Inventions of Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison: inventions Scientist Edison biography

Thomas Alva Edison is one of the brightest and famous inventors XIX century. At this time in different corners planet, people began to look for ways to use artificial light, transmit and record sound and image. Under these conditions, Edison managed not only to improve the inventions of his predecessors, but also to create completely new ones. technical devices. Thomas Edison combined the talent of an inventor and a commercial spirit. This allowed him not only to come up with many technical innovations, but also to successfully introduce their use into daily life people all over the world.

Childhood and youth

The future inventor was born on February 11, 1847 in the town of Milon, Ohio, into the family of a merchant and a schoolteacher. Neither parents nor teachers for a long time and did not suspect that in a few decades little Thomas would radically change the usual way of life of Europeans and Americans. IN early childhood Edison was not doing well with his studies. This was due not only to childhood restlessness, but also to health problems. Due to an incompletely cured infection, the boy began to lose his hearing. He had to leave school and study at home. Thomas's mother taught her son everything she knew and also regularly bought for him best books and textbooks.

In his free time from classes, Thomas earned money by selling sweets and various small items. Quite early on, the boy began to demonstrate extraordinary commercial abilities; he managed to organize groups of the same boy traders and receive part of their proceeds. Then he began to conduct his first experiments in chemistry and physics.

IN adolescence Edison began working as a newspaper delivery boy. He got such a taste for the business that a couple of years later he even began publishing the first train newspaper for passengers. Perhaps Edison's life would have turned out completely differently if not for one happy incident that happened to him in his youth. In the summer of 1862, Thomas saved little boy, almost getting hit by a train. The father of the child turned out to be the head of the railway station, who, as a thank you, decided to teach the talented young man the telegraph business. Edison thoroughly studied the work of the telegraph, which allowed him to find a better-paying job. However, the inventor did not stay in one place for long.

In the period from 1863 to 1869, Edison traveled a lot around the country and changed several jobs, including the Western Union company that still exists to this day. All this time he did not abandon his experiments and created several devices, which, however, were not found wide application. For example, potential customers rejected the electric vote-counting device that Edison created specifically for the American Parliament.

Career

In 1874, Edison was lucky. He created a quadruplex telegraph intended for stock trading. This telegraph made it possible to establish a stronger and more stable connection than its predecessor. The device was immediately purchased by the head Gold company& Stock Telegraph Company for a huge sum of money. From that moment on, Edison decided to quit his job and devote all his time to invention.

The money received for the quadruplex telegraph allowed the inventor to open a huge laboratory in the town of Menlo Park in 1876. Representatives of various American companies regularly came here, wanting to get a solution to some technical problem from Edison. And by the end of the 1880s, the name Edison was already known in Europe. Journalists and onlookers were strictly prohibited from entering the laboratory. Local residents treated the inventor and his work with almost reverent awe. In a matter of years, the laboratory turned into a full-fledged research center, and Edison began to open its branches in other cities.

In Menlo Park, the inventor created many world-changing devices, such as the microphone and phonograph, which allowed people to play and record sounds. Edison sent several of his first phonographs to people whom he considered the greatest of his contemporaries, including Leo Tolstoy.

A special milestone in Edison's inventive activity was the improvement of the incandescent lamp. The first such lamp was created in 1874 by the Russian engineer Lodygin. Lodygin pumped air out of a glass flask into which a carbon thread was inserted. Due to the incandescence of the filament, the lamp began to glow. Unfortunately, the carbon filament often burned out and the lamps became unusable. Edison improved Lodygin's invention by replacing the filament material with tungsten. This made the lamps more durable and suitable for mass production.

Edison also bought the rights to Lodygin’s invention: the Russian physicist could not renew his patent due to financial difficulties. Immediately after receiving the patent, the inventor set up his own production of incandescent lamps and opened the first power plant in America in 1882. Edison, who had an excellent understanding of the intricacies of legislation, very often used this technique with talented inventors who lacked commercial abilities. Because of this, he was criticized more than once during his lifetime. Many believed that Edison was a plagiarist who only slightly altered other people's inventions. The desire for profit and appropriation of other people's laurels led to a cooling of relations, and later to an open confrontation between the American inventor and Nikola Tesla, who at one time worked in the Edison company.

