Edison post. Biography of Thomas Edison - photos, quotes, inventions, interesting facts, success story. The beginning of an inventor's career

February 11, 1847 in the town of Milan, Ohio, Thomas Alva Edison was born - an incredibly successful inventor, scientist and businessman who received 1093 patents in his life.

Edison filed his first patent at the age of 22. Later, in his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, he was so productive as hot cakes creating revolutionary innovations that he once promised to release one small invention every 10 days and one large 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 recall 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, with the help of juggling the results, persuade colleagues to change their minds. Parliament abandoned the invention in favor of the usual written account.

2. Automatic telegraph.

To improve the telegraph, Edison created another - based on the perforated bur invented by him - which did not need a person to type a message on the other end. This new technology has 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 on paper and make duplicates.

4. Phonograph.

The phonograph recorded and reproduced audible sounds first with paraffin paper and then with metal foil on a cylinder. Edison created many versions over several years, improving each of the models more and more.

5. Carbon phone.

Edison improved the weak point of Alexander Bell's phone - 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.

The Edison carbon filament incandescent light bulb was the first commercially viable source of electric light. Previous versions were not as powerful and were made using expensive materials such as platinum.

7. Electric lighting system.

Edison designed his electrical 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 (loud-speaking phone).

This device lowered electric currents from high to low, which made it possible to transmit voice sounds over long distances and at higher volumes. Another Edison invention, the carbon rheostat, helped create the motorograph. Edison's loud-speaking telephone was used in England for several years.

10. Technology of using fuel cells.

Edison was 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 by-product.

11. Universal printer.

Although Edison did not invent the stock telegraph machine, he improved his own telegraph technology to create a universal printer that was faster than the existing version.

12. Iron ore magnetic separator.

Edison designed a device that separated magnetic and non-magnetic materials. In this way, it was possible to separate iron ore from unsuitable low-grade ores. This development later formed the basis of milling technology.

13. Kinetoscope.

Edison was looking for a way to create "an instrument that would do to the eye what the phonograph does to the ear". The kinetoscope showed photographs in rapid succession, making it appear as if the image was moving.

14. Alkaline battery.

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.

15. Cement.

Although cement already existed, Edison perfected its production with a rotary kiln. The invention of the inventor, as well as his own company, Edison Portland Cement, made this product commercially available.

Thomas Alva Edison (eng. Thomas Alva Edison; 02/11/1847 - 10/18/1931) is a famous American inventor and businessman, co-founder of General Electric Corporation. At the age of 23, he became the founder of a unique research laboratory.

During his professional career, Thomas received 1,093 patents in his homeland and about 3,000 outside the United States.

A talented organizer, with his discoveries, Edison put highbrow science on a commercial footing and linked the results of experiments with production. He improved the telegraph and telephone, designed the phonograph. Thanks to his perseverance, millions of incandescent bulbs lit up in the world.

Edison did not become a "mad scientist" vegetating in his declining years in obscurity and poverty, but achieved recognition. But he did not have a higher or even primary education: he was expelled from school with the stigma of "brainless". The biography of Thomas Edison will tell about what qualities lead to success.

Edison's childhood

NEWBORN WITH "BRAIN FEVER"

The future genius was born in the American city of Meilen (Ohio) on February 11, 1847. The newborn Thomas Alva Edison surprised the doctor who delivered the baby: the obstetrician suggested that the baby had a “brain fever”, because the baby’s head exceeded the standard dimensions. The doctor was not mistaken in one thing - the baby was definitely not “standard”.

LONG-LIFE FATHERS

Thomas was born into a family of descendants of Dutch millers. In the 18th century, part of the family emigrated to the United States, where it took root. Both Edison's great-grandfather and grandfather were centenarians: the first lived to be 102 years old, the second to 103.

Samuel Edison, Thomas's father, was a general businessman: he traded in timber, real estate, and wheat. In his backyard, he built a 30-meter staircase and collected a quarter of a dollar from anyone who wanted to enjoy the panorama from above. People laughed, but the money paid. From his father, Thomas will inherit business acumen.

Reread the previous paragraph again, a quarter dollar per view from a 30-meter ladder. It's practically money out of thin air. The idea is elementary, but there was a daredevil and embodied it. This distinguishes successful people from ordinary people, their brain generates ideas of various kinds, and their hands bring them to life. It is easy to come up with an idea, but for many people it becomes an impossible task to implement it. If you want to succeed, learn how to act. And the sooner the better. Take the first step immediately after reading this article.

Nancy Eliot, the mother of the future genius, grew up in the family of a priest, was a highly educated woman, worked as a teacher before her marriage.

Thomas' parents are Samuel Edison and Nancy Eliot

Thomas' parents married in 1837 in Canada. Soon, a rebellion began in the country due to economic decline, Samuel, who took part in the riots, fled from government troops to America. In 1839 his wife and children also joined him.

Thomas was the youngest child of the couple, the seventh in a row. The family called the boy Alva, Al or El. He often played alone as a child. Even before his birth, the Edisons had three children, older brothers and sisters were older than Thomas and did not share his games with him.

