Major Events in Edison’s Life Written by Zhang Huijun On February 11, 1847, Thomas Al Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, USA. In 1854, at the age of seven, his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. In 1855, at the age of eight, he entered the school founded by Pastor Engel, but dropped out after three months. In 1859, he was twelve years old and sold newspapers on the train. In 1862, at the age of fifteen, he published the "Weekly Wind Report" on the train. In 1862, at the age of fifteen, a fire accidentally broke out while conducting experiments on a train carriage. In 1862, at the age of fifteen, he rescued the stationmaster's son. In 1863, at the age of sixteen, he served as a telegraph technician at a station in southern Canada. At the age of seventeen, he began a wandering life and worked as a telegraph operator in various places in the Midwest. In 1868, at the age of twenty-one, he invented the voting recording machine. (First patent obtained) In 1869, at the age of 22, he served as the chief technician of the Gold Market Company in New York. In 1870, at the age of twenty-three, he invented the universal printing machine. In 1871, at the age of twenty-four, he married Mary Stilwell. In 1872, at the age of twenty-five, he invented the double telecommunications machine. In 1874, at the age of twenty-seven, he invented the quadruple telecommunications machine. 1876 ??Aged 29_Established laboratory in Mengluo Garden. 1876 ??Aged 29_Invented the improved telephone. In 1877, at the age of 30, he invented the phonograph. In 1879, at the age of thirty-two, he invented an incandescent electric lamp that could burn continuously for forty hours. 1880 Aged 33_Invented new generators and various accessories for electric lights. In 1881, at the age of thirty-four, he studied electric locomotives. In 1884, at the age of thirty-seven, Lady Mary died of illness. In 1885, at the age of thirty-eight, he invented the radio. In 1886, at the age of thirty-nine, he married Mina Miller. 1887, 40 years old_Studying film. 1891 Aged 44_Invention of motion pictures. In 1891, at the age of 44, he started mining business. In 1898, at the age of fifty-one, the mining business failed. In 1898, at the age of fifty-one, he conducted research on alkaline livestock batteries. In 1909, at the age of sixty-two, after ten years of research, the livestock battery was finally invented. In 1910, at the age of 63, he invented the disc record. 1912 Aged 65_Invented the talking film. In 1917, he was seventy years old and went all out to carry out various military inventions commissioned by ***. In 1929, at the age of 82, he attended the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the invention of the incandescent light bulb. He passed away on October 18, 1931 at the age of eighty-four.

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 - October 18, 1931), American inventor and businessman, a person who developed many important devices . Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" by newspaper reporters, he was the world's first inventor to use the principles of mass production and his industrial research laboratory to produce inventions. Edison is regarded as the person who invented the most products in modern times, with 1,093 patents registered in his name. Most of the inventions were not original but improvements on other patents, and in fact many were invented by his many employees. As a result, Edison was often criticized for not sharing these credits. However, Edison received patents from many countries, including the United States, Britain, France and Germany. In 1892, he founded General Electric, which later became the largest company in the United States: General Electric Company. It owned 24,414 patents including Edison's 1,093 patents. In 1908, Edison founded the Motion Picture Patents Company (commonly known as the Edison Trust), a conglomerate of nine major film studios. In the early 1900s, Edison bought a villa in Formmel, Florida, as a winter retreat. Automobile magnate Henry Ford lived across from this villa. He was also a good friend of Edison. "Edison and Ford Winter Estates" is currently open to the public.

Menlo Park Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, moved to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI. (note the equipment on the wall behind) Edison's major inventions were in the laboratory built in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was the first institution set with the specific purpose of bringing about constant technological innovation and improvement. Most inventions there are legally attributed to Edison, although many employees performed research and development work under his direction. William Joseph Hamer, a consulting electrical engineer, began working under Edison in December 1879. He assisted in experiments on telephones, phonographs, electrical circuits, iron ore separators, and electric lighting equipment, and developed other inventions. However, Hammer was primarily responsible for testing and documenting incandescent electric lighting equipment. In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer working on the Edison lamp. In his first year, the factory, under the direction of general manager Francis Robbins Upton, produced 50,000 lamps. According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer in incandescent electric lighting equipment." Most of Edison's patents were public patents. During Edison's life, inventions protected by patents for 17 years included electronics, machinery or chemicals. About a dozen are design patents, and one decorative design has been protected for 14 years. Most of his inventions were not completely original, but were improvements on products that had already been invented but were still imperfect. Among the few originals was the phonograph, which was patented as the first device to record and reproduce sound. Edison did not invent the first light bulb, but he invented the first practical commercial application of incandescent light. Several designs had been developed by earlier inventors, including Henry Woodward, Matthew Evans, Moses G. Fama, Joseph Swann, and James Bowen Lentsey. , William Sawyer, Humphrey Davy, and Henry Goldberg purchased patents. These inventors' products all had shortcomings, such as extremely short lifespans, high production costs, and high channel currents, and were only suitable for satisfying laboratory curiosity. In 1878, Edison used filaments to carry light-emitting wire elements (English inventor Joseph King had used them before). Edison took the features of these older designs and assigned his workers to create longer-lasting light bulbs. Before 1879, he had a new concept: a high-resistance lamp would burn for hundreds of hours under a high vacuum. While an earlier inventor, Alessandro Volta, produced electric lighting in 1800, in a laboratory by a demonstration built on a glowing wire, Edison focused on commercial applications and relatively through mass production The long-lasting light bulb spread the concept to homes and businesses and created a complete system for the production and distribution of electricity. The Menlo Park Research Laboratory may be able to handle sales of the "quadruple communicator" invented by Edison in 1874, which can send four signals simultaneously on the same wire. When Edison asked Western Union for terms, he was shocked by the unexpected sum Western Union offered—$10,000 for the patent. The "Quadruple Communicator" was Edison's first financial success. [edit] The glorious years U.S. Patent #223898 Electric Light In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York with several financiers, including J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family. Edison performed the first public demonstration of an incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879 in Menlo Park. On January 27, 1880, he applied for a patent for the electric incandescent lamp in the United States; at this time he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles." [Source Request] In October 1883 On September 8, the U.S. Patent Office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William Sawyer and was therefore invalid. The litigation continued for almost six years, until on October 6, 1889, a judge ruled that Edison's request for a "high resistance filament of carbon" for the lamp improvement was legal. To avoid a possible court battle with Joseph Swan, he and Swan formed a joint company in England called Ediswan to sell the invention.

