teacher spoke rudely about Thomas, calling him a “stupid,” the boy left school.
- Mom read aloud the teacher’s letter that her son was a genius, and school was not able to teach him anything, so it was better to teach him at home. They say that Edison found the letter after his mother’s death. And its content was different: “Your son is mentally retarded...”, and further that they cannot teach him at school, he must be taught at home. One of the greatest inventors of the century cried like a child. An entry appeared in his personal diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally retarded child. Thanks to his heroic mother, he became one of the greatest geniuses of his age."
- And on November 29, 1907, the literary magazine T.P's Weekly published an interview with Thomas Edison, telling another version of this story, refuting the previous ones. The boy himself accidentally heard the words of the teacher and learned that they no longer wanted to keep him at school. He creates problems. In running to his mother in tears, he sought her protection. She told the teacher that her son was much smarter than the teacher himself, took the child from school and, being a teacher by training, began to teach him. Tom decided that he must become worthy of her trust and show that faith in your son is not in vain.
Nancy Edison is the godly and attractive daughter of respected Presbyterian minister and accomplished educator Elliot. She always believed in the child's abilities. Her son’s unusual behavior and appearance served exclusively as signs of an outstanding mind. Tom loved his mother and always said that she made him. He mastered reading, writing and arithmetic with her. He didn't want to disappoint her.
Samuel Edison, a rather worldly man, encouraged his son to read the great classics, rewarding him with 10 cents for each book he read. This endeavor bore fruit after a while. Thomas's interest in world history and English literature turned out to be very deep. And his special love for Shakespeare even inspired him to try to become an actor. But either the voice was too high, or shyness played a role, but the young man refused this idea. It will be later. In the meantime...
The boy loved to read and make crafts. The appetite for knowledge grew so much that parents had to resort to the help of the local library. Starting with the last book on the shelf, he read everything without understanding it. My parents managed to stop the disorderly reading in time, and thanks to them, my hobby became more selective. Reading could not satisfy his ever-increasing interest in science, and his parents were unable to explain to him questions related to physics or mathematics.
At the age of ten, he opened a list of inventions, which included a sawmill and a railroad that he made. His first own laboratory began work. He conducted chemical experiments here - another hobby.
Young entrepreneur
The boy always had pocket money - his relatives did not skimp. Only experiments and numerous experiments required additional funds.
Inventions of Thomas Edison
Let's start, perhaps, with the well-known “Edison light bulb”. You may have heard negative answers to the question of whether Edison invented the first light bulb. Attempts to illuminate the world using electricity were made half a century before Edison. The work was carried out with arc lighting, bright enough to illuminate the street, and with an incandescent lamp, which is better used indoors. Charles Kist began working on arc lighting in 1877. Two years later, Edison noted breakthroughs with incandescent lamps:
- His light bulb could burn for a long time and illuminate the house for many hours.
- He invented an electrical power system that brought electricity into the house with dynamos, wires, fuses and switches.
But out of more than a thousand patents received, the very first - for the invention of an electric vote recorder during voting - was received by him in 1869. Members of the Massachusetts Legislative Assembly refused to buy it, even denigrated it in every possible way, citing the fact that the car was capable of disrupting the political “status quo.” For Thomas this was a disappointment. But he learned the main lesson: don't waste your time on something that people don't want and won't buy.
But the invention of the stock ticker for transmitting stock quotes at the end of 1870 was received with a bang and brought the inventor 40 thousand dollars. He organized their production in a workshop created with this money in New Jersey (Newark).
In 1876, his laboratory appeared in Mentlo Park, well equipped, with a fully staffed staff, suitable for testing, inventing and improving various technical products. The Menlopark Laboratory is considered a real prototype of current research institutes and industrial laboratories. Some even consider this invention of Edison's greatest. And his first product was a carbon telephone microphone, which significantly increased the volume and clarity of the Bell telephone.
But Edison called the phonograph his first successful invention and his favorite. He stated this repeatedly. The creator worked on it for more than half a century. Since its first appearance in 1877, he has made many improvements to his “child.”