CHILDHOOD WITHOUT TOYS

In 1847, Edison's hometown was a prosperous center on the Huron River, and all thanks to the water channel, through which farm crops and timber were delivered to the industrial centers.

Al grew up as an inquisitive child who got into trouble: somehow he fell into a canal and miraculously survived; fell into the elevator and almost suffocated in the grain; set fire to his father's barn. According to the memoirs of Edison Sr., his son "did not know children's games, his amusements were steam engines and mechanical crafts." The little boy loved to "build" on the river bank: he laid roads, designed toy windmills.

SCATTERED FROM THE HURON RIVER

Once Thomas went with a friend to the river. While he was sitting on the bank in thought, his friend drowned. Alva woke up from his thoughts and thought that his friend had returned home without him. Later, when the body of a friend was discovered, an inattentive Thomas was blamed for the accident. This event was deeply imprinted in the mind of the boy.

RESETTLING TO THE GREAT LAKES STATE

In 1854 the family moved to Michigan, the city of Port Huron. Meilen, native to Thomas, where he spent the first 7 years of his life, began to decline: the city canal lost its commercial importance, as a railway line was laid nearby.

In the new location, the family occupies a beautiful house with a large garden and river views. Alve works on a farm, picks fruits and vegetables, sells crops, driving around the area.

RUMORS ABOUT HEARING LOST

Thomas begins to hear worse, sources indicate different reasons for this:

1. The version is "prosaic": the boy had been ill with scarlet fever;
2. “Romantic”: the conductor “hit” the young inventor in the ear with a composter;
3. "Believable": heredity is to blame (dad and brother Alya had a similar problem).

His deafness increased throughout his life. When films with sound appeared, Edison complained that the actors began to play worse, concentrating on the voice: I feel it more than you because I am deaf.

Inventor Education

SCHOOL: "HELLO AND FAREWELL"

In 1852, a law was passed requiring children to attend school. However, most continued to help their parents on family farms and did not go to school. Thomas' mother taught him to read and write, and placed the grown son in an elementary school.

In an educational institution, schoolchildren were punished with a belt, Alya also fell. The little boy was hard of hearing, distracted, with difficulty crammed the material. The teacher more than once ridiculed a negligent student in front of schoolchildren, and somehow called him "stupid".

CREATOR OF GENIUS

Mother took Thomas from school, where he managed to suffer for 2 months. A tutor was hired for home education, the boy learned a lot on his own. Mom did not demand to cram uninteresting subjects. Later Edison will say: My mother was my creator. She understood me, she gave me the opportunity to follow my inclinations.

In this matter, I share the opinion of Edison's mother. My eldest daughter will start school in a year, but she already reads perfectly, which we taught her on our own. And when she goes to school, I will never demand fours and fives from her, as it was with me in childhood, I will not force her to cram what she is not interested in. I'll even let her skip boring subjects. This does not mean that she will sit back, instead of boring lessons, she will do what she is interested in (creativity, sports, other subjects). The task of the parent is to reveal the creative abilities of the child and direct all his energy in this direction, cutting off all unnecessary. note by editor Roman Kozhin

There is a beautiful instructive story.

Once, little Thomas returned from class and gave his mother a note from the school teacher. Mrs. Edison read the message aloud: “Your son is a genius. There are no suitable teachers in this school who can teach him something. Please teach it yourself."

Being a famous inventor, when his mother had already died, Edison found this note in the family archive, its text read: “Your son is mentally retarded. We can't teach it at school with everyone else. Please teach it yourself."

Thomas Edison as a child (about 12 years old)

BOOKWORM

Just as a sculptor needs a block of marble, so does the soul need knowledge.

By the age of 9, Alva read books on history, the works of Shakespeare and Dickens, and visits the local library. In the parental basement, he equips the laboratory and makes experiments from the book "Natural and Experimental Philosophy" by Richard Parker. So that no one touches his reagents, the young alchemist signs all the bottles "poison".

The track record of Thomas Edison

12 YEARS OLD WORKER

In 1859, Alya's father finds a job as a "train boy" - the duties of a "trainboy" included selling newspapers and sweets on the train. The former book lover shuttles between Port Huron and Detroit, and quickly catches on to the trade. He expands the business, hires 4 assistants and annually brings $ 500 to the family.

PRINTING ON WHEELS

Businesslike and savvy from a young age, Al organizes a couple of streams of income. In the composition where he traded, there was an abandoned car - the former "smoking room". In it, Al equips a printing house and publishes the first travel newspaper Grand Trunk Herald (“Herald of the big connecting branch”). He does everything himself - typeset text, edits articles. "Bulletin ..." informed about local news and military events (there was a civil war between the North and the South). The train leaflet received a positive comment from the English edition of the Times!

WORKING FORWARD

Al comes up with the idea of ​​telegraphing newspaper headlines at the station of his railway line. Upon the arrival of the composition, the public quickly buys fresh press from the boy, wanting to know the details. The telegraph helped Thomas increase newspaper sales. The guy will continue to seek to benefit from scientific inventions in the future.