Other inventors who designed designs for the electric light included Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla, who wanted to use radio frequency to ignite a wireless light bulb using electromagnetic waves emitted from the side electrodes in the Tesla effect. He also plans to develop a wire that can refocus energy from the glass shell back to the center of the light bulb, and then use a central "button" to emit incandescent light to ignite the light bulb. Although Tesla invented fluorescent lighting, Edison's design won out at this time. Edison received a patent for the power distribution system in 1880, which was very important for the invention of the electric light. The first investment in any electrical industry was the Pearl Street Station in New York in 1882. On September 4, 1882, Edison opened the world's first electrical energy distribution system at the Pearl Street Power Station, providing 110 volts of direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan. On January 19, 1883, the first standardized incandescent electric light system using overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey. Edison Talking about the Light Bulb (description page) A video clip of Edison talking about the invention of the light bulb in the late 1920s. Unable to watch the video properly? See media help [edit] Carbon Electrode Telephone Transmitter In 1877 and 1878 Edison invented and developed the carbon electrode microphone and ring receiver used in all telephones until the 1980s. After a prolonged patent litigation, in 1892 a federal court ruled that Edison, not Amy Berliner, was the inventor of the carbon electrode microphone. (Josephson, p146). Carbon electrode microphones were also used in radio broadcasting and broadcasting work in the 1920s. [edit] The War of Electricity Image: PyramidParthenon Extravagant displays of electric light quickly became a public feature, as shown in this image from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Whitinghouse and Edison became enemies as Edison promoted direct current (DC) to more easily transmit electricity, while George Whittinghouse sold the alternating current (AC) system developed by Tesla. Unlike DC, AC can reach very high voltages through transformers, send them to small wires, and then reduce the voltage at the destination to power users. Although Edison regarded contempt as a major blow, the war with AC led Edison to become increasingly involved in the development and promotion of the electric chair as a demonstration of AC's greater lethal potential to the "safer" DC. Edison carried out a brief but strong campaign to outlaw the use of AC or limit the allowed voltage for safety purposes. As part of this campaign, Edison displayed electrocuted dogs, cats, and an elephant [4] to demonstrate the dangers of AC. Tesla's AC replaces DC power generation and energy distribution in many cases. It extends the range greatly and improves energy distribution safety and efficiency. Although the use of DC eventually lost the advantages of issuance, it is still mainly used today for long-distance high-voltage direct current (HVDC) drive systems. [edit] Working associates Frank J. Sburger, an able mathematician and former naval officer, was recruited by Edward H. Johnson and joined Edison's organization in 1883. One of Sburger's major contributions to Edison's laboratory in Menlo Park was the expansion of Edison's mathematical methods. (Although it is widely believed that Edison did not use mathematics, his analytical notebooks reveal that he was an astute man in mathematical analysis. For example, establishing that important parameters of his electric light system, including lamp resistance, were expertly analyzed by Quan Zhi. Ohm's Law", "Joule's Law" and economics.) The key to Edison's success was holism, rather than groping for inventions in a dimensionalistic way and trying a wide range of uses when an appropriate theory did not exist. Beginning with Schenberg's addition of patents in 1883, that may be interpreted as a move toward a reductionist approach to analysis, and may not be a positive move for Edison. Schenberg's important analytical contributions, including the correction of Edison's primary and centrally distributed supply systems, formed a counterargument to this. In 1884, the development of electricity placed elsewhere aroused Sperger's interest. He left Edison and founded the "Sperger Circuit and Motor Company." However, Sperger, who later developed many electronic inventions, always trusted Edison to work with him.

Another Edison associate was Nikola Tesla who claimed that Edison promised him $50,000 if he successfully improved his DC. Months later, when he completed the work and demanded payment, Tesla claimed that Edison said, "When you become a complete American, you will appreciate American jokes."[5] Tesla resigned immediately. This anecdote is somewhat dubious, since the $18 per week bonus at Tesla will be paid out over a period of 53 years, an amount equal to the company's founding capital. Tesla resigned when he was refused a raise to $25 a week (Jones, p110). Although Tesla later accepted the Edison Award and publicly proclaimed Edison a high-minded inventor and engineer, he remained arduous. One day, after Edison's death, the New York Times gave Edison's life leisurely extensive coverage, when the only negative review came from Tesla, quoting him as saying: "He had no hobbies, no care for entertainment of any kind, and a complete disregard for living." The most basic rules of hygiene. "He was very inefficient and had to have a huge excuse to cover up everything unless blindly accidentally mediated. At first, I was probably an apologetic witness to him and knew some theory and calculations. Saved him the labor of 90. But he did despise book learning and mathematical knowledge, and he put his complete trust in inventive genius and pragmatic American style." When Edison was very old and close to death, he said that he made the greatest mistake. It was him who failed to respect Tesla and his work. [6] Main inventions: Phonograph, Kinetoscope, Dictation Phonograph, Radio, Incandescent Lamp, Signature Printer, Tattoo Gun