The inventor was married twice to:

• Mary Stiwell, who died in 1884. In this marriage, Edison became the father of two sons and a daughter.
• Mina Miller, who was 18 years younger than her husband and also bore him three children.

The inventor died at 84 from diabetes. During his lifetime, he became a recognized genius and world figure.

Inventions of Thomas Edison

The number of inventions that appeared thanks to the sharp mind and rich imagination of Thomas Edison is truly enormous. Over 1,000 patents were issued in Edison's name. Some of these items are a thing of the past, but we still use many of them to this day.

• The mimeograph was one of the first copying machines;
• Kinetoscope, which made it possible to make films;
• Electric chair;
• Magnetic ore separator;
• Alkaline battery;
• Electric generator;
• Carbon microphone used in telephony.

In addition, Edison was the first to isolate many substances used today in pharmaceuticals and chemical production eg phenol and benzene.

Throughout his life, the inventor remained self-taught; he never received any education. Edison was contemptuous of book learning and theoretical sciences, believing that it was a waste of time, and practice was much more important for an inventor. This often complicated his work; in some cases he had to work as if blindly, simply going through all the available options, instead of immediately choosing the best one with the help of natural science laws and mathematics. For example, it is known that during the development of the alkaline battery, Edison conducted almost 60,000 experiments. Edison always approached his work very thoroughly and carefully; every day he spent at least 16 hours on experiments and their descriptions.

Born February 11, 1847 great inventor Thomas Alva Edison. We remember ten technical achievements that immortalized the name of an American engineer

2014-02-11 10:05

This one was born legendary man in the USA in Ohio on February 11, 1847. Edison received his first patent at the age of 22. Over the course of 62 years, Thomas Edison received 1,033 patents in the United States alone and 1,200 patents in other countries. The researchers calculated that, on average, a scientist received a new patent every two weeks. Despite the fact that many of his inventions were not unique, he often sued other inventors whose ideas he was guided by. At the same time, marketing skills and its influence often helped to win.

Electric meter

Edison's first invention, for which he received a patent in 1869, was an electric election counter. The device was a vote counting machine on which deputies had to press “for” and “against” buttons. This is how the general counting of votes took place.

Edison's friend Dewitt Roberts showed interest in the device, bought it for $100 and took it to Washington. But, according to parliamentarians, his counter was absolutely useless for holding elections. So the device was sent to the political cemetery.

Currently, such devices are used in almost all countries and greatly facilitate the work of election commissions.

Electric chair

One of Edison's inventions that changed history was the electric chair.

There have been long discussions in government and society about the death penalty. Thomas Edison, with his speech, was able to convince everyone that the best and most humane punishment would be the electric chair.

Against all odds, Edison was able to buy alternating current generators. On January 1, 1889, the chair was ready. The first person on death row in the electric chair was William Kemmler, convicted of murdering his wife with an ax. Subsequently, since 1896, the death penalty by electric chair was adopted by a number of other states, where a similar method of punishment was also allowed.

Stencil pen

In 1876, Edison patented a pneumatic pen pistol. The device used a rod with a tip in the form of a steel needle to perforate printed paper. This pen was the first effective means for copying documents.

On its basis, in 1891, tattoo artist Samuel O'Reilly was the first to patent a tattoo machine. He made only one such device and used it for personal purposes.

After developing his own tattoo machine, many circus performers and representatives of the entertainment industry became regulars at his O’Reilly house. The machine worked faster than a normal tattoo artist's hand, and, as many thought, it gave a clean result. After O'Reilly's death in 1908, one of the master's students bought the machine and worked on Coney Island until the 50s.

