What Thomas Edison Invented. Thomas Edison - biography of the inventor

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 purpose of his life was the invention of things that would improve the life of the consumer and bring as much as possible more money 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. AT known history(which he has never refuted) about why film stock is 35 mm 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 this." 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 finally 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 moistening 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 penalty 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, proposed different variants: 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.

Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in the city of Meilen (sometimes called Milan in Russian-language sources) in US state Ohio. Edison's ancestors arrived in America from Holland.
Edison's childhood partly resembles the childhood of another brilliant inventor -. Both suffered from scarlet fever and became almost deaf, both were declared unfit for school. But if Tsiolkovsky studied at school for several years, then Edison went to school for only three months, after which he was called a "brainless" teacher. As a result, Edison received only home education from his mother.

Thomas Edison as a child

In 1854, the Edisons moved to Port Huron (Michigan), where little Thomas sold newspapers and candy on trains, and also helped his mother sell fruits and vegetables. In his spare time, Thomas was fond of reading books and scientific experiments. He read his first scientific book at the age of 9. It was "Natural and Experimental Philosophy" by Richard Greene Parker, which tells almost all the scientific and technical information of that time. Over time, he did almost all the experiments indicated in the book. Edison set up his first laboratory in the baggage car of a train, but after a fire broke out there, he was thrown out into the street by the conductor along with the laboratory.
While working on railway the teenage Edison founded his own travel newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, which he printed with 4 assistants.
In August 1862, Edison rescued the son of the head of one of the stations from a moving carriage. The chief offered to teach him the telegraph business in gratitude. For several years, Edison worked in various branches of the Western Union telegraph company (this company still exists and, after the decline of the telegraph, is engaged in money transfers).
Edison's first attempts to sell his inventions were unsuccessful, as was the case with a device for counting votes for and against, as well as with an apparatus for automatically recording exchange rates. However, things soon went well. Edison's most important invention, which eventually led to the creation of computer networks, was the quadruplex telegraph. The inventor planned to get $4,000-5,000 for it, but ended up selling it to Western Union in 1874 for $10,000 (about $200,000 adjusted for inflation today). With the money received, Edison opens the first industrial research laboratory in the world in the village of Menlo Park, where he worked 16-19 hours a day.

Thomas Edison Laboratory (Menlo Park)

It became winged saying Edison: "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." For Edison himself, who was self-taught, everything was exactly like that, for which he was criticized by another famous inventor Nikola Tesla:
“If Edison needed to find a needle in a haystack, he would not waste time trying to determine the most likely location of its location. He would immediately, with the feverish diligence of a bee, begin to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. methods are extremely inefficient: he can expend an enormous amount of time and energy and achieve nothing, unless he is helped by a happy accident.In the beginning, I watched his activities with sadness, realizing that a little creative knowledge and calculations would save him thirty percent of the work.But he had a genuine contempt for book education and mathematical knowledge, trusting entirely his instinct as an inventor and the common sense of an American."
However, not knowing, for example, higher mathematics, Edison did not shy away from resorting to the help of more qualified assistants who worked in his laboratory.

Thomas Edison in 1878

inventions

In 1877, Thomas Edison introduced the world to the hitherto unknown miracle - the phonograph. It was the first device for recording and reproducing sound. To demonstrate, Edison recorded and reproduced the words from the children's song "Mary had a little lamb" (Mary had a lamb). After that, people began to call Edison "the wizard of Menlo Park." The first phonographs sold for $18 each. 10 years later, Emil Berliner invented the gramophone, which soon supplanted the Edison phonographs.

Thomas Edison testing the phonograph

Abraham Archibald Anderson - Portrait of Thomas Edison

In the 70s, Edison tried to improve incandescent lamps, which so far no scientist before him has been able to make publicly available and ready for use. industrial production. Edison succeeded: on October 21, 1879, the inventor completed work on an incandescent light bulb with a carbon filament, which became one of the largest inventions of the 19th century.

