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Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison

1847-1931


          EMINENT AND well-renown physicist. Considered by many as one of the greatest inventors in history. Born in Milan, Ohio. He obtained patents in such fields as telegraphy, phonography, electric lighting and photography.

 

In 1874 Edison invented the quadruplex, a revolutionary device that could transmit four telegraph messages at once over a single wire. Built a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey with the windfall he was to receive for his invention. 

In 1878, Edison announced he had built a machine that could talk. In response, a sceptical Yale professor said the very idea of a 'phonograph' was ridiculous. A French scientist dismissed it as a trick performed by a ventriloquist. The device was later demonstrated in Washington D.C. In 1879, he and Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (in Britain) simultaneously invented similar carbon filament incandescent light bulbs. Edison improved upon Swan's design and by the end of 1880 had produced a 16-watt light bulb that would last for 1500 hours. In 1882, he designed the first hydroelectric plant in Appleton, Wisconsin.

As a boy, Edison had only three months of formal schooling. He was taught at home by his mother, a former teacher. He changed the lives of millions of people with such inventions as the electric light bulb and the phonograph. In his lifetime, he patented 1,093 inventions.

 

 

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