Introduction
World-renowned American electrician and inventor, known as the "King of World Inventions". In addition to his inventions and contributions in the phonograph, electric light, telephone, telegraph, movie, etc., in the field of mining, construction, chemical industry and other fields also have a lot of famous creations and insights. Edison's life*** has about two thousand creative inventions, and has made great contributions to the civilization and progress of mankind.
Edison is also a great entrepreneur, in 1879, Edison founded the "Edison Electric Lighting Company", 1880, incandescent lamps on the market for sale, in 1890, Edison has been its various businesses to form the Edison General Electric Company. 1891, Edison's fine filament, high-vacuum incandescent bulb was patented.In 1892, the Tom? Houston Company merged with the Edison Electric Lighting Company to form General Electric. It began GE's century-long dominance in the electrical field.
Biography
Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in the small town of Milan, Ohio. His father was of Dutch descent and his mother, who had been an elementary school teacher, was of Scottish descent. When Edison was seven years old, his father lost money in the shingle business and moved the family to Fort Gratiot, a northern suburb of Huron, Michigan. Soon after moving here, Edison contracted scarlet fever and was ill for a long time, and it is believed that the disease was the cause of his deafness. Edison went to school at the age of eight, but after only three months of schooling, he was thrown out by his teacher as an "imbecile". From then on, his mother was his "tutor". Because of his mother's good education methods, he has a strong interest in reading. "He not only read a lot of books, but also read a lot of books at a glance". 8 years old, he read the most important English Renaissance playwright William Shakespeare, Dickens' books, and the books of the English Renaissance playwright William Shakespeare and Dickens' books. Shakespeare, Dickens, and many important history books, and by the age of 9 he could quickly read difficult books, such as Parker's Philosophy of Nature and Experimentation. by the age of 10, he had a passion for chemistry. at the age of 11, he experimented with his first telegram. He began working to earn money to buy chemicals and equipment, and at age 12, he got a job selling newspapers on trains, traveling between Port Huron and Detroit, Michigan. He sold newspapers and had a fruit and vegetable business on the side, and whenever he could he read books in the library. He bought an old printing press and began publishing his own weekly newspaper, the Herald, the first issue of which was printed on the train. With the money he earned he set up a chemical laboratory in the baggage car. Unfortunately, on one occasion the chemicals caught fire and he was thrown out of the car with all his equipment. On another occasion, when Edison was trying to board a freight train, a conductor grabbed him by both ears and helped him on board. This action resulted in Edison becoming deaf for life.
In August 1862, Edison saved a boy who was about to be killed on the train tracks with fearless heroism. The boy's father was grateful for this, but with no money to pay him back, was willing to teach him telegraphy. From then on, Edison became involved with this mysterious new world of electricity and embarked on a journey of science.
In 1863, Edison worked as a telecommunication telegraph operator at Stratford Junction station of the Grand Trunk Railway. From 1864 to 1867, he lived a nomadic life as a telegraph operator throughout the Midwest. Travels included Stratford, Adrian, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Connecticut, Nashville, Tennessee, Memphis, Louisville, and Huron.
In 1868, Edison came to Boston (Boston) as a newspaper clerk. That same year, he received his first patent for an invention. It was a device that automatically recorded the number of votes cast. Edison thought the device would speed up the work of Congress and that it would be popular. However, a congressman told him that they had no intention of speeding up the agenda and that there were times when slow voting was politically necessary. From then on, Edison decided that he would never again work on any invention that people didn't need.
In early June 1869, he traveled to NewYork to look for work. While he was waiting to be summoned at an agent's office, a telegraph broke down. Edison was the only one there who could fix it, so he got a better job than he expected, and in October he joined with Pope to form the Pope-Edison Company, which specialized in scientific instruments for electrical engineering. Here he invented the "Edison Universal Press". He offered this printing press to the manager of a large Wall Street company, wanted to ask for 5,000 dollars, but lacked the courage to say it. So he asked the manager to give him a price, and he gave him $40,000 dollars.
Edison used the money to build a factory on Ward Street in Newark, New Jersey, specializing in all kinds of electrical machinery. He worked through the night. He developed many capable assistants and, coincidentally, met the industrious Mary (MaryStilwell), his first future bride. In Newark, he made inventions such as waxed paper and the mimeograph, and from 1872 to 1875, Edison invented the two- and four-weight telegraph, and assisted others in getting the world's first English-language typewriter.