Early Edison incandescent light bulbs

To show the possibility of using light bulbs on a large scale, Edison created a power plant that provided electricity to the entire New York area. After the success of his experiments, Edison declared: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."
Edison patented the fluoroscope, a device for creating x-rays. However, experiments with X-rays seriously undermined the health of Edison and his assistant. Thomas Edison refused further development in this area and said: "Don't talk to me about x-rays, I'm afraid of them."
In 1877-78, Edison invented the carbon microphone, which greatly increased the volume of telephone communications and was used until the 1980s.
Edison left his mark on cinema as well. In 1891, a kinetograph, an optical device for capturing moving images, was created in his laboratory. And in 1895, Thomas Edison invented the kinetophone - a device that made it possible to demonstrate moving pictures with a soundtrack heard through headphones recorded on a phonograph.
On April 14, 1894, Edison opened the Parlore Kinetoscope room, which contained ten boxes for the display of films. One session in such a cinema cost 25 cents. The viewer looked through the peephole of the apparatus and watched a short film. However, a year and a half later, this idea was buried by the Lumiere brothers, who demonstrated the possibility of showing films on big screen.
Relations with the cinema in general developed for Edison tensely. He enjoyed silent films, especially The Birth of a Nation in 1915. Edison's favorite actresses were silent film stars Mary Pickford and Clara Bow. But Edison reacted negatively to the advent of sound cinema, saying that the acting was not so good: "They concentrate on the voice and forgot how to act. I feel it more than you, because I'm deaf."

Thomas Edison in 1880

Thomas Edison in 1890

A family

Edison has been married twice. His first wife was the telegraph operator Mary Stillwell (1855-1884). They married in 1871. This marriage had three children: a daughter and two sons. As they say, Edison went to work after the wedding and worked until late at night, forgot about the wedding night. Mary died at the age of 29, presumably from a brain tumor.

first wife Mary Stillwell (Edison)

In 1886, Edison married Mina Miller (1865-1947), whose father, like Thomas Edison, was an inventor. Mina far outlived Thomas Edison (he died in 1931 at the age of 84). This marriage also had three children: a daughter and two sons.

second wife Mina Miller (Edison)

Mina with her husband, Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison. Photo from 1922

16 min. reading

Updated: 13/10/2019

Most people miss the opportunity that has arisen, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work / T. Edison

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.

For the period of his professional activity, Thomas received 1093 patents at home and about 3000 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 any 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's mother taught him to read and write, and placed her grown son in primary school.

AT educational institution schoolchildren were punished with a belt, and 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 identify Creative skills 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 famous inventor when his mother had already died, Edison found this note in 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 English edition 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 in the future will strive to benefit from scientific inventions.

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 to telegraph twice an hour given word to make sure the employee is 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 at hand sulfuric acid, and once 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 solemn 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 " talking car" 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 most likely it would be possible, but he warned that then "all people will 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 application. 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 Forbes ranking"Most Valuable Brands" at 7th position (2017), by value ($ 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 (Llewellyn Park), West Orange (New Jersey), where he moved his science Center.

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

Edison's genius was manifested in various fields, he was an inventor of a wide profile. The answer word phone call"hello" (from the English "nello") - his proposal, as well as the idea to use paraffin paper for wrapping sweets.

In 1888, Edison invented the kinetoscope, an optical device for showing moving pictures; one person could watch the “movie” through a special eyepiece.

Kinetoscope

Kinetoscope

In 1894, the first kinetoscopic salon opened in New York, equipped with 10 devices, each of which showed a 3-second video. But in 1895, the Lumiere brothers patented a cinematograph for the mass screening of films, and the personal kinetoscope could not compete with it.

In 1896, a kiss was shown on the big screen for the first time: Edison filmed the romantic ending of the play The Widow Jones. The 27-second video was banned from showing.

After the discovery of X-rays in 1895, the scientist delegated to the employee Clarence Delley the development of a device for fluoroscopy. This is how the fluoroscope was born. At that time, the dangers of X-rays were not known. Clarence tested X-ray tubes on himself, his health deteriorated and he died. Edison stopped developing the fluoroscope, and said: "Don't talk to me about x-rays, I'm afraid of them."

Thomas Edison's life priorities

During World War I, Edison was offered a position as a military consultant. The scientist warned that he would design only protective equipment. The inventor did not want to create weapons of destruction.

Money and fame did not spoil Edison, friends claimed that he remained the same sincere and handsome Tom. But he was a legend of American science, his name was given to an asteroid discovered in 1913.

In the circle of friends, the scientist was known as a humorist, the following anecdotal story is known:

A wicket door led to the Edison estate, which was difficult to open. The incoming taunted that the great inventor could have designed the gate better. Edison replied: “In my opinion, the gate is designed brilliantly. It is connected to a domestic water pump and anyone who opens it pumps 20 liters of water into the cistern.”

