Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison is considered one of the greatest inventors in history. He was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847 and died in 1931. During his life he patented 1,093 inventions. Many of these inventions are in use today and changed the world forever. Some of his inventions include telegraphy, phonography, electric lighting and photography. His most famous inventions were the phonograph and the incandescent light bulb.Edison did some of his greatest work at Menlo Park. While experimenting on an underwater cable for the automatic telegraph, he found that the electrical resistance and conductivity of carbon varied accordingly to the pressure it was under. This was a major theoretical discovery, which enabled Edison to invent a "pressure relay" using carbon rather than magnets, which was the usual way to vary and balance electrical currents. In February of 1877 Edison began experiments designed to produce a pressure relay that would amplify and improve the audibility of the telephone, a device that Edison and others had studied but which Alexander Graham Bell was the first to patent, in 1876. By the end of 1877 Edison had developed the carbon-button transmitter that is still used today in telephone speakers
Edison became famous all around the world and was dubbed the Wizard of Menlo Park, although ten years passed before the phonograph was transformed form a laboratory curiosity into a commercial product. Edison's inventions were often discovered by chance while working on practical experiments and problem solving. In the fall a temporary, demonstration central power system was installed at the Holborn Viaduct in London, in conjunction with an exhibition at the Crystal Palace. Many of Thomas Edison's inventions including the carbon transmitter were in response to demands for new products and improvements. In 1991 Philips developed a light bulb that uses magnetic induction to excite a gas to emit light. The public's amazement was quickly followed by universal approval. Edison hoped to make this concept real by employing a stylus-tipped carbon transmitter to make impressions on a strip of paraffined paper. There are no parts to wear out in this design, so the expected lifetime is 60,000 hours. Edison's idea was to connect his lights in a parallel circuit by subdividing the current so that the failure of one light bulb would not cause the whole circuit to fail. To please those needs Edison invented a "microtasimeter" employing a carbon button. Morgan and the Vanderbilts, established the Edison Electric Light Company, and advanced him $30,000 for his research and development. Edison never questioned whether something might be done, only how. Although the early systems had problems and years passed before incandescent lighting powered by electricity from central stations began to replace gas lighting. He was charismatic and courted publicity, but he had difficulty socializing and neglected his family.
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