Fruit preservation method

In 1881, Edison patented a method for preserving fruits, vegetables and other organic foods in glass containers. The products were placed in a container, after which the air had to be pumped out of it with a special pump. The tube was then closed with a piece of glass.

Edison's invention was inspired by experiments with glass vacuum tubes during the development of incandescent lamps.

Edison is also credited with another invention related to food products- wax paper. But in fact, it was created in France in 1851, when Edison was still a child.

Electric car

Edison was confident that the future belonged to electricity. In his opinion, everything should be equipped with it, even cars.

In 1899, he invents alkaline batteries, which were to form the basis of electric vehicles. In 1900, 28% of cars produced in America ran on electricity. But main goal The scientist was developing a battery that would allow him to travel more than 150 kilometers without recharging.

After 10 years, Edison abandoned his idea, as the abundance of gasoline minimized the need for electric vehicles.

Phonograph

On February 19, 1878, Edison received a patent for the phonograph. It was one of the first devices used to reproduce and record sound.

The first recordings were made with a moving needle on foil, which was located on a rotating cylinder. The cost of a phonograph at that time was $18. Having presented his invention to the public, Edison gained fame. It was also presented at the French Academy and at the White House.

The disc version of the phonograph was released in 1912 and became more popular than previous models.

Mimeograph

In 1876, Thomas Edison patented the mimeograph. The device was used for printing and duplicating books in small editions. But working with him was not easy.

The mimeograph consisted of an electric pen and a copy box. Inside the box were the necessary supplies: a rubber roller and cans of paint.

First, I had to write the text using an electric pen.

A pen, inside of which a thin needle was constantly moving, “stuffed” a dotted pattern onto special paper, creating a matrix. The resulting stencil was fixed in a frame-lid and covered with printing ink. Under the frame there was a special box with a platform. By lifting the frame on its hinges and placing a sheet of paper on the platform, it was possible to roll the frame with a rubber roller and obtain a print. At the same time, the paint appeared through the matrix, leaving an autograph.

Edison's invention was actively used by Russian revolutionaries.

Incandescent lamp

Another great invention appeared during the development of the incandescent electric lamp. To create the filament, the most different materials, but for a long time attempts did not bring the desired results.

In April 1879, the inventor established the critical importance of vacuum in the manufacture of lamps. On October 21 of the same year the work was completed. The final version used a charred bamboo thread placed in an airless space to create light.

Similar experiments were carried out in parallel by scientists from many countries. But it was Edison who was able to create a source of electric light, the production of which did not require large expenses.

Kinetoscope

The Kinetoscope was patented on July 31, 1891. It was a large box with an eyepiece. Inside there was a system of reels with stretched film and lighting. Through the eyepiece, the viewer could watch a film lasting no more than half a minute.

Before the advent of film projectors, Edison's invention was in demand. In 1894, the inventor opened a special hall with ten kinetoscopes. Anyone could watch films there by paying 25 cents.

Unfortunately, only one person could watch the film using the Kinetoscope. Therefore, as soon as film projectors appeared, which made it possible for many people to watch a film at once, they quickly replaced kinetoscopes.

Telephone membrane

The carbon telephone membrane was one of Thomas Edison's many inventions that never gained popularity, but laid the foundation for the era of telephony.

Unfortunately, little is known about this invention. But you can imagine it based on modern analogues.

The device was enclosed in a kind of box, inside it there was a membrane itself and a carbon block, in which several cutouts were made and coal powder was poured into them. This design was connected to electrical circuit, one end was a carbon membrane, and the other was the same block and carbon powder was a component of this chain. A microphone and speaker were also connected to the circuit. When speaking into a microphone, the membrane either narrowed or expanded depending on the strength of the sound and changed the voltage, which in turn went to the speaker and reproduced the sounds just spoken.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) was a self-taught American inventor, businessman, and electrical engineer. Despite his frail physique, short stature and hearing problems, during his life he patented more than four thousand inventions. It was this man who invented the incandescent lamp and the phonograph. He also founded the world's first research center and made a contribution to the development of cinema. Edison's inventions are still used by people all over the world.