Edison's hours of work often showed 90 working hours a week at Edison's.

One day, the experimenter refused a public dinner, declaring that "for $100,000 I would not agree to sit for 2 hours listening to praises." Successful people understand the value of every minute and don't like wasting time.

I don't need horses or yachts, I don't have time for all that. I need a workshop!

Many celebrities are vegetarians, for example. Mr. Edison also did not eat meat. He was indifferent to alcohol, declaring that he could "find a better use for the mind."

Death

last decade life scientist was interested in the afterlife. The 73-year-old inventor in an interview with Forbes informed readers that he was designing a device for communicating with the dead - the necrophone. William Dinudi, Edison's colleague, concluded an "electric pact" with him: the first to die promised to send news "from the other world" to the survivor. Dinudi died first, in 1920. It is likely that Edison's attempt to establish contact with the other world was not successful, judging by the lack of industrial production of necrophones.

Edison was not sure if there was an existence after death, but once admitted to his wife: "I lived my life and did the best I could." The scientist died on 10/18/1931 at the age of 84 from complications. diabetes. Mina's wife survived her husband by 16 years. The inventor's grave is located in the backyard of his estate.

In Dearborn, the museum exhibits a glass flask with a sealed "last breath" of a genius - the air from Edison's room was sealed in a beaker by his attending physician.

In September 2017, the trailer for the film "War of the Currents" was released, where the role of Thomas Edison is played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Thomas Edison is one of the greatest minds of his era, the most successful inventor of the 19th century.

If we did everything in our power, we would be amazed at ourselves

These words belong to a man who knew how to embody ideas and bring what he started to the end.

List of sources used

1. Mikhail Lapirov-Skoblo. Edison.
2. Kamensky Andrey. Thomas Edison. His life and scientific and practical activities.
3. Website national park Thomas Edisonhttps://www.nps.gov/edis/index.htm

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 US patents and more 3000 around the world.

Brief biography of Edison

Thomas Edison was born February 11, 1847 in the US town of Mylene, Ohio. His father - Samuel Edison, was a wheat trader. His mother - Nancy Elliott Edison, the daughter of a priest, a school teacher.

Little Al was vertically challenged and fragile body. But this did not prevent him from becoming a very inquisitive and independent child from early childhood.

Thomas' study

In 1854 The Edison family moved to Michigan, where Thomas Alva attended elementary school for 3 months. He was hampered by the deafness of his left ear, and the school teachers considered him a "limited" child. After a scandal with school management, Thomas was taken away from school by his mother.

He began to receive home education. Partly from his mother, since she was a teacher, partly from books bought for him on various subjects, including chemistry and physics.

Capable Boy

Thomas Edison was very independent from childhood. When he needed money engaged in trade- sold sweets, newspapers, fruits. Then he organized the boys into groups for sale, 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 paperboy. During this period, he manages to earn up to $ 10 a day thanks to his extraordinary abilities of inventive thinking. In 1862 he becomes 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 car. The chief offered to teach him the telegraph business in gratitude. This is how he became acquainted with the telegraph. He immediately arranges his first telegraph line between his house and the house of a friend.

Successful Inventor

At the age of 22 Edison decided to find another job. He had behind him the experience of a seller of sweets, a peddler of newspapers, served as a telegraph operator on the railway, and dealt with poisonous chemicals. He wanted to find a high-paying job so as not to worry about his future.

He went to downtown New York, went to the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company. Panic reigned there - the telegraph apparatus failed. Neither the invited master nor the telegraphers themselves could do anything.

Thomas asked permission to look. He was admitted to the apparatus with great distrust. He dismantled the mechanism, quickly fixed the problem and turned on the button. The device started up immediately. The manager happily took him to work with a salary of $ 300 a month.

Watching from the window of this firm the crisis black friday 1869 When crazed brokers sold securities on the stock exchange for pennies, Edison concluded for himself: in order to buy gold or securities that are either sold or not, you must have the necessary information and transmit it in a timely manner. Therefore, it makes sense to improve the telegraph apparatus!

First major success

In 1870, Edison succeeded in qualitatively improving the system of telegraphing stock bulletins about the price of gold and stocks. His employer became interested in this development and bought the invention for 40 thousand dollars.