LABORATORY ON WHEELS

You wonder how much energy fit in the little boy. In the same former smoking car, Thomas equips a laboratory. But during the movement of the train, due to shaking, a container with phosphorus breaks and a fire starts. Al is fired from work, his enterprises "burn out" in every sense.

IN THE UNDERGROUND

The guy transfers his ebullient activity to the basement of his father's house. He designs a steam engine, arranges telegraphic communication, using bottles for insulators. Typographic work also returns: Al publishes the newspaper "Paul Pro". In one note, he managed to offend a subscriber. The offended reader ambushed Thomas by the river and threw him into the water. It’s good that the teenager swam well, otherwise the world would have lost hundreds of his inventions.

SAVE A CHILD

At the Mont Clemens station, Edison had to save a 2-year-old kid when he climbed onto the rails. Thomas rushed to the track and managed to grab the child almost from under the locomotive. The noble act made Thomas popular in the city. The baby's dad, stationmaster James Mackenzie, in gratitude offered Thomas to teach him how to work with the telegraph machine.

In 1863, 5 months after the start of training, 16-year-old Edison received a position as a telegraph operator in a railway office with a salary of $ 25 and an additional payment for working at night.

PROGRESS IS MOVED BY LABYS

Thomas loved the night shifts, no one interfered with inventing, reading or sleeping. But the head of the office demanded that the given word be telegraphed twice an hour to make sure that the employee was awake. The resourceful Thomas designed an "answering machine" by adapting a Morse code wheel. The order of the chief was carried out, and he himself went about his business.

ALMOST A CRIMINAL CASE

Soon, the enterprising worker is fired with a scandal: two trains miraculously avoided a collision, and all because of Edison's oversight. Thomas was almost prosecuted.

VERY LONG SUMMARY

From Port Huron, Thomas leaves for Adriana, where he finds a job as a telegraph operator. The following years he worked in the subsidiaries of Western Union in the states of Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

Then Thomas moved to Nashville, from there to Memphis, and finally to Louisville. Working there for the Associated Press telegraph office, Thomas in 1867 again becomes the culprit of the state of emergency. For his chemical experiments, the guy kept sulfuric acid on hand, and one day he broke a jar. The liquid burned the floor and ruined the valuable property of the banking firm on the floor below. The restless "telegraph operator-alchemist" was fired.

Thomas's main troubles were because he couldn't just perform routine operations, it was too boring for him.

FIRST PANCAKE Lump

The first patent received by Edison in 1869 for an "electric ballot apparatus" did not bring him success. Presented before Congress in Washington, the machine received a verdict of "slow": congressmen manually recorded their votes faster.

The beginning of a successful career

BIG CITY LIGHTS

In 1869, Edison came to New York with a desire to find a permanent job. Luck smiled on Thomas, arranging a fateful meeting: in one of the firms, he found the owner repairing the apparatus for sending reports on the rate of gold and securities. Edison himself quickly repairs the device and gets a job as a telegraph operator. Through the use of a ticker, Thomas improves the design of the device, and the entire office where he works switches to his updated machines.

INCREDIBLE CAPITAL

Most people believe that one day they will wake up rich.They are half right. Someday they will really wake up.

In 1870, Mr. Lefferts, head of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, offered to buy Edison's development. He hesitated how much to request: 3 thousand dollars? Or maybe 5? Edison confesses that for the first time he almost fainted - at the moment when the head of the company wrote him a check for $ 40,000.

Edison received money with adventures. At the bank, the teller returned the check to him to sign, but Thomas didn't hear it and thought the check was bad. Edison returned to Lefferts, who sent an employee to the bank to accompany the deaf inventor. The check was cashed in small bills, and Edison was afraid of a police patrol on the way home: what if he was mistaken for a robber? At night, the inventor did not sleep, guarding the fallen treasure. He calmed down only when he got rid of a large amount of cash by opening a bank account the next day.

FIRST WORKSHOPS

In the city of Newark, New Jersey, a young man opens a workshop where he launches the production of ticker devices. With telegraph firms, he concludes contracts for the supply and repair of devices, employs over a hundred workers.

In letters home, the 23-year-old Edison reported: "I have now become what you Democrats call a bloated Eastern entrepreneur."

Smiling Edison and Henry Ford as Sheriff

The Two Muses of Thomas Edison

PICKUP LESSONS FROM EDison

The personal life of Thomas Edison did not take much of his time, he won over not by long courtship, but by his determination. Among his employees worked a pretty girl Mary Stillwell. Somehow the head of the workshop pulled up near her workplace and asked:

"What do you think of me, little one?" Do you like me?

- What are you, Mr. Edison, you scare me.

- Do not rush to answer. Yes, it is not so important if you agree to marry me.

Seeing that the young lady was not serious, the inventor insisted:

- I am not kidding. But you are not in a hurry, think carefully, talk to your mother and give me an answer when it is convenient - even on Tuesday.

The date of their wedding had to be postponed due to the death of Edison's mother in April 1871. Thomas and Mary were married in December 71, the groom "knocked" 24 years old, the bride - 16. After the ceremony, the newlywed went to work and stayed late, forgetting about the first wedding night.