Family and childhood

The future inventor was born on February 11, 1847 in the city of Milen, Ohio. His father Samuel was a successful wheat merchant, but soon after his birth youngest son he went bankrupt. Thomas was barely seven years old when he and his family were forced to move to Michigan.

Edison did not do very well at school. He was absent-minded and often distracted. The situation was aggravated by hearing problems that began in childhood. Thomas claimed that they were caused by the impact of the composter. But scientists found that the inventor’s hearing was impaired due to an untreated infection.

Thomas was in prison for only three months. educational institution. After this, the teacher called him “brainless and narrow-minded,” and the parents took their son out of school. His mother, Nancy Eliott Edison, began teaching him at home. She was a school teacher, so there were no difficulties in choosing a program.

First experiments

After switching to homeschooling the boy became interested in chemistry. He began conducting experiments and already at the age of ten founded his first laboratory in the basement of his house. The experiments required money, so Thomas used every opportunity to earn money. He sold fruits, vegetables and other goods in the square. Later the young man began to trade on trains.

Edison didn't want to waste time, so he moved his laboratory to a baggage car. The editorial office of the newspaper, which was published by an enterprising teenager, was also located there. Thanks to his ingenuity, he received $10 a day even at that age.

In 1962, Thomas found his first serious job. This happened by accident when he took a three-year-old boy off the tracks. His father was grateful for his son’s salvation, so he offered the young man a job as a telegraph operator. This activity fascinated Edison, and he later built a telegraph line between the houses of his parents and a friend.

For five years the scientist worked as a telegraph operator. In 1868, he read Michael Faraday's book "Experimental Studies of Electricity" and decided to try his hand as an inventor. A few months later, Edison received his first patent. He developed a system for electrically recording votes during elections. But this invention was not in demand; no one bought the patent.

Opening of the laboratory

After a debut that did not bring him any profit, Thomas decided to develop exclusively people need things. At the end of 1870, he received 40 thousand dollars for the invention of a stock ticker that conveys stock quotes. With this money, the scientist opened his first workshop in Newark. He purchased only the best equipment for his experiments, even if he had to save on everything else.

Three years later, Edison developed a special telegraphy scheme that allowed the simultaneous transmission of up to four messages. In 1874, he sold this invention to Western Union for $10,000. Thomas spent them on opening an industrial research laboratory in the village of Menklo. At the same time, he invented a carbon microphone, thanks to which the quality of telephone communications significantly improved.

In 1877 the world saw one of best inventions Edison - phonograph. The scientist was able to record and reproduce the children's song “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” after which they began to call him a wizard. Phonographs sold for $18 apiece and remained popular until the invention of the gramophone.

Back in 1874, Russian engineer Alexander Lodygin invented the first incandescent lamp. Edison became interested in this device, and soon he bought the scientist’s invention. He dreamed of illuminating all houses and streets, so he spent a lot of time improving the light bulb. Thomas made a threaded base and also inserted a twisted tungsten spiral inside. Later he thought about creating a switch and developed a wiring diagram. Soon the first power plant illuminated by incandescent lamps was built in New York.

In 1882, the first distribution substation for the residents of Manhattan appeared. At the same time, Edison founded a company manufacturing electric generators, cables and light bulbs.

Last years of life

In 1887 Thomas moved to West Orange. There he founded a modern laboratory in which several dozen people could work simultaneously. At the new location, the inventor improved the phonograph, created a voice recorder and a movie camera.

Edison adhered to the principle that he described in his catchphrase: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Some scientists have criticized this approach. For example, Nikola Tesla stated that the inventor could have achieved much more by spending time studying books. But Thomas preferred to be guided by instinct and work hard, without looking for easy ways. He was also not ashamed to ask for help from more qualified people working in the laboratory. The scientist spent 16-18 hours a day at work.

Despite his busy schedule, Thomas was married twice. He met his first wife back in 1871, her name was Mary Stillwell. The girl was a telegraph operator, she gave birth to her husband a daughter and two sons. When she turned 29, Mary died of brain cancer.