Thanks to this money, Thomas Alva starts own business and opens a workshop in Newark where tickers are made for the needs of the stock exchange. By 1871, there were already three such workshops in his possession.

Laboratory in Menlo Park

In 1876, Edison, along with his wife Mary Stillwell and daughter Marion, moved to the small village of Menlo Park. Here he builds own laboratory and immerses himself in invention. For his activities, he does not spare money for the most modern equipment.

During this period, the path of Thomas Edison to world fame through inventions begins. For the company "Western Union" he completes his first order at a new lab and receives a $100,000 fee for improvements to the quality of the telephone service.

In 1877 he invented the phonograph- progenitor of the gramophone. It was a real sensation! Thomas came up with the idea of ​​recording human speech and playing it back after observing the operation of the 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 can 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 acquired it and decided to improve it. He had an idea to start lighting houses, streets, all of America.

Instead of a carbon thread, he inserted a twisted tungsten spiral, made a threaded base. The bulb shone brighter and proved to be more durable. He began to think about a switch, wires, a power plant ...

Soon the first power station was built in New York, it gave electricity, and the city, as Edison intended, began to be illuminated by a new incandescent light bulb.

In 1882, Edison built New York's first distribution substation, serving Pearl Street and 59 customers in Manhattan, and founded a company that made electric generators, light bulbs, cables, and lighting fixtures.

October 18, 1931 At the age of 84, Thomas Alva Edison died from complications of diabetes. He was buried in the backyard of his home in West Orange, New Jersey.

Briefly about the article: Biography of Thomas Edison - a workaholic, plagiarist and genius who turned science into a profitable business.

Profession - genius

Thomas Edison

If Edison needed to find a needle in a haystack, he would begin to inspect each straw with the painstakingness of a bee until he found what he was looking for.

Nikola Tesla

8 ohms, 10 newtons, 50 hertz, 220 volts, 1000 amps, a million tesla... Pay attention - no one says "4 edisons". Does this mean that our today's hero does not deserve to be immortalized in the SI system? On the one hand, for some reason, relativity is not measured by Einsteins, and geometric angles - by Euclideans. On the other hand, in order to turn his last name into a unit of measurement, a person must do something really great. And extremely useful in everyday life, so the invention of dynamite or the burning of the temple of Artemis is not suitable here.

Edison went down in history as the author of the phonograph, the electric chair, and the "Hello" telephone greeting. Should this sly American be considered a genius? Or is it just a lucky businessman who made big money with little scientific fame - and big scientific fame with little money?

dumbass

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan. With the same success, he could have been born in St. Petersburg or Moscow - there are only 10 “gold-domed” ones in the USA. Seven years later, his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. Edison himself claimed that he had Dutch roots.

The father of the future inventor Sam Edison came to Milan from Canada. He brought with him his wife Nancy and four offspring. Thomas was their last child. The parents took care of the boy as best they could, because before that they had two children died, and the third died shortly before his birth.

Edison himself did not like to remember his childhood. He only said that once he was taken to Canada, and the most shocking thing was the death of a friend who drowned while they were swimming in a stream. It is also known that in Milan, Edison had the nickname "Al".

In 1854 the family moved to Michigan. Edison was left alone with his parents, as the older "chicks" got their own families and began to live separately. The boy was sent to school, but somehow he did not work out there. He did not show special talents, and the teacher called him a stupid idiot to his face.

A caring mother arranged for the boy to be educated at home. A tutor was hired who was able to switch Thomas from reading science fiction to popular science literature and then textbooks. Soon, Edison turned from a slob into a "bookworm", a kind of "street nerd" - lively, inquisitive, slightly deaf. It is assumed that Thomas began to have hearing problems in childhood after he had been ill with scarlet fever, and subsequently did not pay attention to inflammation of the middle ear.

Edison later said that he became hard of hearing after the conductor hit him, the boy, in the ear and threw him off the train at full speed. Towards the end of his life, Edison claimed that the conductor, on the contrary, “helped” him not to be late for the departing train, dragging him into the car by the ears.

From the age of 12, his life was connected with trains. Edison went to work: he sold sweets, vegetables and newspapers on trains going to Detroit. And in Detroit itself, the boy spent time at the library tables.