The couple settled with Mary's sister Alice, she kept her company while her husband spent the day and night at work. The couple had three children: daughter Marion (1873), son Thomas (1876) and another son William (1878). Edison jokingly called his daughter "Point", and his middle son - "Dash", in Morse code. Mary, Edison's wife, died at the age of 29 in 1884, presumably from a brain tumor.

SECOND CHANCE FOR PERSONAL HAPPINESS

In 1886, 39-year-old Edison married 21-year-old Mina Miller. He taught his beloved the rules of Morse coding, which allowed him to secretly communicate in the presence of Mina's parents by tapping long and short characters on the palm of his hand.

Mina Miller - Edison's second wife

In the second marriage, the inventor also had three heirs: daughter Madeleine (1888) and sons Charles (1890) and Theodore (1898).

Thomas Edison was the father of six children, Charles (pictured with Edison) was one of four sons

Inventions and principles of work of Edison

QUADRUPLEX

In 1874, Western Union acquires Thomas' invention, the 4-channel telegraph (aka quadruplex). The quadruplex allowed the transmission of 2 messages in two directions. This principle was formulated earlier, but Edison was the first to put it into practice. The scientist estimated the development at 4-5 thousand dollars, but again "cheapened": Western Union paid 10. The chairman of the company will write in the report that Edison's invention brought annual savings of half a million dollars.

By the age of 29, Edison managed to become familiar with the Patent Office: over the past 3 years, he came to register developments 45 times. The head of the office even commented: "The road to me does not have time to cool off from the steps of young Edison."

ATHLETIC JUMP

In 1875, his father moved to Edison in Newark, with whose arrival a funny story is connected. The ferry departed from the embankment. Suddenly, some old man of about 70, who was late for him, suddenly ran up and covered the distance between the embankment and the ferry with a huge jump. This old man turned out to be Edison Sr., heading towards his son. Reporters trumpeted in a note about the bouncy parent of the inventor.

Friends Henry Ford and Thomas Edison - icons of the era

"DO NOT ENTER! SCIENTIFIC WORK IS GOING ON»

Edison sends the funds received for the quadruplex to the construction of a laboratory in the town of Menlo Park.

I understood what the world needs. ok i'll invent it

In March 1876, the construction of the research center was completed. Journalists and idle onlookers were denied access to the territory. Laboratory experiments were carried out under the cloak of secrecy, and the scientific genius himself was nicknamed the "Wizard of Menlo Park." From 1876 to 1886, the laboratory expanded, Edison managed to organize its branches outside the United States.

SYMBOL OF PERSISTENCE

The biggest mistake is that we give up quickly. Sometimes, to get what you want, you just have to try one more time.

Edison's workaholism was not amenable to treatment; he spent 16-19 hours a day at work. Once a great worker worked for 2.5 days in a row, and then slept for 3 days.

Healthy genes and love for his work helped him cope with such a load. The inventor stated that he did not divide the week into "workdays" and weekends, he just worked and enjoyed it. His famous quote is:

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Thomas became a living example of perseverance and determination.

EDISON TEAM

The workday was irregular not only for the head, but also for the employees of the center. The scientist selected in the team the same enthusiastic and hardworking people as he himself. His workshop was a real "forge of personnel." Among the “graduates” of the scientific center are Sigmund Bergman (later the head of the Bergman companies) and Johann Schukkert, the founder of the company, after which it merged with Siemens.

MERCANTILE INVENTOR

The strategy of the center was determined by the rule: "Invent only what will be in demand." The center functioned not for the sake of scientific publications, but for the mass introduction of developments.

In 1877, Thomas invented the phonograph, the first apparatus for reproducing and recording sound.

The development, demonstrated at the White House and the French Academy of Sciences, made a splash. During its demonstration in France in 1878, a philologist attacked Edison's commissioner with accusations of ventriloquism. Even after an expert opinion, the humanist could not believe that the "talking machine" reproduced the "noble voice of a man."

The phonograph records were short-lived, which did not prevent the device from glorifying the name of Edison. The scientist did not expect such popularity and stated that he did not trust things that worked the first time.

Thanks to the invention of Edison, the living speech of Leo Tolstoy has come down to us. The writer, having ordered the device, received it as a gift. Edison, having learned who the device was intended for, sent it to Yasnaya Polyana free of charge with an engraving - "A gift to Count Leo Tolstoy from Thomas Alva Edison."

When the inventor was asked if it would be possible to record human thoughts on the phonograph in the future, he replied that it was most likely feasible, but warned that then "all people would hide from each other."

Edison didn't mind using ready-made ideas: "you can borrow the best of them." In 1878 he took up the improvement of the incandescent light bulb, the idea of ​​which had been proposed before him.

- Do you know why you created an incandescent lamp?

- No, but I think that the government will soon figure out how to take money from people for this.

The lamps that existed at that time quickly burned out, consumed a lot of current and were expensive. The inventor promised: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles." This is perhaps called "vision" or the art of goal setting. "I'm looking ahead," said the sorcerer from Menlo Park.