In 1886, the inventor married for the second time to Mina Miller. In their marriage they also had three children - two sons and a daughter. The woman died a few years after her husband.

Recent years Edison spent his life calmly. He lived in his own house with his wife, children and grandchildren. The scientist died on October 18, 1931 due to a long struggle with diabetes mellitus. He developed complications and this was the cause of death. The inventor was buried in the backyard of his West Orange home.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) - an outstanding American inventor and businessman who received over four thousand patents in different countries planets. The most famous among them were the incandescent lamp and the phonograph. His merits have been recognized top 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.

Thomas Alva Edison

“Faith is a comforting rattle for those who cannot think.”

“Our big flaw is that we give up too quickly. The surest path to success is to always try again.”

“Most people are willing to work endlessly to avoid having to think a little.”

Edison was considered mentally retarded as a child

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 inventor's great-grandfather 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 deported to Canada. There his son Samuel was born, who became Thomas's grandfather. 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.

During his childhood, Thomas was inferior in height to many of his peers, looking a little sickly and frail. He suffered a severe illness from scarlet fever and practically lost his hearing. This affected his studies at school - the future inventor studied there for only three months, after which he was sent to home schooling with the teacher’s insulting verdict of “limited.” As a result, her son was educated by her mother, 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 his teachers, the boy grew up inquisitive and often visited the Port Huron People's Library. Among the many books he read, he especially remembered “Natural and Experimental Philosophy” by R. Green. 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, which the boy could watch for hours.

Edison in his youth

From a young age, Thomas helped his mother earn money by selling vegetables and fruits with her. He saved the funds he received to conduct experiments, but there was a catastrophic lack of money, 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, the enterprising young man began publishing his own newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald, and sold it successfully.

When Thomas turned 19, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky and got a job at the Western Union news agency. His appearance in this company was a consequence of the human feat of the inventor, who saved certain death under the wheels of a train three year old son the head of one of the railway stations. As gratitude, he helped teach him the telegraph business. Edison managed to get a job in night shift, since during the day he devoted himself to reading books and experiments. During one of them, the young man shed sulfuric acid, which leaked through 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. His first apparatus for counting votes during elections turned out to be of no use to anyone; American parliamentarians considered it completely useless. After the first failures, Edison began to adhere to his golden rule - not to invent something that is not in demand.

In 1870, luck finally came to the inventor. For a stock ticker (a device for recording stock exchange rates in automatic mode) he was paid 40 thousand dollars. With this money, Thomas created his own workshop in Newark and began producing tickers. In 1873, he invented a diplex telegraph model, which he soon improved, turning it into a quadruplex with the ability to transmit four messages simultaneously.

Creation of the phonograph

A 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 was working on a machine that could record messages in the form of intaglio impressions on paper, which could then be sent repeatedly using the telegraph.

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

Edison with a phonograph

During a test of the phonograph in August 1877, Thomas uttered the line from the nursery rhyme, “Mary had a little lamb,” and the device successfully repeated the phrase. A few months later, he founded the Edison Talking Phonograph enterprise, receiving income from demonstrating his device to people. Soon the inventor sold the rights to make a phonograph for 10 thousand dollars.

Other famous inventions

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

• Mimeograph- a device for printing and duplicating written sources in small editions, which Russian revolutionaries loved to use.
• A method of storing organic food in a glass container was patented in 1881 and involved the creation of a vacuum environment in the container.
• Kinetoscope- a device for watching a movie by one person. It was a massive box with an eyepiece through which you could see a recording lasting up to 30 seconds. It was in good demand before the advent of film projectors, to which it seriously lost in terms of mass viewing.
• Telephone membrane- a device for reproducing sound, 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 its use in a number of states. The first “client” of the deadly invention was a certain W. Kemmer, 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 effective device capable of copying documents. 15 years later, S. O'Reilly created a tattoo machine based on this pen.
• Fluoroscope- an apparatus for fluoroscopy, which was developed by Edison's assistant K. Delli. At that time, X-rays were not considered particularly dangerous, so he tested the effect of the device on own hands. As a result, both limbs were subsequently amputated, and he himself died of cancer.
• Electric car- Edison was truly obsessed with electricity and believed that it was the real future. In 1899, he developed an alkaline battery and intended to improve it to increase its service life. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century in the United States more than a quarter of cars were electric, Thomas soon abandoned this idea due to the widespread use of gasoline engines.