At the same time, his commercial vein suddenly opened up: Thomas began to hire other boy hawkers, and he only delivered food from Detroit for sale. There was free time, which the guy spent in a very peculiar way. Having agreed with the conductor, he equipped a chemical laboratory and a printing press in the baggage car, on which he began to issue his own newspaper, the Weekly Herald.

The enterprise burned out in the literal sense of the word: Thomas almost burned the train with his chemical experiments, and (according to the above legend) an angry conductor threw Edison down a slope along with all his scientific belongings.

Science is a profitable business!

At the end of 1862, an event occurred, without which Edison could have sold newspapers on the train for the rest of his life. While passing through the town of Mount Clemens, he saved the three-year-old son of the stationmaster, James Mackenzie, from death under the wheels of a trolley. In gratitude, he taught Edison telegraphy. In the middle of the 19th century, telegraph communication was something like nanotechnology today - the latest fashion, the pinnacle of progress and a ticket to a great future.

A year later, 16-year-old Edison left his parents and began to travel around the cities of the United States. It should be clarified that telegraph operators at that time were like cyberpunk hackers. Young people had their own subculture, they wandered from city to city and could, without ever meeting their colleagues with their own eyes, recognize them by the “handwriting” of working with a key.

Thomas preferred night shifts, which gave him time to work on inventions and read a lot. The first of his "know-how" was a telegraph answering machine, which allowed a tired young man to sleep at work. Edison also invented a universal ticker machine - the forerunner of a printer that received telegraph messages with stock quotes and printed them, and not in Morse code, but in English.

However, this did not end well - in 1867, Edison, who worked for the Associated Press, accidentally spilled sulfuric acid from a battery on the floor. It leaked through the boards on the floor below and straight onto the chef's table. Thomas was fired the next day.

The young Edison had outgrown everything the province had to offer him. He moved to New Jersey and took up inventing. In 1874, Thomas sold a four-channel telegraph to Western Union. He didn't know whether to ask $4,000 or $5,000 for it, and suggested that the buyer set the price himself. Western Union paid 10 thousand. With this money, a laboratory was equipped in Menlo Park (a district of New Jersey) and workers were hired to conduct brainstorming sessions.

A semi-anecdotal legend says that near Edison's house there was a gate that was very difficult to open. One day, friends quipped that the great inventor could have made a better gate, to which Edison replied: “It seems to me that the gate is ingeniously designed. It is connected to my water supply pump, and every time you open it, twenty liters of water are pumped into the cistern.”

While exploring the possibility of converting telegraphic messages into sound, in 1877 Thomas unwittingly invented the phonograph. With the help of a needle and foil, the song "Mary Had a Lamb" was recorded.

The device made a splash. The recording and playback of sound was considered science fiction at the time, so Edison was given the nickname "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (the area was later renamed "Edison").

Edison was even frightened by the fame that fell on him, saying that he did not trust things that worked the first time. The foil wore off after a few plays, but discs (records) soon appeared, followed by the multi-million dollar recording industry.

Things were going well. For 10 years, the laboratory in Menlo Park has grown and began to occupy 2 city blocks. By order of Edison, it contained "almost all the substances available to mankind" - from radioactive ore to the hair of exotic animals. Thomas has established several subsidiaries and representative offices in other countries. His motto (and the main requirement for workers) was: "Invent only what will be in demand."

Let there be light!

And the demand was on the light. At the end of the 19th century, arc lamps were used for electric lighting - bright and powerful Yablochkov candles (nicknamed "Russian light" in Europe), which cost 20 kopecks and worked for about an hour and a half. Edison, with his characteristic impudence, announced in the newspapers that soon all of New York would be lit by his "fireproof lamps", and electricity would be so cheap that only the rich would start burning candles.

By that time, Edison had lagged behind other developers of incandescent lamps (Lodygin, Swan, Goebel) for many years, so he decided not to "reinvent the wheel", but, as usual, to steal other people's ideas, slightly improve them and pass them off as his own. The warehouse of “all substances in the world” came in handy here: Edison went through about 6000 various materials for the filament, finally settling on Japanese bamboo carbon fiber, which burned for 13.5 hours. Subsequently, the service life of such lamps was raised to 1200 hours.

