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's actually one of the least famous of all famous people, 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 a real embodiment American dream, the most good luck 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 three months later he continued studying at home.
Set forth different versions, Why did it happen so:
- 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 mentally retarded child. Thanks to his heroic mother, he became one of the greatest geniuses of his age."
- And November 29, 1907 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. He ran to his mother in tears and looked for she had protection. She told the teacher that her son was much smarter than the teacher himself, took the child from school and herself, being a teacher by training, began to teach him. Tom decided that he must become worthy of her trust and show that faith in her 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. Unusual behavior son, appearance for her they 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 Legislative Assembly Massachusetts refused to buy it, and even denigrated it in every possible way, citing the fact that the machine was capable of disrupting the political “status quo.” For Thomas this was a disappointment. But he learned for himself main lesson: Don't waste your time on things 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 real prototype 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. Before 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, and not destroy it... I am proud of the fact that I never invented a weapon for killing."
He was not flawless, much of what was said about him was in fact just myths, but rare person served humanity so selflessly, worked so hard and did more to make dreams and fantasies come true.
Last lesson 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 greatest talents was his ability to assemble teams and create organizational structure, which contributed to the creativity of many people." (historian Greg Field)
Obstacles never stopped this man. One day, when his next invention - typewriter- failed, he worked continuously in the attic of the plant 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.
Can you imagine our present life without an ordinary light bulb? And there is no need to do this - thanks to the knowledge and perseverance of Thomas Alva Edison, it was invented. In addition to the incandescent lamp, phonograph and kinetoscope, Edison patented a total of 1093 inventions. To achieve this result, he needed enormous knowledge, although he not only did not graduate from the university, but even from a regular school, which he attended for only 3 months. The boy's education was mainly carried out by his mother - she always believed in her son's abilities.
Tom was a self-taught genius who was not spoiled by the official school system, so he thought differently than other people. Although the Edison family belonged to the middle class, it always lived poorly - in addition to Thomas, affectionately called Al, there were six other children. To help his family, the boy began earning money at the age of 12 - first he sold newspapers, and then he began publishing his own and selling it on trains; V better times Its circulation reached 400 copies per day. At the same time, the future inventor read absolutely everything that fell into his hands - Shakespeare, the Bible, books about English literature and historical studies, but above all Thomas was interested in scientific publications, which even then aroused his deep interest.
Using your contacts on railway, Edison set up a chemical laboratory in an old boxcar. However, a fire soon broke out there, and one of the railroad workers beat Tom so badly that the 14-year-old boy almost lost his hearing forever. A few months later, Tom literally snatched the station master’s son from under the wheels of the train, and as a sign of gratitude, the father of the saved baby taught the young genius Morse code - this is how Edison became a telegraph operator. Things were going well for him, and he continued his research. When he was 16 years old, Edison invented an automatic telegraph that could receive messages without human intervention. However, due to ignorance, Edison did not patent his first invention, so he received his first patent only after moving to Boston, where he got a job at a telegraph company and invented an electrographic device that automatically counted the votes of participants in various meetings and meetings.
But 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. It was then that the disappointed Edison decided that from that moment all his inventions would serve the benefit of humanity, and not the elite of society. He borrowed money and went to New York. The young man was instantly hired with a fantastic salary of $300 a month. All free time he again began to spend on inventions; in particular, then Edison began working on a quadruplex - a device that would allow two messages to be sent simultaneously in different directions.
He also improved it - and for the right to use this device, the Gould company paid the inventor 40 thousand dollars. For Edison, this was a huge amount, which immediately made him a rich man. Edison also tried to improve the production of cement in order to build cheaper houses. To do this, he organized a company and dreamed that in the future phonographs, furniture, refrigerators and pianos would be made from cement. Alas, this company went bankrupt. Since childhood, Edison learned to endure defeat. One of his experiments was to have two cats, to whose tails he attached wires, rub against each other, generating static electricity; enraged animals scratched the young inventor.
Another time, Edison fed a friend the powder used to make carbonated water - the future genius expected that the powder would emit gas in his stomach and allow his friend to fly into the air, like balloon. In subsequent years, Edison sold his patents to various businesses and made so much money that he created a real research laboratory in Newark. That same year he married Mary Stivel, from whom three children were born. When Thomas was 29 years old, Alexander Bell invented the telephone, and Edison enthusiastically began to improve the new product - in particular, he designed a microphone that transmitted sound loudly and clearly.