Most of these inventions were made in West Orange, where Edison moved in 1887. Edison's series of achievements also includes pure scientific discoveries For example, in 1883 he described thermionic emission, which later found application in detecting radio waves.

Industrial electric lighting

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

To the left of Edison is a huge incandescent lamp; in his hands is a compact version

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

Secrets of an Inventor's Success

Edison was able to combine inventive activity and entrepreneurship in an amazing way. While developing the next project, he clearly understood what its commercial benefits would be and whether it would be in demand. Thomas was never embarrassed by the chosen funds and if it was necessary to borrow technical solutions 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, without stopping, even when he became a rich man. He was never stopped by difficulties, which only strengthened him and directed him to new achievements.

In addition, Edison was distinguished by 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 richest people of his era. The lion's share of the funds earned went to business development, so Thomas spent very little on himself.

Edison's creative legacy formed the basis of the worldwide famous brand General Electric.

Personal life

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

Passion for the occult

In old age, the inventor became seriously interested in 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 plan, the device was supposed to record last words a person who has just died. He even entered into an “electric pact” with his assistant, according to which the first person to die must send a message to his colleague. The device has not survived to this day, and there are no drawings left, so the results of the experiment remained unknown.

• Edison was a great workaholic, ready to do a lot to achieve results. During the First World War, he worked 168 hours without rest, trying to create an enterprise for the production of synthetic carbolic acid, and in the process of developing the alkaline battery, Thomas conducted 59 thousand experiments.
• Thomas had a rather original tattoo of 5 dots on his left forearm. According to some reports, it was made by an O'Reilly tattoo machine, created on the basis of an Edison engraving device.
• As a child, Edison dreamed of becoming an actor, but due to his great shyness and deafness, he abandoned this idea.
• Thomas was interested in many areas of life, including everyday life. The inventor created a special electrical device that destroyed cockroaches using electricity.
• Edison left a rich creative legacy, which was expressed in 2.5 thousand books written.

For a long time, Thomas Edison's acquaintances wondered why his gate was so difficult to open. Finally one of his friends said to him:
“A genius like you could have designed a better wicket.”
“It seems to me,” Edison answered, “the gate is designed ingeniously.” It is connected to the home water pump. Everyone who comes in pumps twenty liters of water into my tank.

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

Can you imagine our current life without ordinary light bulb? And there is no need to do this - thanks to the knowledge and perseverance of Thomas Alva Edison, it was invented. In addition to the incandescent lamp, phonograph and kinetoscope, Edison patented a total of 1093 inventions. To achieve this result, he needed enormous knowledge, although he not only did not graduate from the university, but even from a regular school, which he attended for only 3 months. The boy's education was mainly carried out by his mother - she always believed in her son's abilities.

Tom was a self-taught genius who was not spoiled by the official school system, so he thought differently than other people. Although the Edison family belonged to the middle class, it always lived poorly - in addition to Thomas, affectionately called Al, there were six other children. To help his family, the boy began earning money at the age of 12 - first he sold newspapers, and then he began publishing his own and selling it on trains; V better times Its circulation reached 400 copies per day. At the same time, the future inventor read absolutely everything that fell into his hands - Shakespeare, the Bible, books about English literature And historical research, but above all Thomas was interested in scientific publications, which even then aroused his deep interest.