Historians unanimously give Edison priority in the invention of the commercial incandescent light bulb. Compared to analogues from other inventors, they were better evacuated, durable, and most importantly - cheap. In 1878 he founded the Edison Electric Light Co. (now General Electric) and started litigation with competitors that dragged on for decades. By the beginning of the 20th century, the initiative was lost. Inert gas lamps and tungsten filaments appeared. Edison was never able to subdue this business for himself.

Time for a change

The “current war” that lasted from 1882 to 2007 (in November 2007, the chief engineer of Consolidated Edison symbolically cut the last cable that supplied direct current to New York), Edison also lost. He was a supporter direct current, which was transmitted without loss only over short distances. Around the world, Edison built his power plants, "planting" consumers on direct current.

The industrialist Westinghouse and his protégé Nikola Tesla, deceived by Edison, introduced alternating current, transmitted over hundreds of kilometers with almost no loss. Edison sensed competition and acted as always: he began to sue. He lost the courts, which infuriated him. Thomas lost his head so much that he launched a "black PR" company and even abandoned his pacifism.

His assistants were ordered to publicly kill animals with alternating current in order to convince the public of the mortal danger of the latter. The apotheosis was the execution of the elephant Topsy on January 4, 1903, who trampled three people (before that, they tried to poison her with cyanide in carrots).

Edison did not calm down and paid for the creation of the first electric chair(of course, working on alternating current) for William Kemmler, who killed his wife with an ax. The first 17-second shock did not kill him, but left severe burns. The poor fellow was finished off by the second category. The sight was terrible - Kemmler was smoking, and the room smelled of burnt meat. Westinghouse commented: "It would have been better if he had been executed with an axe."

In 1893, Westinghouse won a tender to build a power plant at Niagara Falls, promising to provide electricity to everyone. After this defeat, Edison also switched to AC machines, but continued to advertise DC until his death.

And death was not far off. For the last 30 years of his life, Edison did not shine with discoveries, devoting himself mainly to business. He worked to the last and died from complications of diabetes on October 18, 1931. Henry Ford soldered the air from Edison's room into a glass flask. The "last breath" of the inventor is kept in the Ford Museum.

On the verge of fantasy

Despite all the dubious moral character, Americans idolize Edison. After all, he tried to be the first at any cost - and this is very American. Even in other countries, Edison is usually represented as an omnipotent genius, able to get a star from the stars and make steam out of a stone.

For example, in the book Eve of the future”(written in 1883, that is, at the peak of Edison’s fame) by the French symbolist Villiers de Lisle-Adam, our hero constructs for a friend an ideal android woman capable of feeling and loving.

In the novel by Donald Bensen "And it was written..."(1978), the Tunguska meteorite turned out to be a crashed spaceship whose crew decided to accelerate the development of earthlings with the help of the First World War (after which people will develop the technologies they need to return home). Interestingly, Edison becomes President of the United States and puts aliens under arrest in an attempt to ferret out their technological secrets.

Edison worked for some time with Superman, who, however, preferred to cooperate with Tesla (one of the issues of the comics " American Justice League", 2003). The ghost of Edison helped Roosevelt fight Hitler, who was trying to raise civil war between blue and green Martians (comic Tales from the Bully Pulpit, 2004), and in Tip Powers' novel " Best before date»The ghost of Edison is being hunted down and possessed by a little boy.

In addition to worship, there was ridicule. In one of the episodes The Simpsons» Homer begins to imitate Edison and invents all sorts of nonsense like an electric hammer or extra chair legs. In the end, it turns out that Edison was the same loser who tried to imitate Leonardo da Vinci.

Edison also had a chance to be an antihero - for example, in the comic book " Five Fists of Science(2006) he prevented Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain from establishing world peace. According to some historians, Frank Baum wrote off the image wizard of oz with Edison (remember: the trickster who passes off technical tricks as miracles and flies home in a balloon at the end of the story).

***

Edison never climbed into "high matters", because fundamental science did not bring any profit. He did not have a classical scientific education, he never thought abstractly and worked not according to brilliant intuition, but extensively, preferring to sort through everything. possible options. He was not a scientist, but a businessman and a talented craftsman. Edison did not pave the way for us into space and did not reveal the secrets of the atom. But he did a very important thing - he turned highbrow science on a commercial footing. Inventions made before him found domestic use only a hundred years later. Now useful inventions are introduced into everyday life in 5-10 years. Only the First World War spurred on progress more than Edison.