Thomas Edison (American Businessman And Inventor)

Thomas      Edison     (1847  – 1931)  was   an American  inventor and                    businessman who      developed  and made commercially available   –              many   key          inventions       of modern life. His Edison Electric company was a  pioneering company for  delivering DC    electricity       directly          into                 people’s homes.  He filed over  1,000  patents  for  a variety    of   different  inventions.   Crucially, he   used  mass-produced      techniques     to make his inventions available at low cost to households across America. His most important inventions  include, the electric light bulb,   the   phonograph,         the    motion picture   camera, an   electric    car     and  the electric power station.

“None   of                            my              inventions came  by accident. I    see a worthwhile    need  to    be met and    I     make trial      after   trial   until        it comes. What   it  boils   down  to  is  one per cent   inspiration and  ninety-nine per  cent perspiration.”

– Thomas Edison, interview 1929

Short Biography Thomas Edison

thomas-edisonThomas  Edison was  born in  Milan,       Ohio       on   Feb        11,        1847,      the youngest of  seven   siblings.  His     parents were middle  class, though they   were not wealthy.           In        particular,               the                family struggled       when    the       railroad  bypassed Milan,    forcing the  family to move to Port Huron, Michigan. He  attended only   three months of formal schooling – he irritated his                 teachers     with               his                     repeated questioning      and     inability to   just     follow instructions. He was largely disinterested at    school and   was  mainly self-educated through    reading. He took upon it himself to read every book on the library shelf. By the   age   of  12, he  was     reading  Sir Isaac Newton’s       famous       work              –         Principia Mathematica.   However,   Edison was   not impressed    by        the      complex          maths  of Newton          and  resolved  to   try  and     make science more understandable.

As a youngster, he  tried various  odd jobs to earn          a   living.    This        including selling candy, vegetables   and       newspapers.  He had     a  talent  for         business,         and                    he successfully    printed     the          Grand     Trunk Herald along with his other    newspapers. This included  selling photos   of   his  hero, Abraham  Lincoln. He was  able   to   spend his extra income  on a growing chemistry set.

Unfortunately,  from  an early    age, Edison developed     a        severe              deafness, which ultimately    left  him almost     90% deaf. He would      later                          refuse                any       medical treatment, saying it would be too difficult to            retrain   his            thinking     process.         He seemed to take his deafness in his stride, and never saw it as a disability.

edisonEdison   had       a big break  when    he saved  a young    boy  on   the    railway  track from being struck by a runaway train. His grateful father, J.U. Mckenzie, had Edison trained as a telegraph operator and, aged 19,  Edison moved to   Louisville, Kentucky to  work   as         a              telegraph    operator     for Western Union.

From      childhood,                       Edison           loved         to experiment,      especially    with    chemicals. However,    these    experiments   often        got Edison         into difficulties.          A            chemistry experiment once exploded on a train, and when working on a night shift at Western Union,         his                      lead-acid   battery    leaked sulphuric  acid  through the floor   onto his boss’  desk.   Edison was      fired   the          next day.

However  Edison           was      undimmed    and, despite        scrapping       by  in     impoverished conditions for the next few years, he was able to spend    most   of   his  time   working on inventions. He received his first patent on June 1, 1869, for the stock ticker. This would        later          earn   him      a    considerable sum.

In     the     1870s, he sold   the  rights     to      the quadruplex   telegraph     to    Western  Union for  $10,000.  This  gave  him   the  financial backing    to establish    a   proper     research laboratory and           extend his   experiments and innovations.   Edison   once  described his  invention    methods  as  involving   a lot of hard  work and repeated trial  and error until a method was successful.

“During                                      all         those                 years                   of experimentation        and   research,      I  never once made  a discovery.  All my work was deductive,      and         the     results      I  achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I  would construct a theory   and      work   on its lines until I found it was untenable. … I speak   without exaggeration  when      I   say that        I   have     constructed 3,000 different theories       in connection with    the   electric light,  each  one   of them    reasonable    and apparently  likely to       be     true.    Yet   only  in two cases did  my experiments prove  the truth of my theory.”

–   “Talks    with   Edison”    by G.P Lathrop   in Harper’s   magazine,    Vol. 80   (Feb.  1890), p. 425

By        1877,                    he   had              developed             the phonograph      (an    early                      form    of        the gramophone                             player)  This      received widespread    interest, and      people          were astonished                at    one    of   the first        audio recording devices.  This   unique invention earned Edison the  nickname ‘The Wizard of   Menlo   Park‘       Edison’s      device      would later  be   improved upon by others, but  he made  a             big step  in     creating   the        first recording device.

With        William   Joseph    Hammer,      Edison started   producing  the electric   light  bulb, and  it was  a great  commercial  success. Edison’s    great     advance         was   to     use   a carbonised      bamboo  filament  that could last over 1,000 hours. In 1878, he formed the       Edison   Electric       light           Company to profit            from               this              invention.     Edison successfully   predicted              that        he  could make        electric   light     so   cheap,  it     would soon come universal. To capitalise on the success of the electric  light bulb, he also worked       on         electricity    distribution.   His first power  station was able  to distribute DC    current        to        59     customers   in  lower Manhattan.

Edison’s studios now took up two blocks, and  it  was   able to  stock a huge range of natural    resources,     meaning that almost anything and everything could be  used in trying to improve designs. This was a big factor      in      enabling          Edison       to          be     so successful in this era of innovation.

During    the fledgeling years   of  electricity generation, Edison became  involved    in a battle between   his     DC     current        system and the    AC   (alternative  current)  system favoured  by  George     Westinghouse  (and developed  by   Nikola   Tesla,    who  worked for Edison for two years before leaving in a pay dispute.)

This  became    known as  the ‘current war’ and   both   sides   were  desperate to  show the             superiority       of   their      system.      The Edison           company      even,    on         occasion, electrocuted                   animals  to    show           how dangerous the rival AC current was.

During World War One, Edison was asked to        serve       as  a      naval              consultant,  but Edison only wanted to work  on defensive weapons. He was proud that he made no invention that        could   be  used   to    kill. He maintained      a           strong                      belief                           in non-violence.

“Nonviolence leads to  the  highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop    harming      all  other living beings,  we are still savages.”

Edison   was     also   a great admirer of    the Enlightenment thinker Thomas Paine. He wrote a    book   praising  Paine  in 1925;   he also       shared  similar     religious  beliefs   to Thomas Paine   – no      particular       religion, but belief in a Supreme Being.

Edison made  many  important inventions and                 development     in    media.              These included  the    Kinetoscope       (or   peephole view),         the        first     motion      pictures        and improved photographic paper.

After    the        death  of his  first     wife,       Mary Stilwell   in      1884,  Edison  left   Menlo  Park and  moved to West Orange,   New Jersey. In 1886, he remarried Mina Miller. In West Orange,                 he         became             friends           with industrial  magnate,  Henry   Ford and was an active participant in the Civitan club  – which involved   doing  things for  the local community. His pace of invention slowed down in these final years, but he still kept busy,      such as   trying    to  find  a  domestic source    of       natural  rubber.       He  was also involved in the first electric train to depart from Hoboken in 1930.

Throughout    his   life,     he  took     an       active interest  in finding  the  optimal   diet           and believed   a  good  diet   could       play  a  large role in  improving health.  In 1903,  he was quoted as saying:

“The          doctor   of  the    future       will   give  no medicine, but      will    instruct  his patient  in the care  of the human  frame,  in diet  and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

He     had    six children,  three       from           each marriage.   Edison     died     of  diabetes           on October 18, 1931.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan.    “Biography   of Thomas   Edison”“,                        Oxford,           UK                 – www.biographyonline.net Published 17th July 2013. Last updated 5 March 2018.

Quotes by Thomas Edison

“Through  all   the years    of  experimenting and     research,               I   never    once          made a discovery.  I   start where the  last man left off. … All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple.”

As             quoted      in     Makers   of     the  Modern World: The  Lives of        Ninety-two     Writers, Artists, Scientists,   Statesmen, Inventors, Philosophers,      Composers,       and           Other Creators who Formed the  Pattern   of Our Century (1955)    by     Louis    Untermeyer, p. 227

“We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.”

As        quoted    in  Golden Book (April  1931), according    to           Stevenson’s                       Book    of Quotations   (Cassell 3rd  edition 1938) by Burton Egbert Stevenson

“If we did all the things we are capable of doing,        we                      would            literally    astound ourselves.”

As  quoted in Motivating  Humans:   Goals, Emotions, and  Personal       Agency   Beliefs (1992) by Martin E. Ford, p. 17

“To  invent, you need    a   good imagination and a pile of junk.”

As   quoted           in   Behavior-Based Robotics (1998) by Ronald C. Arkin. p. 8

“Just          because   something  doesn’t           do what   you  planned  it to   do  doesn’t  mean it’s useless.”

“Everyone   steals                         in  commerce     and industry.  I’ve       stolen    a       lot,  myself. But I know  how to steal!  They don’t  know how to steal!”

As quoted in Tesla:  The Modern Sorcerer (1999) by Daniel Blair Stewart, p. 411

“I     consider    Paine   our greatest      political thinker.    As  we      have  not  advanced,   and perhaps never shall  advance, beyond the Declaration  and Constitution,         so     Paine has had no successors who extended his principles.”