Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison         

(February 11,1847- October 18, 1931)

Thomas Edison means inventor of modern electric bulb.

Full name :- Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Edison was an American inventor and businessman. They has been described as America’s greatest inventor.

He invented many devices in field such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording and motion picture.

Edison’s Childhood Life:-

Thomas Edison was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio. But they grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. Edison’s father was Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. and mother’s name was Nancy Matthews Elliott.

  Basic education like, reading, writing and arithmetic was taught by his mother. His mother played a role of school teacher in Edison’s life. He attended school for only a few months. Thomas Edison was a very curious child who learned most things by their on reading. As a child, he became fascinated with technology and spent hours working on his experiment at home.

Early career :-      

    Thomas Edison start their career selling candy, newspapers and vegetables on the trains. They spent their profit to buying equipment foe electric and chemical experiments.

  He became a telegraph operator at Stratford Junction, Ontario, on the Grand Trunk Railway.

    In 1886, at the age of 19, Thomas Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky. He worked there as an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire.

  Thomas Edison as an Inventor:-

    Thom as Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices.         

  Phonograph :- He invented his first invention Phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. After that Edison became known as “The Wizard of Menlo Park”, New Jersey.

    Carbon Telephone Transmitter :- Edison began work to improve the microphone for telephones by developing a carbon microphone in 1876. Edison used the carbon microphone concept in 1877 to create an improved telephone for Western Union.  

   Electric Bulb :- In 1878, Edison began working on a system of electric illumination. Sometime he hoped that he could not compete with gas and oil-based lighting. But he continued his work, he began by tackling the problem of creating a long lasting incandescent lamp.  In his first attempt to solve these problems, Edison tried using a filament made of cardboard, carbonized with lampblack. This burnt out too quickly to provide lasting light. He then experimented with different grasses and canes. Edison continued trying to improve this design and on November 4, 1879, field patent for an electric lamp using “a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to Platina contact wires”.

     Electric power distribution:- After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison developed an electric "utility" to compete with the existing gas light utilities. On December 17, 1880, he founded the Edison Illuminating Company, and during the 1880, he patented a system for electricity distribution.

Other Inventions :-

Fluoroscopy :-

    Edison is credited with designing and producing the first commercially available fluoroscope, a machine that uses X-rays to take radiographs. Until Edison discovered that calcium tungstate fluoroscopy screens produced brighter images than the barium platinocyanide screens originally used by Wilhelm Röntgen, the technology was capable of producing only very faint images.

Tasimeter:-

Thomas Edison invented a highly sensitive device, that he named the tasimeter, which measured infrared radiation.

Motion pictures:-

    Edison was granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph". In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.

Rechargeable battery:-

    In the late 1890s Edison worked on developing a lighter, more efficient rechargeable battery (at that time called an "accumulator"). He looked on them as something customers could use to power their phonographs but saw other uses for an improved battery, including electric automobiles Edison obtained a US and European patent for his nickel–iron battery in 1901 and founded the Edison Storage Battery Company.