But industrial electric lighting is considered the best invention of the genius. In the electrical distribution system he created, the lamps worked together and economically. Thousands of experiments - and the result is a lamp with a carbon filament that can burn for 40 hours. The year 1882 is called the beginning of the lighting industry in the States; the first central power plant opened in New York.
The Edison General Electric Company was organized to manufacture lamps and lighting system equipment, so that in 1892, after merging with its largest rival, the Thomson Houston Electric Company, the world's largest industrial concern, the General Electric Company Joint Stock Company, appeared, which today one of the ten most valuable companies in the world.
Edison also owned the discovery of thermionic emission - this is already “pure” science (1883). It was called the Edison effect and was later used in detecting radio waves.
Life lessons“Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who didn’t realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
It sounds strange, but if you look at it realistically, Thomas Alva Edison did not invent anything new. The telephone and telegraph were invented before him. But he significantly improved the technology, bringing it closer to the consumer. This brilliant inventor worked with many fundamental discoveries, and, I must say, did a great job. A record number for one person - 1093 American patents for inventions, hundreds - patents from France, Great Britain, Germany, etc.
Life lessons“If I come across something, I immediately look for a way to improve it.”
Hearing
Deafness turned out to be a factor that shaped the personality of the inventor, but it is difficult to judge whether it was negative or positive.
According to Edison, everything happened due to scarlet fever suffered in childhood. He was absolutely not deaf. I just heard very poorly. I haven’t heard birds singing since I was twelve – these are Thomas’s words. He also told another story: he was hit in the ear by a conductor for experiments with phosphorus that ended in an explosion in a local depot car. It is hardly possible to name the exact cause of hearing loss.
He was constantly looking for a way to compensate. He acquired knowledge in a rather individualistic style. In the most difficult cases, he showed a mind like a kaleidoscope, a legendary memory, patience and dexterity. And any experiments were carried out that made it possible to put forward and substantiate their own theories.
Life lessons“One day man will harness the rise and fall of the tides, harness the power of the sun, and unleash atomic energy.”
About personal life
In many things this great mind remained a typical Victorian man with very definite tastes. Exclusively thanks to his desire to create something new, he was reliably protected from women. The only one who dominated his heart was his mother.
Having married Mary Stilwell, he soon discovered that his wife was not a partner in his affairs, which made him quite upset. From the marriage a daughter and two sons were born. Mary died early, in 1884. A brain tumor. With his second wife, they gave birth to three more.
A man who spent his whole life in search, in discoveries, in new plans, by the end of the 20s his pace had noticeably slowed down. He received the last 1093rd patent at the age of 83, almost without leaving home, and worked there. Until his last day, Edison remained surrounded by associates and friends. The names of many and success stories are known to everyone: Charles Lindbergh, Marie Curie, Henry Ford, Herbert Hoover.
On the evening of October 18, 1931, Thomas Edison passed away in West Orange, New Jersey. Many people around the world briefly turned off their power in honor of this man.
Life lessons"I want to save and promote human life, not destroy it... I am proud of the fact that I have never invented a weapon to kill."
He was not flawless, much of what was said about him was in fact only myths, but it was a rare person who served humanity so selflessly, worked with such tenacity and did more to make dreams and fantasies become reality.
The last lesson of life“If there is an afterlife, great. If not, well, that’s also good. I lived my life with pleasure and did everything I could.”
Amazing facts from life
The Menlo-Patka laboratory, the first scientific center in human history, had workshops and libraries. Thousands of workers worked here. Drawings and details were replaced by sandwiches and soda, Edison sat down at the organ, and then everyone relaxed. And then again - for wear and tear. All over the world we have heard about a special questionnaire that the inventor came up with for job seekers. He wanted talented enthusiasts and originalists to work in his laboratory. He may well have preferred an imaginative amateur to a certified specialist.
About Edison"One of Edison's most remarkable talents was his ability to assemble teams and create an organizational structure that fostered the creativity of many people." (historian Greg Field)
Obstacles never stopped this man. Once, when his next invention - a printing machine - was failing, he worked continuously in the attic of the factory for 60 hours until it worked properly. After that he slept for 30 hours.
Life lessons“Invention is ninety percent sweat and one percent inspiration.”
there will be other lessons from the great inventor.
