Thomas Alva Edison - The inventor Of Light!

“Vision without execution is hallucination” quoted by the famous scientist Thomas Alva Edison, who is well known for his invention of light. One of the children of Nancy Matthews Elliott and Samuel Ogden Edison Jr., born on 11th February 1847 in Milan, he then moved to Port Huron, which is located in Michigan in 1854, with his family. Thomas has seven siblings. His nickname was “Edeson”. Thomas Edison holds a world record for his single or joint 1093 patents. His mother was a retired school teacher, who used to teach him arithmetic, reading, and writing, but he always had a trust of knowledge within him and hence he started spending lots of time reading a wide range of books on different subjects at his early ages. This leads to identifying a new skill in his – learning which helped him throughout his life. His career as an inventor began when he moved to New York. During the 1870s, he dedicated most of his time to conducting experiments on the phonograph, electric railway, telephone, electric light, etc. He got the first fame after he brought the phonograph design in the year 1877, which led his status to greater heights. In the year 1878, he formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York. He was awarded several medals and awards like the Distinguished Service Medal given by the US Navy, the Congressional Gold Medal given by the US, and the Officer of the Legion of Honour given by France, for his amazing contribution to humankind. He was also felicitated with The New Jersey Hall of Fame and Entrepreneur Walk of Fame.

Now let’s talk about two of his famous inventions.

First let’s talk about the invention for which he was well known, i.e., the light bulb. He faced the difficult challenge of developing a practical luminous, electric bulb. He achieved this by using the lower current electricity, an improved vacuum, and a small carbonized filament, that is a stitched thread that was burned for thirteen and a half hours. Using these elements, he successfully produced a long–lasting and reliable light source. Other than the light bulb, he invented a system of conductors, meters, current switches, etc. because without this his invention would have become ineffective He was secondly well known for his invention of the phonograph, despite it was a first-ever invention in the year 1877. The tinfoil phonograph was the first machine to record and play a person’s voice. He recited the rhyme “Mary Had a Limb” on a tin cylinder that was captured on the recording. He also suggested others use the phonograph for dictation, letter writing, recording music, etc., this device is being played using cylinders rather than discs. It is comprised of two needles, one for playback and one for recording. He also invented an improved design of generators, which helped him to invent much more efficient power output generators than the previous ones at that time, which led to the beginning of the electric ages.

Once Thomas Alva Edison said, “ I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work ”.