Using your contacts on railway, Edison set up a chemical laboratory in an old boxcar. However, a fire soon broke out there, and one of the railroad workers beat Tom so badly that the 14-year-old boy almost lost his hearing forever. A few months later, Tom literally snatched the station master’s son from under the wheels of the train, and as a sign of gratitude, the father of the saved baby taught the young genius Morse code - this is how Edison became a telegraph operator. Things were going well for him, and he continued his research. When he was 16 years old, Edison invented an automatic telegraph that could receive messages without human intervention. However, due to ignorance, Edison did not patent his first invention, so he received his first patent only after moving to Boston, where he got a job at a telegraph company and invented an electrographic device that automatically counted the votes of participants in various meetings and meetings.

But there was no demand for this device - as it turned out, when using it, politicians could no longer so shamelessly deceive those present and, through manipulation of the results, persuade colleagues to change their opinions. It was then that the disappointed Edison decided that from that moment all his inventions would serve the benefit of humanity, and not the elite of society. He borrowed money and went to New York. The young man was instantly hired with a fantastic salary of $300 a month. All free time he again began to spend on inventions; in particular, then Edison began working on a quadruplex - a device that would allow two messages to be sent simultaneously in different directions.

He also improved it - and for the right to use this device, the Gould company paid the inventor 40 thousand dollars. For Edison, this was a huge amount, which immediately made him a rich man. Edison also tried to improve the production of cement in order to build cheaper houses. To do this, he organized a company and dreamed that in the future phonographs, furniture, refrigerators and pianos would be made from cement. Alas, this company went bankrupt. Since childhood, Edison learned to endure defeat. One of his experiments was to have two cats, to whose tails he attached wires, rub against each other, generating static electricity; enraged animals scratched the young inventor.

Another time, Edison fed a friend the powder used to make carbonated water - the future genius expected that the powder would emit gas in his stomach and allow his friend to fly into the air, like balloon. In subsequent years, Edison sold his patents to various businesses and made so much money that he created a real research laboratory in Newark. That same year he married Mary Stivel, from whom three children were born. When Thomas was 29 years old, Alexander Bell invented the telephone, and Edison enthusiastically began to improve the new product - in particular, he designed a microphone that transmitted sound loudly and clearly.

Edison moved his company to Menlo Park, New Jersey, and turned it into a large research laboratory, where he was one of the first to introduce team work methods. A year later, he invented the phonograph, a device that recorded sound on zinc foil. At first, the device was intended for businessmen so that they could dictate letters without a stenographer - and although Edison promoted his invention throughout America and even met with the President of the United States on this occasion, there was little interest in the phonograph.
Only in the 90s of the 19th century, when the inventor improved his device and began to produce it both for business people, and for home use, and at the same time organized the production of blank rollers for recording, the new product received wide recognition. To find the optimal material for an incandescent lamp filament, he conducted 2954 experiments with various materials until I found tungsten, which is influenced electric current glowed in a glass flask, giving a bright light - this is how the world's first household light bulb appeared.

Among Edison's outstanding ideas one can name the principle of distributing electricity between consumers. A series of high-profile successes was overshadowed by the death of his wife, but two years later Edison married again - to Mina Miller. Edison did not imagine that “live” pictures would become so popular that people would want to watch them in groups, seated in front of a movie screen. In New Jersey, Edison created a huge science center, where he worked until the end of his life. A year later it was the world's largest research center, whose heyday came during World War I, when the inventor and 10 thousand of his employees worked on fulfilling military orders.

The fruit of these developments was the demonstration of the first moving picture shown in a kinetoscope. However, in those years the film industry was developing at such a frantic pace that Edison chose to do something else. But the inventor managed to create an accumulator - a battery that stored electricity and helped start cars, illuminate railway cars, and was widely used for signaling and in mine lamps; all these products turned out to be very profitable.

Design Bureau Ural from Yekaterinburg makes such motors, or rather hydraulic motors, that Edison would be jealous. For example, the hydraulic motor 303 is fully adjustable and therefore very easy to use.

Someone invented the incandescent lamp, and someone invented how to make a candle out of it. Interesting video: