Twiss's Description On Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American Inventor and Business. Born on February 11 1847 in the small town of Millie, Ohio to Nancy Elliott and Samuel Edison Jr, he was the youngest of 7 children. When Thomas was 5 he went to school but he found his mind wondering frequently and was expelled from school after 3 months, But Nancy, Thomas’s mum would not give up and home schooled Thomas. Thomas Edison started to develop hearing problems at a young age. The reason of his deafness is attributed with a bout of scarlet fever he got when was young and numerous untreated middle ear infections were another reason for his deafness at young age

Thomas got his first job as a Telegrapher after saving the train station master’s son from being hit by a speeding train. After saving his son the grateful station master trained Thomas to be telegrapher. In 1866 at the age of 19 Thomas moved to Louisville, Kentucky where he was employed by Western Union to work with the Associated Press. Thomas volunteered to work the night shift so he could pursue his favourite pastimes Reading and Experimenting. One night 1867 Thomas was experimenting with a lead-acid battery but he accidentally spilt some sulphuric acid onto the floor and seeped through the floorboards and onto his bosses desk. The next morning he was fired.

Thomas Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey in 1877 by inventing the phonograph, a device that could record then play back sound waves. In his first test of the device he recorded “Mary Had A Little Lamb” on a piece of tinfoil that was wrapped around a grooved disc.

Thomas Edison was not the first inventor of the light bulb but he was the inventor of the commercially practical electric light. Many inventor’s before Thomas had tried and most had failed but the one’s that had succeeded had light bulbs that were too expensive to manufacture on a scale large enough to give to the general public. After many experiments with platinum and other metal filaments, Thomas finally succeeded with carbon filaments the carbon filament light bulb lasted 13.5 hours. Thomas finally found the answer to his problem of short lifespan several months after his patent was granted. His solution was a new filament design made from carbonised bamboo. The new light bulb design could last over 1,200 hours.

In 1880 Thomas created the Edison Illuminating Company based in New York. His first official test was in 1882 when he switched on the generating station and sent 110 volts of DC ( Direct Current ) to 69 residents. That started a Voltage war between AC (Alternating current) and DC (Direct Current). As a campaign move he filmed a man being executed in a electric but instead of using the normal chair he used a chair powered by AC power, this was a regret that Thomas took to the grave with him. In 1887 he had over 120 DC power stations around America. Sadly, even though Thomas had murdered to prove his point AC still replaced DC. We still use AC power today!

Thomas was a businessman till his very last breath. Just months before his death he invested in the first electric train. Sadly, Thomas passed away in 1931. In the 84 years he was alive he patented 1,093 US patents and many more in the united kingdom. This made him the inventor with the fourth most patents ever.  His inventions have helped billions of people, if he didn’t invent half of the stuff he did everything would be different the computer I am typing this on wouldn’t exist and I would be handwriting this, the light I read under at night would be a candle and there would be no Ipod’s. This is why Thomas is regarded as one of the most important inventors of the 18th 19th century.