He is called differently: a “patent thief”, a deceiver of geniuses, in modern terms - a “producer from science”, an occultist, a self-taught genius, an enthusiast who did not value money, and this list can be added to for a long time. At the same time, he was an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, winner of the highest US award - the Congressional Gold Medal, and, according to the New York Table, the greatest living American.
Date of birth: February 11, 1847
Date of death: October 18, 1931
Place of birth: United States of America
Thomas Alva Edison- famous entrepreneur. Also Thomas Edison became famous as an inventor. It was he who created the well-known lamp and made radical changes to the already existing telephone and telegraph.
Thomas first saw the world in a poor family. His father, Samuel, initially lived in Canada, but after participating in an act of disobedience to authorities, he fled to the United States. Mother, Nancy, was born into a priest's family and worked as a school teacher in her youth. Thomas, born into the Edison family, had poor health in early childhood, but was distinguished by his powers of observation. At school he did not show much success, however, like many outstanding scientists. After a short stay at school, his mother transferred him to home schooling.
The inventor never received primary school education. At home, the boy read a lot, at a very young age he mastered a book that described the main scientific and technical achievements of that time. The boy also created an experimental site in the basement of his parents’ house.
For his experiments, Thomas needs money to buy consumables and reagents. He earned it on his own by working as a fruit and vegetable seller and then as a newspaper seller. With the money received, the young scientist managed to equip a laboratory not at home, but in one of the unnecessary carriages. A little later, Thomas is tasked with creating a newspaper related to trains himself.
One day Edison managed to save the life of the stationmaster's son. The grateful father of the rescued son taught the savior how to use the telegraph. After training, Thomas immediately applied his new knowledge - he built a telegraph line for himself. It took five years to meticulously study the work of a telegraph operator. At the same time, the young man read a lot. One of the books he read, authored by Faraday, gave Thomas the idea of his own inventions.
The result was not long in coming - a year later he patented a vote recorder powered by electricity. It was not possible to monetize the invention, and from that time on Edison invested only in those inventions that promised income. One of the most profitable inventions was the telegraph apparatus. The patent for it allowed the inventor to earn several tens of thousands of dollars - an astronomical amount for 1870.
This money was used to equip a more modern workshop, where work began on improving the telegraph. After a short time, the modernized device could already transmit up to four messages at once.
Soon Edison's laboratory expanded even more and was staffed with qualified personnel. Everything was aimed at the commercial component of scientific work. This was probably the first technology park in history. It was there that a new product was presented - a microphone with a carbon element. The innovation was that such a device worked an order of magnitude better than the previous ones. At the same time, the phonograph was born.
But the peak of his inventive career was, of course, the incandescent lamp. Lamps existed before Edison, but assembly line production and lower operating costs led to their widespread use. Without exaggeration, it was Edison who stood at the origins of the electrification of America. His name is also associated with the formation of the General Electric company.
In 1931, Thomas Edison died at the age of 84. This happened in the USA, in the state of New Jersey, in the inventor’s own house.
Achievements of Thomas Edison:
Received more than a thousand patents for various inventions
Received recognition from the US Congress by receiving the Gold Medal
Brought the electric lamp to the commercial market
Solved the problem of synthetic rubber
Established technologies for the synthesis of phenol and benzene
Dates from the biography of Thomas Edison:
1847 born in USA
1854 moved to Michigan
1857 founded the first laboratory
1862 founded a newspaper for distribution on trains
1863 became a telegraph operator
1869 received the first patent
1870 received an astronomical $40,000 for some of his patents
1877 introduced the phonograph
1878 Incandescent lamps were introduced into commercial circulation
1882 put the power plant into operation
1887 became the founder of the laboratory in West Orange
1931 Thomas Edison died
Interesting Thomas Edison Facts:
Never finished primary school
Planned to invent a helicopter that used gunpowder as fuel
Was distinguished by his ability to work - could work more than 15 hours daily
Had hearing problems
Was an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Suggested at least 10 ways to use the phonograph, including in advertising
While working on the lamp, I used more than 5,000 materials in turn.
An asteroid named after Edison
There is a feature film based on the biography of the inventor
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