Historical Figure
Thomas Edison
1847–1931
American inventor and businessman (1847–1931)
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Biography
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory.
In Their Own Words (5)
Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.
The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), p. 110 , 1948
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 , 1998
Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions
Thomas Edison ""No Immortality of the Soul" says Thomas A. Edison. In Fact, He Doesn't Believe There Is a Soul — Human Beings Only an Aggregate of Cells and the Brain Only a Wonderful Machine, Says Wizard of Electricity". New York Times. October 2, 1910 , 1910
X-rays ... I am afraid of them. I stopped experimenting with them two years ago, when I came near to losing my eyesight and Dally, my assistant practically lost the use of both of his arms.
Quoted in 'Edison Fears Hidden Perils of the X-Rays', New York World (3 Aug 1903), 1 , 1903
I believe in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence pervading the Universe.
As quoted in Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind : The Romantic Life Story of the World's Greatest Inventor (1931) by Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ch. 25 : Edison's Views on Life — His Philosophy and Religion, p. 293 , 1931
Timeline
The story of Thomas Edison, told in moments.
Opens his research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It's the world's first industrial research lab. Not one inventor alone in a workshop. A team. Twenty machinists, clockmakers, and engineers working on multiple projects at once. He calls it an "invention factory." The concept outlives everything he invents in it.
Demonstrates the phonograph. He recites "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into a cylinder wrapped in tin foil. The machine plays it back. Nobody has ever heard a recorded human voice before. He's nicknamed the Wizard of Menlo Park. He is 30.
Tests a practical incandescent light bulb. It burns for 13.5 hours. He didn't invent electric light. Others had working prototypes. What he does is find a filament that lasts and build the entire electrical distribution system to power it: generators, wiring, meters, switches. The bulb is just the visible part.
Patents the Kinetoscope, an early motion picture viewer. His lab in West Orange, New Jersey, builds the first film studio, called the Black Maria. It looks like a tar-paper shack on a turntable that follows the sun. Motion pictures begin in something ugly and practical. Like most of his inventions.
Dies at 84 in West Orange, New Jersey. He holds 1,093 US patents, more than any individual in American history. Henry Ford, his friend, allegedly captured his last breath in a test tube. It's kept at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Nobody knows why.
Artifacts (5)
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