In the spring of 1876, Edison moved again, this time to New Jersey (NewJersey) "Monroe Park". Here he built the first "invention factory," which "marked the beginning of collective research," and in 1877 Edison improved and put into practical use the telephone, which had earlier been invented by Bell. He also invented one of his beloved projects, the phonograph. The telephone and telegraph "were a revolution in the extension of the functions of the human senses"; the phonograph was one of the three major inventions that changed people's lives, and "from the point of view of the imagination of the invention, it was his most significant inventive achievement." By this time, people were calling him "the magician of Menlo Park".
Edison in the invention of the phonograph at the same time, after countless failures finally made a breakthrough in the study of electric light, October 22, 1879, Edison lit the first really have a wide range of practical value of electric light. In order to extend the life of the filament, he re-examined, about tried more than 6000 kinds of fiber materials, only to find a new luminescent body - Japanese bamboo filament, which can last for more than 1,000 hours, to achieve the purpose of durability. In one respect, this invention was the crowning achievement of Edison's life. Next, he created a power supply system that allowed distant lamps to distribute electricity from a central power station, a major craft achievement.
His first discovery in pure science came in 1883. Experimenting with electric lamps, he observed what he called the Edison effect: a charge traveling from a hot filament through space to a cold plate inside a lit bulb. Edison patented this discovery in 1884, but did not study it further. Instead, scientists next to him used the Edison effect to develop the electronics industry, especially radio and television.
Edison also attempted to do for the eye what the phonograph did for the ear, and the movie camera was born. Using a strip of George Eastman's newly invented celluloid film, he took a series of photographs and projected them rapidly and continuously onto a curtain, creating the illusion of motion. He first experimented with motion pictures in his laboratory in 1889 and applied for a patent in 1891, and in 1903 his company produced its first feature film, "Train Robbery." Edison did much to organize and standardize the film industry.
After Edison moved his laboratory to West Orange in 1887, he founded a number of commercial companies to manufacture and market his many inventions; these companies were later merged into the Edison General Electric Company, later known as General Electric. Thereafter, his interests turned to fluoroscopy, ore mashing machines, magnetic separation of iron, storage batteries, and railroad signaling devices.
During World War I, he developed torpedo mechanisms, flamethrowers and underwater periscopes.
On October 21, 1929, on the 50th anniversary of the invention of the electric light, a great celebration was held in Edison's honor, with the German Bundes*** and State of Albert? Albert Einstein of the German Federal **** and State and Madame Curie of the French **** and State and other famous scientists have congratulated him. Unfortunately, in this celebration, when Edison made a speech, due to excessive excitement, he suddenly fainted. Since then, his health is deteriorating. 1931 October 18, this has made great contributions to mankind's scientists died of illness, aged 84 years.
Edison's culture is very low, the contribution to mankind is so great, here's the "secret" is what? In addition to a curious heart, a personal test instinct, is that he has more than ordinary people's hard work of endless energy and bold spirit. When someone called Edison a "genius", he explained: "Genius is two percent inspiration plus 98 percent sweat." He was in the "invention factory", the organization of many different professional people, including scientists, engineers, technicians, workers *** more than 100 people, Edison's many major inventions is to rely on the collective power to achieve success. His achievements are mainly attributed to his hard work and creative talent and the power of the collective, in addition, his wife had also played a fairly important role.
Story
Childhood
Edison was born at three o'clock in the morning on February 11, 1847, in the middle of a blizzard, and his father took him out on the street to brag about him to other people, and everyone called him Al, and when he was a child, Edison loved to ask questions, and he often asked strange questions to make people feel annoyed, and his family or pedestrians were the object of his question. If he was dissatisfied with an adult's answer, he would experiment with it himself. For example, once Al saw a mother goose hatching eggs in the goose house and asked his mother why the mother goose always sat there all day long. Mom told him that the mother goose is hatching eggs, Al thought if the mother goose can then I must be able to, after a few days mom and dad found that Al has been squatting in the wood room, do not know what to do, when the family found that Al is hatching eggs when everyone laughed out loud.
When Al was eight years old, he went to elementary school, but he only went to school for three months before dropping out. When Al was in class, his mother was often called to the school to talk to the teacher because he often asked questions that the teacher thought were very strange, and the teacher thought that he was an imbecile. Al then began his self-study course, Al was taught well by his mom, and then Al also got permission to set up a lab in the basement, in order to keep people from messing with his experiments Al also came up with the brilliant idea of putting a poison label on the bottle of each experiment.
One morning when he was twelve years old, Al suddenly said to his mother, "Mom, I want to sell newspapers, okay? Mom was shocked when she heard this, and Dad was angry when he heard it, but after Al's repeated pleas his parents finally agreed, and he happily ran to the railroad company and got permission to sell newspapers on the train, which was a hundred kilometers from Port Huron to Detroit, where Al worked as a paperboy for a couple of months, and then opened up two stores in Detroit, one of which sold magazines, and the other vegetables, fruits, creams, and so on, Fruit, cream, etc., he also hired two teenagers to help watch the store, and agreed to share the dividends with them, and soon the railroad pass added another train, so Al sent a newsboy to sell with the car, and so a twelve-year-old newsboy has unwittingly become a teenage capitalist.
The Wandering Years
Another time Edison lost his job because he was using his invention in the wrong way - he was working as a night clerk for the railroad, and the railroad required the clerk to send signals to the car service center every hour after 9:00 p.m. to prevent the staff from going to bed. Edison then made his own automatic time transmitter, which made Edison the most punctual and reliable transmitter in the whole bureau. However, during one of his inspections, the director of the car service found Edison sleeping, and this ingenious machine. Although the director admired his talent, the railroad needed an honest and peaceful man, not an inventor, so Edison was fired again!
Before the age of 21, Edison can be said to be often change jobs, traveling in some telecommunications, telegraph companies, until he came to New York, relying on the understanding of machinery, and excellent maintenance technology, slowly broke out of the reputation, set up his own engineering company, specializing in manufacturing and improving some of the affairs of the machine, such as: gold market display, stock market display, the gold price of the printing presses and other commercial machines, as well as research and development, undertake the production of a variety of scientific instruments, and the development of a variety of scientific instruments. At the same time research and development, undertake to produce a variety of scientific instruments.
Ghosts of Monroe Park
In 1876, Edison set up his experimental invention center in Monroe Park in southern New York, which is generally known as "Edison's Invention Factory". This center was equipped with sophisticated equipment and a group of talented specialists, and between 1876 and 1887, this group of scientists, led by Edison, carried out systematic, complex, and diverse scientific research and development work here. If Edison's inventions in Monroe Park, listed in a table, I'm afraid that the table will be extended from the table to the floor, many of the items are unfamiliar and difficult to understand, but there are also many closely related to our lives.
Young inventor
Edison once saved Marvin? Claremont station chief's child, the station chief in order to repay Edison will teach Edison telegraph technology to let him become a telegraph technician, soon after Edison went to the telegraph office as a telegraph operator, because he was working at night so he could use the daytime to do experiments, and the telegraph office regulations every hour to send a letter to the other side of the telegraph once, in order to be able to sleep he invented a kind of automatic telegraph machine to send a letter to help him, but was finally discovered and dismissed. Edison often lost his job and became a wandering telecommunication technician, so his life was very unstable. One day he heard a good news, which was that South America was recruiting telecommunication technicians, but when they were about to go to South America, an old man told them that it was not good there, so the idea of going to South America disappeared and he returned to his hometown of Port Hugh Lane. During this period of wandering Edison also kept reading hard, doing experiments, researching and working, laying a good foundation for his later inventions.
Edison in the period of home, good friend Adams in Boston to help him find a telecom mechanic's job, where Edison invented the automatic voting machine, Edison's first patented invention, the automatic voting machine is a machine with green and red buttons as long as you press the green button that says "yes", the red button that says "no", the red button that says "yes". ", the red button says "not right", the machine is completed after he ran to Washington to experiment with the machine, to Washington after the results of the experiment is very good, but the commissioners still told Edison that the machine is not very practical, sitting on the train on the way home, he thought on the one hand "The inventions that come out of an inventor's head are mostly impractical, and only the inventions that arise naturally from the needs of society are meaningful." Edison's first invention, although so failed, but gave Edison a valuable lesson, later he can become a successful inventor, are thanks to the approach established at this time.
