| Accomplishments
In 1862, Edison published his own
weekly newspaper, the Grand Trunk Herald. He printed it in his freight-car
laboratory, where he also experimented with telegraph systems. He saved
the life of one of the station official's children, and was taught telegraphy
as a reward. His first important invention was a telegraphic repeating
instrument that transmitted messages automatically over a second line.
Edison found a job in Boston, and
researched in his spare time. He improved the stock- quotation printer
of his company, and earned $40 000 from selling telegraphic appliances.
He used this money to start a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Edison also invented an automatic
telegraph system, and machines that simultaneously
transmitted several messages on one line. After Alexander Graham Bell's
invention of the telephone, Edison improved it by creating the carbon telephone
transmitter.
Edison invented the phonograph in
1877, a machine that reproduced sound by means of a needle which ran along
wax-coated cylinders. In 1879 he invented the electric light bulb, probably
his most famous invention. It was huge success, and in 1882 he built the
first large central electric power system in New York City. Unfortunately
for him, his direct-current system lost to Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse's
alternating current system.
In 1887, Edison moved his lab to
West Orange, New Jersey. The next year, he invented the kinetoscope, a
motion-picture machine. He also invented the alkaline battery, and improved
his phonograph by using a diamond needle and enabling it to use disks instead
of cylinders. In 1913 he synchronized the
phonograph and kinetoscope, producing the first moving talking pictures.
Edison also invented, among other
things, the electric pen, the mimeograph,
the microtasimeter, and a wireless telegraphic
method for trains. Altogether, he patented more than 1000 inventions. When
World War I broke out, he designed, built, and operated plants producing
benzene, carbolic acid,
and aniline derivatives.
Honours
In 1915 Edison was made president
of the United States Navy Consulting Board. In 1878 he became Chevalier
of the Legion of Honor of France, and in 1889 he became its commander.
He won the Albert Medal for the Society of Arts of Great Britain in 1892,
and the Congressional Gold medal for "development and application of inventions
that have revolutionized civilization in the last century."1
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The Lightbulb
The electric light bulb was Thomas
Edison's
most famous invention. Legend has
it that by
the time he had successfully created
a working
bulb, the pile of failures was so
high it reached
his 4th-storey window!
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