The shape of the lamp known to us, the cartridge and base, the plug and the socket - all this was invented by Edison.

Having finalized the prototype of the lamp, the scientist made it suitable for industrial production and mass use. Nobody could do this before Edison.

Edison with his product - an incandescent lamp

FACTS ABOUT PERSISTENCE

• In order to find the right filament material, the specifications of some 6,000 materials were analyzed. Good performance during the experiments was shown by the carbon fiber of Japanese bamboo, on which the choice was made: the thread burned for 13.5 hours (later the duration was increased to 1200);
• 9999 experiments were carried out, and the prototype lamp did not light up. Colleagues urged Edison to leave the experiments, but he did not give up: "I have 9999 experiments, how not to do it." On the 10,000th try, the light came on.

SHINE CLEARLY

The year 1878 was fruitful: the scientist invented the carbon microphone, which was used in telephone sets until the 1980s, and in the same year he co-founded Edison Electric Light (since 1892 - General Electric). Then the company produced lamps, cable products and power generators, now GE is a diversified corporation, in the Forbes "Most Valuable Brands" rating at 7th position (2017), at a cost ($ 34.2 billion) it is second only to IBM, Google and McDonald's.

In 1882, having found investors, Edison built a distribution substation and launched a power supply system in Manhattan, New York.

The lamp was 110 cents, and the market price was 40. Edison suffered losses for four years, and when the price of the lamp reached $ 0.22, and their production increased to a million pieces, he covered the costs for the year.

Fact: Incandescent lamps have reduced the average sleep duration by 1-2 hours.

THE MEETING OF TWO GENIUS

In 1884, Edison hired an engineer from Serbia, Nikola Tesla, to repair electrical machines. The new employee turned out to be a supporter of AC, while his supervisor was sympathetic to the "permanent". Tesla claimed that Edison promised him $50,000 for a significant improvement in the performance of electrical machines. Tesla presented 24 options at the break with improved performance, and when reminded of the award, Edison replied that the employee did not understand the joke. Tesla retired from the workshop and founded his own company.

AC vs. DC: battle of currents

Edison argued the dangers of alternating current and even participated in an information campaign against the "change". In 1903, he took part in organizing the execution by alternating current of a circus elephant who trampled three people.

INVENTING MAN

In 1886, for the wedding of his second wife, Edison presented the estate in Llewellyn Park, West Orange (New Jersey), where he moved his research center.

It is now home to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

This man could become a world-famous scientist, because for some time he worked with Nikola Tesla himself. However, if the latter was more attracted by intractable scientific problems, then this person was more interested in things of an applied nature, which primarily provide material benefits. Nevertheless, the whole world knows about him, and his name to some extent has become a household name. This is Thomas Alva Edison.

Thomas Edison short biography

He was born in the small provincial town of Milan in northern Ohio on February 11, 1847. His father, Samuel Edison, was the son of Dutch settlers, who first lived in the Canadian province of Ontario. The war in Canada forced Edison Sr. to move from the United States, where he married a Milanese teacher Nancy Elliot. Thomas was the fifth child in the family.

At birth, the boy's head was irregularly shaped (exorbitantly large), and the doctor even decided that the child had inflammation of the brain. However, the baby, contrary to the opinion of the doctor, survived and became a family favorite. For a very long time, strangers paid attention to his big head. The child himself did not react to this in any way. He was distinguished by hooligan antics and great curiosity.

A few years later, the Edison family moved from Milan to Port Huron near Detroit, where Thomas went to school. Alas, he did not achieve great results at school, because he was considered a difficult child and even a brainless dumbass for his non-standard solutions to simple questions.

One amusing moment can serve as an example, when when asked how much one plus one will be, instead of answering “two”, he gave an example of two cups of water, which, poured together, you can also get one, but a larger cup. This manner of answers was picked up by his classmates, and Thomas was expelled from school three months later. In addition, the effects of the incompletely cured scarlet fever had left him with a part of his hearing, and he had difficulty understanding the teachers' explanations.

Edison's mother considered her son absolutely normal, and gave him the opportunity to study on his own. Very soon he got access to very serious books, in which there were descriptions of various experiments with detailed explanations. To confirm what he read, Thomas got his own laboratory, equipped in the basement of the house where he conducted his experiments. Later, Edison would claim that he became an inventor because he was not forced to go to school, and was grateful to his mother for this. And everything that was useful to him later in life, he learned on his own.

Edison inherited his inventive vein from his father, who, according to the then concepts, was a very eccentric person who was constantly trying to come up with something new. Thomas also tried to put his ideas into practice.

When Edison grew up, he got a job. Helped him in this case. The young man saved a three-year-old boy from under the wheels of the train, for which his grateful father helped Thomas get a job as a telegraph operator. In further work, Edison's knowledge of the telegraph came in handy. Later, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where he began working in a news agency, agreeing to work in night shifts, during which, in addition to his main activities, he was engaged in various experiments. These classes and subsequently deprived Edison of work. During one of the experiments, the spilled hydrochloric acid leaked through the ceiling and hit the boss's desk.