Fun Facts
Edison only attended elementary school for three months in his life, and his learning was based on his mother's teaching and self-study. His success should be attributed to his mother's understanding and patience in teaching him since he was a child, so that Edison, who was originally regarded as an imbecile, grew up to become the world-famous "king of invention".
Edison was curious about many things from a young age, and liked to test them out himself until he understood the reasoning behind them. When he grew up, he devoted himself to research and invention based on his interest in this area. He set up a laboratory in New Jersey, a lifetime **** invented the electric light, telegraph, phonograph, movie machine, magnetic analyzer, crusher and so on, totaling more than two thousand kinds of things. Edison's strong research spirit, so that he improved the way of life of mankind, made a significant contribution.
"Waste, there is no greater waste than wasting time." Edison often told his assistants. "Life is too short to think of ways to do more with very little."
One day, Edison was working in his lab when he handed his assistant an empty glass bulb without the top spout and said, "You measure the capacity of the bulb." He went back to work with his head down.
After a long time, he asked, "What's the capacity?" He didn't hear an answer and turned his head to see his assistant with a soft ruler measuring the circumference and slope of the bulb and taking the measured numbers and ambling over the table to calculate them. He said, "Time, time, why does it take so much time?" Edison came over, picked up the empty bulb, poured water into it, handed it to his assistant, and said, "Pour the water in it into a measuring cup, and tell me at once how much it holds."
The assistant immediately read the number.
Edison said, "What an easy measurement it is, it is accurate and saves time, why didn't you think of it? And go on counting, won't that be a waste of time?"
The assistant's face reddened.
Edison muttered, "Life is too short, too short to save time and do more!"
Edison was a poor laborer before he became famous. Once, his old friend met him on the street and said with concern, "Look at this coat on you, it's torn to shreds, you should get a new one."
"Do you need it? No one knows me in New York." Edison replied without a care in the world.
A few years passed and Edison became a great inventor.
One day, Edison ran into his friend again on the streets of New York. "The friend exclaimed, "Why are you still wearing that coat? This time, you need a new one anyway!"
"Why should I? Everyone knows me here already." Edison replied, still not caring.
One snowy night, Edison's mother suddenly fell ill, and his father rushed to the doctor. The doctor said, "Your mother has acute appendicitis and needs an operation." In those days, there were only oil lamps and no electric lamps, and the light from the oil lamps was so dim that if you were not careful, you would make the wrong incision. Edison suddenly thought of a good idea, he put all the oil lamps in the house all out, and then put a mirror in the back of the oil lamp, so that the doctor successfully completed the operation. The doctor said, "Son you are using your wisdom and intelligence to save your mom." Edison took his mom's hand and said, "Mom I am going to make a night sun."
Edison often stayed out of the lab for days on end without sleeping in order to conduct experiments. Really tired, just use the book as a pillow on the lab table to take a nap. One day, his friend joked that he had to say: "No wonder Edison knows so many inventions, the original he even sleeps in the book to absorb the nutrition."
On one occasion, when it was time to eat, Edison was still not back, and his parents were very anxious and searched around until evening when they found him in the hayloft at the edge of the yard. When his father saw him lying motionless in the haystack where he had put a number of eggs, he asked very curiously, "What are you doing?" Little Edison replied, "I'm hatching chicks!" Originally, he saw a hen hatching chicks and thought it was very strange, always wanting to try it himself. At that time, his father pulled him up in a good mood and told him that human beings can't hatch chicks. On the way home, he was still perplexed and asked, "Why can a hen hatch chicks and I can't?"
Because Edison was interested in many things, he often ran into danger. Once, when he went to a house where wheat was stored, he accidentally fell headfirst into a wheat hoard, where the wheat buried his head and he could not move. He almost died, but fortunately he was found in time and grabbed Edison's feet and pulled him out. Another time, he fell into the water and ended up being pulled up like a drowning duck. He was in for quite a shock himself. When he was 4 years old, he wanted to see what mysteries lay in a wild bee's nest on a fence, so he went to poke at it with a twig, and his face was so red and swollen from the wild bee stings that he could barely keep his eyes open.