Edison moved his company to Menlo Park, New Jersey, and turned it into a large research laboratory, where he was one of the first to introduce team work methods. A year later, he invented the phonograph, a device that recorded sound on zinc foil. At first, the device was intended for businessmen so that they could dictate letters without a stenographer - and although Edison promoted his invention throughout America and even met with the President of the United States on this occasion, there was little interest in the phonograph.
Only in the 90s of the 19th century, when the inventor improved his device and began producing it both for business people and for home use, and at the same time organized the production of blank rollers for recording, the new product received wide recognition. To find the optimal material for an incandescent lamp filament, he conducted 2954 experiments with various materials until he found tungsten, which, under the influence of an electric current, glowed in a glass bulb, giving a bright light - this is how the world's first household light bulb appeared.
Among Edison's outstanding ideas one can name the principle of distributing electricity between consumers. A series of high-profile successes was overshadowed by the death of his wife, but two years later Edison married again - to Mina Miller. Edison did not imagine that “live” pictures would become so popular that people would want to watch them in groups, seated in front of a movie screen. In New Jersey, Edison created a huge scientific center, where he worked until the end of his life. A year later it was the world's largest research center, whose heyday came during World War I, when the inventor and 10 thousand of his employees worked on fulfilling military orders.
The fruit of these developments was the demonstration of the first moving picture shown in a kinetoscope. However, in those years the film industry was developing at such a frantic pace that Edison chose to do something else. But the inventor managed to create an accumulator - a battery that stored electricity and helped start cars, illuminate railway cars, and was widely used for signaling and in mine lamps; all these products turned out to be very profitable.
Design Bureau Ural from Yekaterinburg makes such motors, or rather hydraulic motors, that Edison would be jealous. For example, the hydraulic motor 303 is fully adjustable and therefore very easy to use.
Someone invented the incandescent lamp, and someone invented how to make a candle out of it. Interesting video:
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) - an outstanding American inventor and businessman who received over four thousand patents in different countries planets. The most famous among them were the incandescent lamp and the phonograph. His merits have been recognized top level- in 1928, the inventor was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and two years later Edison became an honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Thomas Alva Edison
“Faith is a comforting rattle for those who cannot think.”
“Our big flaw is that we give up too quickly. Most Right way The key to success is to always try one more time.”
“Most people are willing to work endlessly to avoid having to think a little.”
Edison was considered mentally retarded as a child
Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in the small town of Mylen, located in Ohio. His ancestors moved overseas in the 18th century from Holland. The inventor's great-grandfather participated in the War of Independence on the side of the metropolis. For this, he was condemned by the revolutionaries who won the war and deported to Canada. There his son Samuel was born, who became Thomas's grandfather. The inventor's father, Samuel Jr., married Nancy Eliot, who later became his mother. After unsuccessful uprising, in which Samuel Jr. participated, the family fled to the United States, where Thomas was born.
During his childhood, Thomas was inferior in height to many of his peers, looking a little sickly and frail. He suffered a severe illness from scarlet fever and practically lost his hearing. This affected his studies at school - the future inventor studied there for only three months, after which he was sent to home schooling with the teacher’s insulting verdict of “limited.” As a result, her son was educated by her mother, who managed to instill in him an interest in life.
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Businessman by nature
Despite the harsh imprisonment of his teachers, the boy grew up inquisitive and often visited the Port Huron People's Library. Among the many books he read, he especially remembered “Natural and Experimental Philosophy” by R. Green. In the future, Edison will repeat all the experiments that were described in the source. He was also interested in the work of steamships and barges, as well as carpenters at the shipyard, which the boy could watch for hours.
Edison in his youth
From a young age, Thomas helped his mother earn money by selling vegetables and fruits with her. He saved the funds he received to conduct experiments, but there was a catastrophic lack of money, which forced Edison to get a job as a newspaperman on a railway line with a salary of 8-10 dollars. At the same time, the enterprising young man began publishing his own newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, and sold it successfully.