Inventions of Thomas Edison

At the age of 22, Edison became unemployed, and began to think about what to do next. Having a great craving for invention, he decided to try his hand in this direction. The first invention for which he even received a patent was an electric vote meter during elections. However, the device, which now stands in almost every parliament, was then simply ridiculed, calling it absolutely useless. After that, Edison decided to create things that are in great demand.

The next work brought Edison both success and wealth, and the opportunity to engage in invention at a new level. They became a quadruplex telegraph (remember his first job as a telegraph operator). And it happened like this. After the complete failure of his electric vote counter, he left for New York, where he got into the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, a gold trading company. The director suggested to Thomas to improve the company's already existing telegraph. Literally a couple of days later, the order was ready, and Edison brought an exchange telegraph to his leader, after checking the reliability of which he received a fabulous sum for those times - $ 40,000.

Having received the money, Edison built his own research laboratory, where he worked himself, attracting other talented people to his activities. At the same time, he invented a ticker machine that printed out the current stock price on a paper tape.

Then there was just a stream of discoveries, the loudest of which were the phonograph (patent from 1878), the incandescent lamp (1879), which led to the invention of the electric meter, the threaded base and the switch. In 1880, Edison patented an electricity distribution system, and at the end of that year he founded the Edison Illuminating Company, which laid the foundation for the construction of power plants. The first of these, which supplied a current of 110 volts, began operating in lower Manhattan in 1882.

Around the same time, a fierce competition broke out between Edison and Westinghouse over the type of current used. The first defended direct current, while the second advocated alternating current. The fight was very tough. Westinghouse won, and now alternating current is used everywhere. But in the course of this struggle, Edison won in another. For the punishment system, he created the infamous electric chair.

Edison stood at the origins of modern cinema, creating his own kinetoscope. For some time it was popular, in the United States there were even a number of cinemas. Over time, however, Edison's Kinetoscope replaced the more practical cinematograph.

Alkaline batteries are also the work of an inventor. The first working models of them were made in 1898, and a patent was received in February 1901. His batteries were much better and more durable than the acid counterparts that already existed at that time.
Among Edison's other, less well-known inventions now, one can name the mimeograph, which was actively used by Russian revolutionaries for printing leaflets; an aerophone that made it possible to make the voice of a person audible at a distance of several kilometers; carbon telephone membrane - the predecessor.

To a ripe old age, Thomas Edison was engaged in inventive activity, along the way becoming the author of many aphorisms and various stories. He died in 1931, when he was 84 years old.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) - an outstanding American inventor and businessman who received over four thousand patents in different countries of the world. The most famous among them were the incandescent lamp and the phonograph. His merits were noted at the highest 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.

Underrated genius

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 great-grandfather of the inventor 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 sent to Canada. There his son Samuel was born, who became the grandfather of Thomas. The inventor's father, Samuel Jr., married Nancy Eliot, who later became his mother. After an unsuccessful uprising, in which Samuel Jr. participated, the family fled to the United States, where Thomas was born.

In childhood, Thomas was inferior in height to many of his peers, looking a little sickly and frail. He was severely ill with scarlet fever and almost lost his hearing. This influenced his studies at school - there the future inventor studied for only three months, after which he was sent to home schooling with an insulting verdict of the teacher "limited". As a result, the mother was engaged in the education of her son, 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 teachers, the boy grew up inquisitive and often visited the Port Huron People's Library. Among the many books he read, he especially remembered R. Green's Natural and Experimental Philosophy. 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, for which the boy could watch for hours.

From a young age, Thomas helped his mother earn money by selling vegetables and fruits with her. He set aside the funds received for experiments, but the money was sorely lacking, 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, an enterprising young man began to publish his newspaper Grand Trunk Herald and successfully implemented it.

When Thomas was 19 years old, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky and got a job at the news agency Western Union. His appearance in this company was the result of the human feat of the inventor, who saved the three-year-old son of the head of one of the railway stations from certain death under the wheels of a train. As a thank you, he helped teach him the telegraph business. Edison managed to get a job on the night shift, as he devoted himself to reading books and experiments during the day. During one of them, the young man spilled sulfuric acid, which leaked through the cracks in the floor to the floor below, where his boss worked.

First inventions

The first experience of inventive activity did not bring fame to Thomas. Nobody needed his first apparatus for counting votes during the elections - American parliamentarians considered him completely useless. After the first failures, Edison began to adhere to his golden rule - do not invent something that is not in demand.

In 1870, luck finally came to the inventor. He was paid $40,000 for a stock ticker (a device for recording stock prices in automatic mode). With this money, Thomas created his workshop in Newark and began to produce tickers. In 1873, he invented a diplex telegraph model, which he soon improved, turning it into a quadruplex model with the possibility of simultaneously transmitting four messages.

Creation of a phonograph

The 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 worked on an apparatus capable of recording messages in the form of deep impressions on paper, which could subsequently be sent repeatedly by telegraph.

