Thomas edison information

Photo via Edison has long been a staple of school history books, and most people know him as the inventor of the lightbulb. But in recent years, Edison has become an extremely controversial figure. As the Information Age entered full swing, people started questioning everything, and many people started saying that Edison does not deserve as much credit as people give him. Around the same time, a Tesla revival movement kicked off to honor the mad Serbian scientist. Unfortunately, this movement decided that Tesla couldn’t be built up without tearing Edison down. This has led to a plethora of misinformation about Edison spreading around the Internet, leading to massive confusion about the man who brought us the first phonograph. While Edison wasn’t perfect, he was hardly the mustache-twirling villain some people claim he was, and his rivalry with Tesla was not all it’s cracked up to be. 10The Confusion Over His Credit for the Lightbulb Many people were taught when they were young that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, and when they were older, the Internet told them they were wrong. Now, many confused people wonder what exactly is going on and what all the confusion is about. Well, as it turns out, with many things, the answer is a little complicated. And, as is often the case with inventions, more than one person deserves credit. Back in 1875, two men named Woodward and Evans designed a primitive lightbulb that they patented, but they could never make money to experiment...

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica Facts Also Known As Thomas Alva Edison • Wizard of Menlo Park Born February 11, 1847 • Died October 18, 1931 (aged 84) • Awards And Honors Inventions Did You Know? • Yankee Stadium was built with concrete from Edison's cement company. • A telegrapher taught Edison telegraphy as a reward for saving his son from being hit by a freight car. • Edison proposed to his second wife in Morse code. • Edison was homeschooled as a child because he performed badly in school. Photos and Videos

Thomas Alva Edison, born in Ohio on February 11, 1847, was one of the most well-known inventors of all time. He spent a few of his early years in formal schooling, but he received most of his education at home. Thomas set up a laboratory in the basement of his family's Michigan home and spent most of his time experimenting. Edison's mother, Nancy, knew her son was fond of chemistry and electronics, so she gave him books to read on the subjects. One book explained how to perform chemistry experiments at home; Thomas did every one in the book. A biographer of Edison once noted: "His mother had accomplished that which all truly great teachers do for their pupils, she brought him to the stage of learning things for himself, learning that which most amused and interested him, and she encouraged him to go on in that path. It was the very best thing she could have done for this singular boy." As Edison himself put it: "My mother was the making of me. She understood me; she let me follow my bent." In 1859, the Grand Trunk Railroad was extended to Port Huron, Michigan. Thomas got a job as a newsboy for the day-long trip to Detroit and back. Since there was a five-hour layover in Detroit, Edison asked for permission to move his laboratory to the baggage car of the train so he could continue his experiments there. This worked for a little while, until the train lurched forward and spilled some chemicals, setting the laboratory on fire. While working for the railroad, Thomas saved the...

Thomas Edison applied for his first patent in 1868, when he was just 21 years old. The famous inventor’s first brainchild was for a “When Edison raised enormous capital, built a laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J., and hired a staff of several dozen, each with distinct talents, he pioneered what became the modern corporate research and development process,” explains The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America . “He considered it an invention factory, one that would produce surprising new products at a regular rate.” In many cases, Edison’s genius was taking a new technology that someone else had pioneered and developing a superior way of doing the same thing. “An invention not only has to work fairly well, but it has to be something that the market wants and can afford to buy. Edison understood that as well as anyone in his day,” says Freeberg. Below are some of Edison’s most significant inventions. Automatic Telegraph Edison's filament lamp, with a glass bulb containing a partial vacuum.  Contrary to popular belief, Edison “Edison was one of a half dozen who were putting the elements of a viable lighting system together in those years, and since Edison was late to the race, he benefited from all his predecessors and rivals,” Freeberg explains. In the late 1870s, Edison designed a Phonograph Thomas Edison pictured with his phonograph. While developing his telephone transmitter, Edison got the idea of creating a machine that could record and play b...

Site Navigation • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Smithsonian's National Museum of American History Edison Light Bulb, 1879 Thomas Edison used this carbon-filament bulb in the first public demonstration of his most famous invention—the light bulb, the first practical electric incandescent lamp. The light bulb creates light when electrical current passes through the metal filament wire, heating it to a high temperature until it glows. The hot filament is protected from air by a glass bulb that is filled with inert gas. The demonstration took place at Edison’s Menlo Park, N.J., laboratory on New Year's Eve, 1879. As the quintessential American inventor-hero, Edison personified the ideal of the hardworking self-made man. He received a record 1,093 patents and became a skilled entrepreneur. Though occasionally unsuccessful, Edison and his team developed many practical devices in his “invention factory,” and fostered faith in technological progress.

The Edison Family Edison's family played an important role in his life and career. His parents provided him with an intellectual ly stimulating environment that helped to nurture his c uriosity and creativity, while his wives were supportive of his commitment to his work in bettering the world. Edison passed on his love for learnin g to his 6 children, who turned out to be a varie ty of students, entrepreneurs, inventors, politicians , war hero e s and more. Di scover his whole family tree below: Samuel Edison and Nancy Elliott Edison (Parents of Thomas) ​ Samuel Ogden Edison, Junior, was born on August 16, 1804 in Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada. His grandfather John Edeson (which they pronounced Ae-di-son) was a Loyalist during the American Revolution and left New Jersey for Nova Scotia in 1784. Throughout his life Samuel changed work several times, from splitting shingles for roofs, to tailoring, to keeping a tavern. Sometime after his marriage, Samuel moved the family to Vienna, Ontario, where four of his seven children were born. Ironically, Samuel Edison was not as loyal to the British crown as his grandfather. In 1837, he joined the Mackenzie Rebellion, a revolt inspired by democratic activist William Mackenzie in the south of Ontario. When the rebellion failed Samuel escaped to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life. His wife and children later followed him to Milan, Ohio (pronounced MY-lan), where they had three more children including Thomas Alva...

The technology that made the modern music business possible came into existence in the READ MORE: Edison’s invention came about as spin-off from his ongoing work in telephony and telegraphy. In an effort to facilitate the repeated transmission of a single telegraph message, Edison devised a method for capturing a passage of Morse code as a sequence of indentations on a spool of paper. Reasoning that a similar feat could be accomplished for the telephone, Edison devised a system that transferred the vibrations of a diaphragm—i.e., sound—to an embossing point and then mechanically onto an impressionable medium—paraffin paper at first, and then a spinning, tin-foil wrapped cylinder as he refined his concept.Edison and his mechanic, John Kreusi, worked on the invention through the autumn of 1877 and quickly had a working model ready for demonstration. The December 22, 1877, issue of Scientific American reported that “Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night.” The patent awarded to Edison on February 19, 1878, specified a particular method—embossing—for capturing sound on tin-foil-covered cylinders. The next critical improvement in recording technology came courtesy of Edison’s competitor in the race to develop the telephone, READ MORE: