Thomas Alva Edison: Inventor and Entrepreneur
Thomas Alva Edison was an American who was born on February 11, 1847 and died on October 18, 1931 at the age of 84 by Diabetes Mellitus.
His parents are Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. (1804-1896) and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810-1871), Thomas is the youngest of seven brothers, born in Milan in a small town in Ohio. Thomas’s family had to emigrate due to the industrial revolution to Port Huron, Michigan. Little Thomas began to attend school and a few months later he was expelled due to his lack of interest and his intellectual clumsiness.
This news communicated it through a letter that the little boy had to give to his mother. She, to avoid harming the boy, told that it was so ready that at school they could no longer teach him anything else and that from that moment he would study from home.
This boy was gradually learning with his mother and ended up becoming a successful inventor thanks to his mother hiding the real reason why he was thrown out of school. Thomas only learned of the true reason once his mother died.
The young Thomas with only 12 years thought he was in him if he wanted to earn some money using his ideas. One of his first ideas was to sell newspapers and sweets on the train that went from Port Huron to Detroit.
These newspapers were sold further and with what he won, scientific journals, books and devices were bought.
Edison with only 15 years saved a three -year -old boy from being hit on the railroad for which he worked. The child’s father rewarded him by teaching him gradually to telegraph and after a lot.
Thomas became independent with only 16 years and for a time he did different jobs until, driven by a British book called "Experimental Researchs In Electricity" decided to become autonomous inventor. His first patent was registered in 1868 and consisted of an electric counter of votes, although he was described as good that they should reject it and Thomas learned that an invention above all should be necessary and practical. The accountant consisted of a small gadget that all the deputies should put in Congress to be able to count all the votes much faster. This device had two buttons, one to vote in favor and another to vote against.
Thomas perfected the automatic telegraph, helped to build the typewriter and gave a practical use on the phone. His name then began to be known for what he could hire for labor with which he was very demanding.
Thomas at the age of 24 years married one of his 16 -year -old employees, called Mary Stilwell. His marriage lasted 13 years and during this time they had 3 children called Marion, Thomas and William, which was also inventor. At 29, Mary died from a brain tumor and two years later Edison remarried, with the woman Mina Miller, who was 19 years old than him, with whom he had three other children named Theodore Miller Edison, Charles Edison and Madeleine EdisonSloane.
Edison’s eldest daughter was already 12 years old when she married mine, which was only 7 years older than her. This, complicated her work as a mother, but also treated her with much love.
Mina in the difference of A Mary did not cost her to endure the fame of her husband since she had always been surrounded by famous people and had been raised for it.
One of Thomas’s great friends was Henry Ford, the founder of the company "Ford Motor Company".
The first time they saw each other, Thomas rejected Ford. Later they were formally presented at a dinner in which Ford was presented as the inventor of a car that worked from gasoline. In that dinner Edison asked Ford a thousand questions and he described the design he had thought. At the end of the conversation Edison said: “His car is autonomous, he has his own energy plant, without fire, without boiler, without smoke and without steam. You have the thing, keep it up."
His conversation left Ford impressed and idealized Edison, in addition to encouraging him to continue working on his invention. After 11 years Ford invited Edison to his factory to make a photo shoot that Edison never responded, he was a very closed person and did not like to socialize or have important friends, he was very lonely and when he became famous even moreHe feared that his friends would only like to ask for favors. It was a year later when Ford became famous, Thomas lowered his guard since Ford didn’t need anything from him. Years later Ford proposed to Edison that they will collaborate to make an electric car and Ford lent money to Edison for his invention.
Their friendship reached such a point that they had contiguous rest houses to the southwest of Florida. For 31 years all the winters both friends joined to chat about Edison’s inventions and modern production chains used by Ford.
His friendship was so great that when Thomas died Ford wanted to keep a memory of his, his shoes, his hat and his last breath. And it is that Ford was a spiritualist, and believed that in the last breath of a person his soul was. So he asked Charles, Edison’s son, to put a tube in his father’s mouth to have his last breath. The tube is exposed in the Henry Ford Museum.
Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla had a rivalry which is called "The War of the Corrientes". At first Nikola went to work for Edison, until the discrepancies between the two arrived in which Nikola showed him that the direct current was very ineffective and that they had to use the continuous, which helped not lose much money and he left the company ofEdison to create your own. At this time "the war of the currents" arose
Tesla created a company called Tesla Electric Company pateting several inventions such as alternating, more effective, economic and useful current generators than those of direct current, of its enemy, Edison.
While Edison tried to electrify the entire territory with direct current, Tesla tried to avoid it and propose alternating current.
Edison knew that the alternating current was a better option, but he did not prove him right since then he would lose a lot of money since the direct current was much more expensive.
With the passage of time the alternating current began to win the battle, at which time J.P. Morgan (Thomas’s investor) stopped supporting him and his continuous current system leaving him a section of the company.
- However j.P. Morgan and George Westinghouse.
- Both were great inventors, but Nikola was forgotten and Thomas today is known as "the father of electricity".
- Thomas died of diabetes on 18-09-1931 at his home at the age of 84. Many companies turned off the lights to commemorate their death.
His wife and he are buried next to each other in a garden behind his beautiful house, the farm is preserved so that tourists around the world can enjoy and reflect on it. Thousands of these are trained every year impressed by the work done there by Thomas and Mina.
Edison was one of the most revolutionary inventors of the time since he invented the electric bulb on January 27, 1880, cataloged as the best inventions in history for its impact on society: when before it depended on the sun with this inventionHe could bring the light anywhere, which, among other things, gave us control of our daily cycles;He extended working days, which caused the departure of new businesses;Dense electrical networks were created in numerous countries.
However, such an important invention in the history of humanity cannot be attributed to a single person;Thomas Edison did not invent the bulb, but perfected it. Edison’s was Patent No. 285.898 and specifically was an incandescent bulb, with a carbon filament and its void. It was the first commercial bulb, which had a durability of 40 hours, which is a very short useful life and made its cost very high and consumed too much energy.
The phonograph was thought of the 70s, this device has been and is used to reproduce, record sounds. This invention was created by this inventor since he had hearing problems, thus recording that he did not understand and be able to reproduce it later. A sound was caught and depending on the vibration, a needle moved on a rotating cylinder coated with wax, thus recorded the sound. To reproduce it, the cylinder was taken and the needle was passed through this route like this caused vibrations with the friction and produced the sound they had kept again. This instrument is often confused with the gramophone since they fulfill the same functions, the main difference between the two is that the gramophone recorded on a disc and the phonograph records on a cylinder. Thomas Alva Edison managed things that he believed useful for society, since many inventions were thrown back only for the simple fact that they were useless. The inventor began to suffer hearing loss with only 10 years, so he needed something that will capture the sound and then be able to listen to it well and understand what they told him. Hence the idea of the invention.
After the invention of the phonographer, Edison designed a device very similar to this, but focused on the recording of speeches, called Dictaphone. It was the same as the phonographer the only thing that had a type of microphone with which the sound could better capture and be able to rewrite the speech, talk later. This invention reached the stores over 1907, this invention replaced Dictaphone (device with which speeches were recorded by cutting a plastic tape instead of a wax cylinder) and later the magnetic recorders that we all know today.
The Quadruplex telegraph was invented in 1874 and was a system by which four telegraph messages could be sent;two for one line and two for another. It was a key invention for the media.
One of the least known inventions of this character are Tatuar (1876) machines, this device was able to record permanent marks on the skin, through a needle. Edison what he thought was in a pencil that will pierce the role very fast, although the meaning of the object was not very clear, in 1891 Samuel O’Reilly was the one who gave a true meaning to this invention, made a couple of better and, he realized that, if in the needle that pierced the paper, he put ink could be used to record marks on the skin.
The coal microphone (1878) was another of the inventions in which Edison only refined the product and claimed the patent. Its function is to amplify the sound of the vibration that occurs when the person speaks through the membrane of which, behind it, there are some series of coal particles, which modify the value until they reach a fluctuating current. This invention was used for many years in telephony and radiophony.
In 1882 Thomas Alva Edison implemented the first electricity system in the world in direct current, he got 85 families from Manhattan to have 110 volts of electricity implementing a power plant on Pearl Street Street. This was a great advance for society, since right now 99% of people depend directly on electric light. This system has evolved over the years, since the invention of the transformer in 1885 by George Westinghouse to the lighting of the streets of Massachusetts.
Thomas Alva Edison projected the mimeograph in 1887 this instrument is used to make different copies of a paper, this was used mainly in schools. Edison’s patent was totally manual, although he was perfected over time, as is a printer at this time. The texts were written with the help of a stencil (double leaf attached with glue and full of ink on both sides) and a typewriter, then introduced it into the mimeograph and made the copies you would like.
In 1889 Thomas Alva Edison invented the kinestoscope or quineoscope: it was one of the greatest inventions of this character, it is said that it is the precursor of what we know today as the projector. Allowed to project images very quickly and it seems that they moved. It was composed of a vertical wooden box, with coils and cylinders, by these there were meters of loop images. In the development of this project, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson also participated who was a film director of the time. Perhaps without the invention of this invention we would not have the movie theaters as we know them today.
Nickel-Hierro battery (NIFE Batteries) were developed in 1901 by Thomas Edison. It is a rechargeable battery composed of nickel (iii) oxide-hydroxide of cathode and an iron iron, with a potassium hydroxide electrolyte. This battery supports any type of overload, overdescarga and short circuit, in addition to having a very long life regardless of how you use it. Other rechargeable batteries have replaced these in different uses, because those of nickel-hydrro have a very high manufacturing cost, among other things. This invention began to be used in the twentieth century for the development of autonomous vehicles of Baker and Detroit Electric companies.
The electric car was developed over the 1913-1919 by Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, two great inventors and entrepreneurs of the time. This duo is quite special since both inventors were friends and neighbors of the same urbanization, as we have mentioned before. Thanks to this friendship, the idea of trying to develop an electric vehicle that was quite economical arose. In 1913 the first prototype was created at the plant that Ford posted in Highland Park and in early 1914, the intention that Ford and Edison had for the development of this important invention thanks to the formal press came to light thanks to the formal press. The experiments made by one of its employees with the prototypes (Fred Allison, engineer, project director and design manager) was the cause of the rumor that in 1915 or in 1916 the launch of the vehicle would arrive, which would have a cost of between500 and 700 dollars, with an autonomy of between 50 and 100 miles with the battery charge. In the end, it was not possible to launch the public for unknown reasons, although there is a theory that the project was abandoned by the pressures exercised by the oil lobby of the oil companies providing as proof the "mysterious" fire that almost completely destroyed the workshops ofEdison in West Orange, New Jersey in December 1914. Despite not carrying this project complete.
Thomas Alva Edison phrases
- “Genius is a percentage of inspiration and ninety -nine percent perspiration."
- "Charity is a virtue of the heart, not hands."
- "What is not sold I don’t want to invent it."
- “Show me a satisfied man and I will show you a failed man."
- “Who does not resolve to cultivate the habit of thinking, the greatest pleasure of life is lost."
CONCLUSION
Edison has been one of the best inventors of all time, he created dozens of gadgets that today have ended up being simple everyday objects that we all use. You could say that Thomas has influenced us in a certain way in our society, since it has facilitated many situations such as the lack of light with the bulb or has facilitated the copy of the information either with the dictaphone or with the mimeograph. Maybe if it hadn’t been for him no one would carry tattoos, or we could not have printers. Seen in this way we can affirm that Thomas Alva Edison influenced, influence and influence the development of humanity.
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