Edision, Thomas Alva (1847-2-11~1931-10-18)
Edison
American inventor and entrepreneur. Born into a Dutch immigrant family in Mylan, Ohio, he died in West Orange, New Jersey. At an early age, he received only 3 months of formal education. Since the age of 12, he has worked as a newspaper boy, a hawker, and a newspaper clerk to make a living. In 1868 he invented a ballot recorder to market to Congress, but it was not adopted. Edison's first invention did not find a market, which made him more focused on the practicality of the invention. In 1869, Edison moved from Boston to New York. He improved the telegraph machine of the Golden Indicator Telegraph Company, which was appreciated by the company's manager and was hired for $300 a month (which was a high monthly salary at the time). In 1870, Edison moved to New Jersey to begin his period of efficient invention. In 1874 he improved the typewriter. In 1876, he added a charcoal microphone to the telephone invented by A.G. Bell, which increased the sound of the incoming call.
incandescent lamp
In 1876, Edison founded his famous laboratory. In this laboratory, he broke with the tradition of individual scientists doing research alone, organized a group of specialized talents (including N. Tesla and others), who came up with problems and assigned tasks to work together on an invention, thus creating the right way for modern scientific research. In 1877, he invented the phonograph. In 1878, he began to study incandescent lamps, and after many failures in more than ten months, he successfully lit the incandescent carbon filament lamp on October 21, 1879, and the stability was lit for two days. In 1882, he founded the world's second public thermal power plant on Pearl Street in New York, and established the electric lighting system in the new York city, which became the prototype of the modern power system. The realization of electric lighting not only greatly improves the conditions for people to produce labor, but also indicates that the era of electrification of daily life is coming. In 1883, when Edison was experimenting with vacuum bulbs, he accidentally found that there was an electric current passing between the cold and hot electrodes. This phenomenon, later known as the Edison effect, became the basis for tubes and the electronics industry. In 1887, Edison moved to West Orange, and in the same year created a larger and more equipped laboratory in the city, the famous Edison Laboratory (later known as the Invention Factory). Here, he made his own camera based on G. Eastman's invention. In 1888, a camera called the moving film was developed, which can record scenes that last about 1 minute, which is regarded as the ancestor of modern film cameras. In 1891, he and W.K.L. Dixon invented the early movable cinema mirror and were granted a patent for the "moving cinema camera". In 1914, Edison made the earliest sound film system with a phonograph and a camera.
vacuum tube
In his later years, his inventions and innovations included batteries, cement mixers, recorded telephones, duplex telegraph systems and multi-tasking telegraph systems, and railway brakes. During World War I, he chaired the Naval Technical Advisory Board, directing research on torpedoes and anti-submarine equipment and inventing dozens of weapons. To this end, the U.S. government awarded him the Medal of Excellence in Service in 1920, and the French government awarded him the Legion of Honor. In 1928, the U.S. Congress awarded him the Medal of Honor. Throughout his lifetime, Edison was granted a total of 1,093 invention patents.
Edison invented many things in his lifetime, but he lacked systematic scientific knowledge and therefore could not make a correct judgment on the development of modern technology. At the end of the 19th century, ac transmission systems had emerged, but he still insisted on HVDC transmission and lost his contract to build the Niagara Hydropower Station in the fierce competition with G. Westinghouse; his laboratory blindly tried magnetic beneficiation equipment, exhausted the funds obtained from the invention of electric lights, and finally had to give up. But Edison's contributions to the development of electricity, the manufacture of electrical appliances, and the promotion of the application of electrical energy made him one of the greatest inventors in human history.
Excerpt from: The Encyclopedia of China (2nd Edition), Volume 1, Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, 2009