When Thomas turned 19, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky and got a job at the Western Union news agency. His appearance in this company was a consequence of the human feat of the inventor, who saved him from certain death under the wheels of a train three year old son the head of one of the railway stations. As gratitude, he helped teach him the telegraph business. Edison managed to get work on the night shift because during the day he devoted himself to reading books and experiments. During one of them, the young man shed sulfuric acid, which leaked through cracks in the floor to the floor below where his boss worked.
First inventions
Thomas's first experience as an inventor did not bring him fame. His first apparatus for counting votes during elections turned out to be of no use to anyone; American parliamentarians considered it completely useless. After the first failures, Edison began to adhere to his golden rule - not to invent something that is not in demand.
In 1870, luck finally came to the inventor. For a stock ticker (a device for recording stock exchange rates automatically), he was paid 40 thousand dollars. With this money, Thomas created his own workshop in Newark and began producing tickers. In 1873, he invented a diplex telegraph model, which he soon improved, turning it into a quadruplex with the ability to transmit four messages simultaneously.
Creation of the phonograph
A device for recording and reproducing sound, which the author called the phonograph, glorified Edison for centuries. It was created as a result of the inventor's work on the telegraph and telephone. In 1877, Thomas was working on a machine that could record messages in the form of intaglio impressions on paper, which could then be sent repeatedly using the telegraph.
The active work of the brain led Edison to the idea that a telephone conversation could be recorded in a similar way. The inventor continued to experiment with a membrane and a small press, which were held over moving paraffin-coated paper. The sound waves emitted by the voice created vibrations, leaving marks on the surface of the paper. Later, instead of this material, a metal cylinder wrapped in foil appeared.
Edison with a phonograph
During a test of the phonograph in August 1877, Thomas uttered the line from the nursery rhyme, “Mary had a little lamb,” and the device successfully repeated the phrase. A few months later, he founded the Edison Talking Phonograph enterprise, receiving income from demonstrating his device to people. Soon the inventor sold the rights to make a phonograph for 10 thousand dollars.
Other famous inventions
Edison's prolific output as an inventor is amazing. The list of his know-how includes many useful and bold decisions for its time, which in their own way changed the world. Among them:
- Mimeograph- a device for printing and duplicating written sources in small editions, which Russian revolutionaries loved to use.
- A method of storing organic food in a glass container was patented in 1881 and involved the creation of a vacuum environment in the container.
- Kinetoscope- a device for watching a movie by one person. It was a massive box with an eyepiece through which you could see a recording lasting up to 30 seconds. It was in good demand before the advent of film projectors, to which it seriously lost in terms of mass viewing.
- Telephone membrane- a device for reproducing sound, which laid the foundations of modern telephony.
- Electric chair- apparatus for conducting death penalty. Edison convinced the public that this was one of the most humane methods of execution and obtained permission for its use in a number of states. The first “client” of the deadly invention was a certain W. Kemmer, executed in 1896 for the murder of his wife.
- Stencil pen- a pneumatic device for perforating printed paper, patented in 1876. For its time it was the most efficient device, capable of copying documents. 15 years later, S. O'Reilly created a tattoo machine based on this pen.
- Fluoroscope- an apparatus for fluoroscopy, which was developed by Edison's assistant K. Delli. At that time, X-rays were not considered particularly dangerous, so he tested the device on his own hands. As a result, both limbs were subsequently amputated, and he himself died of cancer.
- Electric car- Edison was truly obsessed with electricity and believed that it was the real future. In 1899, he developed an alkaline battery and intended to improve it to increase its service life. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century in the United States more than a quarter of cars were electric, Thomas soon abandoned this idea due to the widespread use of gasoline engines.
Most of these inventions were made in West Orange, where Edison moved in 1887. Edison's series of achievements also includes pure scientific discoveries For example, in 1883 he described thermionic emission, which later found application in detecting radio waves.
Industrial electric lighting
In 1878, Thomas began to commercialize the incandescent lamp. He was not involved in its birth, since 70 years earlier the Briton H. Devi had already invented a prototype of the light bulb. Edison became famous for one of the options for its improvement - he came up with a standard size base and optimized the spiral, thanks to which lighting fixture became more durable.
To the left of Edison is a huge incandescent lamp; in his hands is a compact version
Edison went even further and built a power plant, developed a transformer and other equipment, ultimately creating an electrical distribution system. It became a real competitor to the then widespread gas lighting. Practical use electricity turned out to be much more important than the idea of its creation. At first, the system illuminated only two blocks, while immediately proving its performance and acquiring a finished presentation.
Edison had a long conflict with another king of American electrification, George Westinghouse, over the type of current, since Thomas worked with direct current, and his opponent worked with alternating current. The war followed the principle “all means are fair,” but time put everything in its place - as a result, alternating current turned out to be much more in demand.
Secrets of an Inventor's Success
Edison was able amazingly combine inventive activity and entrepreneurship. While developing the next project, he clearly understood what its commercial benefits would be and whether it would be in demand. Thomas was never embarrassed by the chosen means and if it was necessary to borrow technical solutions from competitors, he used them without a twinge of conscience. He selected young employees for himself, demanding devotion and loyalty from them. The inventor worked all his life, without stopping, even when he became a rich man. He was never stopped by difficulties, which only strengthened him and directed him to new achievements.
In addition, Edison was distinguished by his uncontrollable capacity for work, determination, creativity of thought and excellent erudition, although he never received a serious education. By the end of his life, the fortune of the entrepreneur-inventor was $15 billion, which allowed him to be considered one of the richest people of his era. The lion's share The funds earned were spent on business development, so Thomas spent very little on himself.
Edison's creative legacy formed the basis of the worldwide famous brand General Electric.
Personal life
Thomas was married twice and had three children from each wife. He first married at the age of 24 to Mary Stilwell, who was 8 years younger than her husband. Interestingly, before marriage they knew each other for only two months. After the death of Mary, Thomas married Mina Miller, whom he taught Morse code. With its help, they often communicated with each other in the presence of other people, tapping their palms.
Passion for the occult
In old age, the inventor became seriously interested in afterlife and conducted very exotic experiments. One of them was associated with an attempt to record the voices of dead people using a special necrophone device. According to the author's plan, the device was supposed to record last words a person who has just died. He even entered into an “electric pact” with his assistant, according to which the first person to die must send a message to his colleague. The device has not survived to this day, and there are no drawings left, so the results of the experiment remained unknown.
- Edison was a great workaholic, ready to do a lot to achieve results. During the First World War, he worked 168 hours without rest, trying to create an enterprise for the production of synthetic carbolic acid, and in the process of developing an alkaline battery, Thomas conducted 59 thousand experiments.
- Thomas had a rather original tattoo of 5 dots on his left forearm. According to some reports, it was made by an O'Reilly tattoo machine, created on the basis of an Edison engraving device.
- As a child, Edison dreamed of becoming an actor, but due to great shyness and deafness, he abandoned this idea.
- Thomas was interested in many areas of life, including everyday life. The inventor created a special electrical device that destroyed cockroaches using electricity.
- Edison left a rich creative legacy, which was expressed in 2.5 thousand books written.
Thomas Edison's acquaintances for a long time They wondered why his gate was so difficult to open. Finally one of his friends said to him:
“A genius like you could have designed a better wicket.”
“It seems to me,” replied Edison, “the gate is designed ingeniously.” It is connected to the home water pump. Everyone who comes in pumps twenty liters of water into my tank.
Thomas Edison passed away on October 18, 1931, at his home in West Orange and was buried in his backyard.
Thomas Edison (full name – Thomas Alva (Alva) Edison) is one of the most inventive people in the history of America and the whole world. He owns more 1000 patents in the USA and about 3000 Worldwide.
Brief biography of Edison
Thomas Edison was born February 11, 1847 in the American town of Mylen, Ohio. His father - Samuel Edison, was a wheat merchant. His mother - Nancy Elliott Edison, daughter of a priest, school teacher.
Little Al was vertically challenged and fragile build. But that didn't stop him from early childhood become a very inquisitive and independent child.
Thomas's studies
In 1854 The Edison family moved to Michigan, where Thomas Alva attended elementary school for 3 months. He was hampered by deafness in his left ear, and his school teachers considered him a “limited” child. After a scandal with the school management, Thomas' mother took him out of school.
He began to receive home education. Partly from his mother, since she was a teacher, partly from books on different subjects, including chemistry and physics.
capable boy
Thomas Edison was very independent from childhood. When he needed money was engaged in trade- sold candy, newspapers, fruits. Then he organized the boys into groups to sell, they traded and shared the proceeds with him.
However, the pocket money that he managed to earn in this way was not enough for his experiments, especially in chemistry.
First hired job
In 1859, young Thomas got a job as a newspaper delivery boy. During this period, he manages to earn up to $10 a day thanks to his extraordinary inventive thinking abilities. In 1862 he became publisher of his own small newspaper for train passengers.
In August 1862 Edison saves the son of the head of one of the stations from a moving carriage. The boss offered to teach him telegraphy in gratitude. This is how he became acquainted with the telegraph. He immediately sets up his first telegraph line between his house and his friend’s house.
Successful inventor
At the age of 22 Edison decided to find another job. He had experience as a candy seller, newspaper delivery man, served as a telegraph operator on the railroad, and dealt with toxic chemicals. He wanted to find a well-paid job so as not to worry about his future.
He went to the center of New York and stopped at the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company. Panic reigned there - the telegraph machine was out of order. Neither the invited master nor the telegraph operators themselves could do anything.
Thomas asked permission to look. They let him near the apparatus with great distrust. He disassembled the mechanism, quickly fixed the problem and turned on the button. The device started working immediately. The manager was delighted to hire him with a salary of $300 a month.
Watching from the window of this company the crisis Black Friday 1869, when distraught brokers were selling securities on the stock exchange for pennies, Edison made a conclusion for himself: in order to buy gold or securities that are sometimes sold or not, you must have the necessary information and transmit it in a timely manner. Therefore, it makes sense to start improving telegraph devices!
First major success
In 1870, Edison managed to qualitatively improve the system of telegraphing exchange bulletins about the price of gold and shares. His employer became interested in this development and bought the invention for 40 thousand dollars.
With this money, Thomas Alva starts own business and opens a workshop in Newark where tickers are made for the needs of the exchange. By 1871, there were already three such workshops in his possession.
Laboratory in Menlo Park
In 1876, Edison moved to the small village of Menlo Park with his wife Mary Stillwell and daughter Marion. Here he builds own laboratory and goes completely into invention. For his activities, he spares no expense on the most modern equipment.
During this period, Thomas Edison's path to world fame through inventions began. For the company "Western Union" he completes the first order in the new laboratory and receives a fee of 100 thousand dollars for improving the quality of telephone communications.
In 1877 he invented the phonograph- the progenitor of the gramophone. It was a real sensation! The idea of recording human speech and playing it back came to Thomas after observing the operation of a telegraph - he heard sounds similar to human speech, pulled the tape harder and the “speech” accelerated. He decided to create a roller on which a sound could be recorded with a needle, and then reproduced with the same needle.
Incandescent lamp
When Edison learned about the appearance in Russia of an incandescent light bulb, which was invented by a Russian engineer Alexander Lodygin in 1874, he immediately purchased it and decided to improve it. He had an idea to start illuminating houses, streets, all of America.
Instead of a carbon thread, he inserted a twisted tungsten spiral and made a threaded base. The light bulb shone brighter and turned out to be longer lasting. He began to think about the switch, the wires, the power plant...
Soon the first power plant was built in New York, it provided current, and the city, as Edison had planned, began to be illuminated with a new incandescent light bulb.
In 1882, Edison built New York City's first distribution substation, serving Pearl Street and 59 customers in Manhattan, and founded a company manufacturing electric generators, light bulbs, cables, and lighting fixtures.
October 18, 1931 At the age of 84, Thomas Alva Edison died from complications. diabetes mellitus. He was buried in the backyard own home in West Orange, New Jersey.
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 the 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 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 this procedure. 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 thousand dollars, in 1871 had necessary funds to open their first small laboratory and production capacity 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. With her he toured the country 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 led the inventor to fame and fortune, as 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 storage chemical substances. Big size complex allowed Edison to work on not 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 it started industrial production"movies" 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 mining methods iron ore, to meet the insatiable demand of Pennsylvania 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 new Age 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 was the owner of many types of them, working for different sources energy. 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 celebration culminated with a banquet in honor of Edison, given by Henry Ford at Greenfield Village, a museum of new American history(It was 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.
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