Chronology
October 11, 1868, he invented the "voting counter" and received his first patent.
October 1869, established "Pope-Edison Company" with a friend.
In 1870, Edison invented the universal printing press and received $40,000 for the patent. Established his own manufacturing plant in New York City.
1872-1876 Invention of electric animated electromechanical telegraphy, automatic duplicate telegraphy method, twofold and fourfold telegraphy method, manufacture of waxed paper charcoal resistors, etc.
1875 Invention of acoustic wave analyzing resonator.
Established a laboratory in Monroe Park, New Jersey in 1876 - the first industrial research laboratory. It was the origin of the modern concept of a "research group". Invented the carbon rod transmitter. Patent for an automatic telegraph recorder.
Improved and put into practical use an earlier telephone invented by Bell at Menlo Park in 1877. Received three patents: the perforated pen, the pneumatic iron pen, and the ordinary iron pen. invented the phonograph on August 20, which proved to be an item dear to Edison's heart.
In 1878 Edison claimed to have solved the problem of electric lighting. The Royal Society organized an exhibition of the phonograph. Improvement of the phonograph, the design of microphone, loudspeaker, air loudspeaker, sound engine, tuning engine, microthermometer, odorimeter, etc. February 19th was awarded a patent for the phonograph. July with Professor Parker of the University of Pennsylvania to Wyoming to observe a total eclipse of the sun, and his invention of a thermometer to measure the temperature of the sun around the entire body. August returned to Menlo Park, back to the scientific research and experimentation. Britain approves Edison's patent application for a "tape recorder"; visits William Wallace in Connecticut in September. September: Visits William Wallace in Connecticut. Beginning of the invention of electric light research. October 5, filed a patent application on the platinum filament "electric light".
1879-1880 years after thousands of setbacks invented high-resistance incandescent lamp. Improved the dynamo. Designed a new method of distributing electric current, and a method of adjusting and calculating electric circuits. Invented electric lamp holders and switches. Invented the magnetic ore analysis method.
August 30, 1879 Edison and Bell each demonstrated a telephone setup at City Hall in Saratoga Creek, with the result that Edison's telephone was clearer than Bell's. October 21 invention of the high-resistance incandescent lamp, which was lit continuously for 40 hours. patented the carbon filament lamp on November 1. December 21 New York Express reported on Edison's incandescent electric lamp. December 25 on the 3,000 visitors from New York City give a public electric light show in Menlo Park.
1880 Research on helicopters. Receives patent for electric light invention. January 28th, the "electric power transmission and distribution system" patent. February 18th, "Scriber Monthly" published "Edison's electric light" article, officially published the invention of electric light. May the first electric light by the electric light "Columbia" ship test sailed successfully.
In May the first ship to be lighted by electric lamps, the "Columbia," made a successful trial voyage.
December established the New York Edison Electric Lighting Company.
1881 New York Fifth Avenue headquarters established. Establishes an incandescent lamp factory in New Yorkk. Establishes a manufacturing plant for generators, underground wiring, and electric light parts. Trolley cars tested in Menlo Park.
1882 Invented the three-wire distribution system for electric current. Applied for 141 patents. established the first central plant on Sept. 4. more than 150 small power stations were established throughout the United States of America by the end of December.
May 23, 1885 filed patent for wireless telegraphy.
1887-1890 improved cylinder phonograph, obtained more than 80 patents on phonographs. Started manufacturing and sales of phonographs, records, and dictation machines.
Invented the cylinder phonograph in 1888.
Participated in the Paris Centennial Exposition in 1889. Invented various types of electric railroads. Completed the moving picture machine.
1890-1899 Designs large stone crusher, grinder. Personally directed the large-scale development of iron ore at the Ogden mine using new methods.
Invented the "Edison Ore Concentrator" in 1891, and started his own mining business. Patented the "Moving Picture Projector," and on May 20, the first successful moving picture projector was demonstrated to the public at Edison's laboratory in West Orange, N.J.
Edison was awarded a patent for the "Moving Picture Projector.
In 1893, the world's first motion picture "studio" was built in the courtyard of Edison's laboratory.
On April 14, 1894, the first moving picture projector theater opened in New York City.
On April 23, 1896, the Vitae projector was used for the first time in New York's Coster-Baylor Music Hall, and was enthusiastically received by the public.
In 1902, a test using a new type of storage battery to power a vehicle traveled 5,000 miles, and was successful in that it could travel 100 miles per charge.
In 1903 Edison's company made its first feature film, Train Robbery.
1909 It took ten years of research on the storage battery, but it finally succeeded. Made facsimile telegraph. Patents were granted for the design of a raw material machine, a finer mill, and a long kiln.
1910-1914 Completion of the disc gramophone, the non-destructive record, and the gold and steel record. Completion of the sound movie machine.
Invention of the "disc record" in 1910.
Invention of the "talkie movie" in 1912. Development of the phonograph.
In 1914-1915, they invented the method of manufacturing carbolic acid, and combined phonographs and teleprinters into teleprinters, which could automatically record each other's speech. Manufactured benzene, indigo oil, etc. on his own.
From 1915 to 1918, the company completed 39 inventions, the most famous of which were the torpedo mechanism, the flamethrower, and the underwater periscope.
Completion of a long time record in 1927.
Rubber was successfully extracted from weeds in 1928.
Some people have made statistics: Edison's inventions in his life, officially registered in the Patent Office, there are about 1,300 kinds of inventions. 1881 is the highest record year of his inventions. This year, he applied for the filing of 141 kinds of inventions, an average of every three days there is a new invention.
The life of the great inventor Edison tells us that great achievements come out of hard labor.
Edison will not be forgotten as time passes, his life is honorable, and everything he did was for mankind. Edison had the determination to build an electric light when he was a child, and he used his intelligence to save his mom, when he was still having surgery.
Important inventions
Copier
At first, Edison invented paraffin paper, only commonly used in food, candy packaging materials, and then he tried to carve out the outline of the text on the waxed paper to form a paraffin engraved paper plate, the paper plate under the pad with white paper, and then use the roller of the ink from the engraved paraffin paper rolled on a wonderful thing happened, the white paper appeared clearly The marvelous thing happened, clear handwriting appeared on the white paper. After a number of improvement tests, in 1976, Edison began mass production of his invention of photocopiers, and all of a sudden, institutions, schools, institutions, organizations are using this wax paper mimeograph. Because of the Edison photocopier is very popular, popular around the world, make Edison y experience, should invent people generally and y need things.
Synchronous Transmitter
Early telegraphs could only transmit one message at a time and could not exchange signals at the same time. As Edison was a telegraph technician himself, he began to improve the traditional transmitter by creating a two-tone transmitter, and then in 1974, he developed a four-tone transmitter, the Synchronous Transmitter. The synchronized transmitter was a major breakthrough at a time when radio had not yet been developed.
Improving the telephone
We all know that the modern telephone was invented by Bell, in fact, the telephone can be clear reception and transmission, thanks to Edison's test after test, breakthroughs in the traditional arena, the manufacture of toner sender, in one fell swoop to improve the phone's sensitivity, volume, reception distance, otherwise, we are now on the phone or will often be: Hello! Hello! I can't hear you, I can't hear you clearly.
The Birth of the Phonograph
On a December night in 1877, the staff at Monroe Gardens Laboratory were shivering, not because of the cold, but because they had heard the first-ever recording of a human being: "There was a little sheep in Maryland with a fleece as white as snow, and wherever Maryland went, the little sheep was always beside her.... ...". This great invention needs no introduction by Mr. Little Pot, and we can all understand how widely it has been applied. The French government even awarded Edison the title of Sir Edison! Later, Edison improved the phonograph many times, until the drum type into a wooden turntable type, which is not one or two years, but after decades of continuous improvement!
The Messenger of Light
In the early 19th century, people began to use gas lamps, but gas was supplied through pipes, which were prone to leakage or clogging, so people were eager to reform their lighting. In fact, Edison set himself an impossible task: in addition to improving lighting, but also to create a power supply system.
So he and his partners at Monroe Park worked tirelessly on more than 1,600 experiments with heat-resistant materials and more than 600 types of plant fibers before creating the first charcoal filament bulb, which could burn for 45 hours at a time. Later, he even improved the manufacturing method on the basis of this, and finally introduced a bamboo filament bulb that could be lit for 1200 hours.