The active work of the brain led Edison to the idea that a telephone conversation could be recorded in the same way. The inventor continued experimenting with a membrane and a small press held over a moving paraffin-coated paper. The sound waves emitted by the voice created vibration, leaving marks on the surface of the paper. Later, instead of this material, a metal cylinder appeared, wrapped in foil.

Edison with phonograph

While testing the phonograph in August 1877, Thomas recited a line from a nursery rhyme, "Mary had a lamb," and the device successfully repeated the phrase. A few months later, he founded the Edison Talking Phonograph business, earning income from demonstrating his device to people. Soon the inventor sold the rights to make a phonograph for $10,000.

Other Notable Inventions

Edison's fertility as an inventor is amazing. In the list of his know-how, there are many useful and bold decisions for their time, which in their own way changed the world around us. Among them:

• Mimeograph- a device for printing and reproducing written sources in small print runs, which Russian revolutionaries liked to use.
• The method of storing organic food in a glass container was patented in 1881 and involved the creation of a vacuum environment in the dishes.
• Kinetoscope- a device for viewing a movie by one person. It was a massive box with an eyepiece through which it was possible to see a recording lasting up to 30 seconds. It was in good demand before the advent of film projectors, which seriously lost in mass viewing.
• telephone membrane- a device for sound reproduction, which laid the foundations of modern telephony.
• Electric chair- Apparatus for carrying out the death penalty. Edison convinced the public that this was one of the most humane methods of execution and obtained permission for use in a number of states. The first "client" of the deadly invention was a certain W. Kemmer, who was 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. After 15 years, S. O'Reilly created a tattoo machine based on this pen.
• Fluoroscope- an apparatus for fluoroscopy, which was developed by Edison's assistant K. Delly. In those days, X-rays were not considered particularly dangerous, so he tested the operation of the device on his own hands. As a result, both limbs were amputated successively, and he himself died of cancer.
• electric car- Edison was obsessed with electricity in a good way and believed that he had a real future. In 1899, he developed an alkaline battery and intended to improve it in the direction of increasing the resource. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century more than a quarter of cars in the United States were electric, Thomas soon abandoned this idea due to the mass distribution of gasoline engines.

Most of these inventions were made in West Orange, where Edison moved in 1887. In the series of Edison's achievements, there are also purely scientific discoveries, for example, in 1883 he described thermionic emission, which later found application for detecting radio waves.

Industrial lighting

In 1878, Thomas began to commercialize the incandescent lamp. He was not involved in her birth, since 70 years before that, the British H. Devi had already invented a prototype of a light bulb. Edison glorified one of the options for its improvement - he came up with a standard size base and optimized the spiral, making the lighting fixture more durable.

One of Edison's incandescent bulbs

To the left of Edison is a huge incandescent lamp, in the hands - a compact version

Edison went even further and built a power plant, developed a transformer and other equipment, eventually creating an electrical distribution system. It became a real competitor to the then widespread gas lighting. The practical application of electricity turned out to be much more important than the idea of ​​​​its creation. At first, the system illuminated only two quarters, 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 DC, and his opponent with AC. The war went on according to the principle “all means are good”, but time put everything in its place - as a result, alternating current turned out to be much more in demand.

Inventor's Success Secrets

Edison was able to combine inventive activity and entrepreneurship in an amazing way. Developing the next project, he had a clear idea of ​​what its commercial benefits are and whether it will be in demand. Thomas was never embarrassed by the chosen means, and if it was necessary to borrow the technical solutions of 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, never ceasing to do it, even when he became a rich man. He was never stopped by difficulties, which only tempered and directed him to new achievements.

In addition, Edison was notable for 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 of the money he earned went to business development, so Thomas spent very little on himself.

Edison's creative heritage was the basis of the world-famous General Electric brand.

Personal life

Thomas was married twice and had three children from each wife. The first time he married at the age of 24 was Mary Stilwell, who was 8 years younger than her husband. Interestingly, before marriage, they had known each other for only two months. After Mary's death, Thomas married Mine Miller, whom he taught Morse code. With her help, they often communicated with each other in the presence of other people, tapping their palms.

Tomans Edison with wife Mine Miller and children

Passion for the occult

In his old age, the inventor became seriously interested in the 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 intention, the device was supposed to record the last words of a person who had just died. He even entered into an “electric pact” with his assistant, according to which the first person who died should send a message to a colleague. The device has not reached our days, and its drawings have not remained, so the results of the experiment remained unknown.

For a long time, Thomas Edison's acquaintances wondered why his gate was so hard to open. Finally one of his friends said to him:
- A genius like you could design a better gate.
- It seems to me, - answered Edison, - the gate is designed ingeniously. It is connected to the domestic water supply pump. Everyone who enters pumps twenty liters of water into my cistern.

Thomas Edison passed away on October 18, 1931 at his home in West Orange and was buried in his backyard.

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And in this we will talk about what was invented by the American inventor Thomas Edison.

By the end of the nineteenth century, so many inventions had been made that in 1899 the head of the US Patent Office, Charles Duell, resigned, declaring that "everything that could be invented has already been invented." As the number of patent applications grew and became narrower and more specialized, it became necessary to redefine the term "invention". Initially, the invention required not only novelty, but also usefulness and applicability. From 1880 to 1952, the law strictly required that an invention contain something new, and not be just a modification of something already known, but by 1952 this wording seemed too strict and new standards were adopted. The invention should now just be something "non-obvious".

Although America was the first in the world to invent apparatus that made life easier, but its attitude to practicality, or pragmatism - a term coined by William James in 1863 - led to a lack of experience in the development of more complex systems. Indeed, many important breakthroughs in technology occurred in the nineteenth century in Europe, not in America. The automobile was invented in Germany, radio was invented in Italy, and the radar, computer and jet aircraft were made in England in the twentieth century. But where no one could beat America was in the use of new technologies, and the best of the best here was Thomas Alva Edison.

Edison was the epitome of American practicality. Latin, philosophy and other "high matters" he called useless junk. The goal of his life was to invent things that would improve the life of the consumer and bring as much money as possible to the inventor. During his life he received 1093 patents (although many of them were the authors of his company), which was twice as much as that of his closest rival Edwin Lewis (inventor of the Polaroid camera), and no one gave the world such a quantity and such a variety of devices. playing a central role in everyday life.

As a person, Edison was, to put it mildly, not without flaws. He slandered his competitors, appropriated the glory of discoveries made by others, tortured his subordinates (they were called the "sleepless team") and, on top of all this, also bribed New Jersey state legislators (paid them a thousand dollars per brother) to they passed laws favorable to his business. Maybe it would be unfair to call him a complete liar, but the truth was rarely heard from him. In a famous story (which he has never refuted) about why film stock is 35mm wide, it is said that when his subordinate asked what size film to make, Edison slightly bent his thumb and forefinger and said, "Well ... about that." . In fact, as Douglas Collins points out, the 35mm width was chosen because Kodak made film 70mm wide and 50 feet long. Instead of developing his own film, Edison simply cut Kodak's film and got 100 feet of finished film.

When George Westinghouse began to develop devices that operated on the then new alternating current (which later turned out to be much superior to direct current in terms of convenience and economy), Edison, who had invested a lot of effort and money in direct current devices, published an 83-page pamphlet called “Caution! From Edison's Electric Light Company, with chilling (and most likely fictional) stories of innocent victims being killed by Westinghouse's horrific alternating current. In order to completely turn the public away from alternating current, Edison, with the help of local boys, to whom he paid 25 cents, collected stray dogs, who were tied to a metal sheet, after wetting their wool so that it would better conduct electric current, convened correspondents and showed them how dogs suffer when they are beaten with alternating current of different strengths.

However, his most cynical attempt to compromise a competitor's technique was Edison's organized execution in the electric chair using alternating current. The victim was one William Kemmler, a prisoner in the state of New York who was sentenced to death for killing his mistress with a club. The experiment failed. First, Kemmler, tied to an electric chair with his hands submerged in a barrel of salt water, was shocked with 1,600 volts of alternating current for 50 seconds. Despite the fact that he frantically gasped for air, lost consciousness and even began to smoke, he still remained alive. It was possible to kill him only on the second attempt, when a higher voltage was used. This disgusting sight spoiled all Edison's plans. Alternating current came into general use shortly thereafter.

From a linguistic point of view, it is interesting to recall the forgotten dispute about how to call the deprivation of a person's life with the help of electricity. Edison, a great enthusiast of new terms, offered various options: electromort, dynamort, ampermort, until he found the most attractive one for him - Westinghouse, but none of them took root. Many newspapers at first wrote that Kemmler was electrized (electrocuted), but soon this term was replaced by electrocuted, and soon the word electrocution (electric shock) became known to everyone, not just prisoners awaiting execution.

Edison was certainly a brilliant inventor, who also had the rare ability to inspire his workers to wonderful discoveries, but the ability to create a complete system was the strongest side of his talent. The invention of the electric light bulb was, of course, a remarkable achievement, but almost useless in practice until a cartridge for it was invented. Edison and his indefatigable employees had to design and build the entire system from scratch: the power plant, cheap and reliable wires, lampposts and switches. In this case, he left Westinghouse and all other competitors far behind.

The first experimental power plant was built in two half-empty houses in lower Manhattan on Pearl Street. On September 4, 1882, Edison turned a switch and 800 lamps lit up, though not very brightly, throughout lower Manhattan. With unprecedented speed, electric light becomes a miracle of its time. Within a few months, Edison is organizing at least 334 small power plants around the world. He carefully chooses the places where the installation of electric lighting will have the greatest effect: the New York Stock Exchange, the Palmer Hotel in Chicago, the La Scala Opera House in Milan, the banquet hall in the British House of Commons. Both Edison and America make huge money on this. By 1920, the value of enterprises based on his inventions and the directions he developed - from electric lighting to cinema - was estimated at 21.6 billion dollars. No individual has contributed more to America's economic strength.

Another important innovation of Edison was the organization of his laboratory, purposefully engaged in invention in order to obtain commercially viable technological products. His example was soon followed by other companies - ATT, General Electric, DuPont. Practical science, supporting academic science everywhere, has become in America the work of the capitalists.