Padric Garden
SI 480 C1 – Levine
Visionary Paper
Thomas Edison is well known for his inventions, most notably the incandescent lightbulb. However, he also had a hand in a number of business ventures based on the sale of his inventions, and the idea of electricity as a utility. His companies were very successful for a time, and many remain to this day in some form or another, Edison’s decision to hold onto DC current ultimately lead to some of his business failures and the loss of control of his company.
Even as a child, Edison was entrepreneurial and scientifically curious, he would sell candy and newspapers for money and run experiments in the train. At the age of 19, Edison became a telegrapher, allowing for close access to this technology.
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After beginning work on electric lighting in 1878, Edison started the Edison Electric Light Company with the backing of J. P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family. He then publicly demonstrated his light bulb for the first time in 1897. After this Edison developed the idea of electricity as a utility in competition with the gas-lighting industry. He patented a system for electricity distribution and founded the Edison Illuminating Company, later built a generating system in Manhattan that could provide 59 customers power. However, his focus on DC current led to a severely limited market, as DC power cannot travel far distances, so his idea of distribution only worked in dense cities. Competing companies, mainly Westinghouse, pushed AC current distribution, which began to take over the market leading to dwindling profits for Edison’s company. Ultimately, Edison was forced out of control from his company, J.P. Morgan went on to orchestrate a merger with Thomson-Houston leading to the creation of General Electric, leaving the Thomson-Houston board in charge of the
With a head too big for his body and a weak small body, Edison’s doctors were worried he had brain damage. Though Edison was horrid at school, he was an zealous reader and always had his nose in a book. Edison also had a superb memory being able to clearly remember all the way back to his toddler years. Edison was so lacking in what was needed of a student of his age that he was not allowed to go to school for some time. Luckily his mother had the training and was able to give him a much higher education than the public schools could provide at any given time. Though Edison loved to read, he was aslo always interested in how things worked. Either the bridge or the train, Edison loved to watch the world around him come together. As Edison grew into a man, the family moved from Milan, Ohio to Port Huron, Michigan. While in Michigan, Edison's mother began to grow old and sick. Edison's father began new work in the grain and feed distribution business. As he grew older, his father paid him for each factual book he read and soon after Edison began his own laboratory of sorts. Edison had a love for chemistry and once he had his hands on a book of chemistry experiments he completed every experiment there was and labeled all his bottles of chemicals from the drugstore as “poison” so no one would lay a hand on them. Realizing he had meager cash to spend on his experiments, he went to find a way of earning easy money and
Shortly after, the promotion of power grids swept larger cities, in order to be able to use the light bulb, Edison needed support from large grids spanning over the entire country. But Edison’s design was flawed, he was using DC, or direct connect as his main source of power, which only provided electricity over short distances. Where in Europe, people began using a different way of transferring electricity, AC, or alternate connect routes. George Westinghouse, Edison’s rival, adopted and improved on this new technique, eventually setting up his own electric network. This new network would eventually beat Edison, and by the early 1890s, AC became the most used method of transferring electricity.
Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York and went to high school at Cleveland Central High School, where he studied bookkeeping. He went on to working as an office clerk at the age of 16. Likewise, Edison began working at the young age of 12 where he sold newspapers. He eventually went on to publishing his
Despite the common belief that Thomas Edison was the original inventor of the lightbulb, in actuality he re-invented it. Lightbulbs had been around for many years before him, but they were very unreliable and short lived (“Thomas Edison’s most famous inventions”). Thomas Edison’s version of light bulbs were more affordable, and convenient to use. Edison’s simple invention of the lightbulb lead him to inventing the entire electric utility system, which enabled him to power all the light bulbs, motors and other appliances that he also created (“Thomas Edison’s most famous inventions”). “Edison revolutionized indoor lighting and forever separated light from fire” (“Thomas Edison”). When Edison brought the incandescent light bulb to the world, little did he know the enormous impact it would
During his experimentation he realized that in the lighting system the current required to light carbon filaments would require large carbon conductors which is not cost effective to commercially compete with gas. It is interesting to see how he applied various scientific laws such as Ohm's law and Joules and how he manipulated the equations to achieve his goal of a high resistant filament lamp. Edison realized how his incandescent lamp would be more valuable if he developed an entire electric power system that generated and distributed electricity. Therefore, he opened the Pearl Street Station of the Edison Electric Illuminating company. Edison connected a large bank of generators to homes and businesses through a network of copper wires. Pearl Street’s “central” power plant design became the model for the power generation industry. However, Edison’s DC system lost against the AC competitors and was forced out of controlling his
Some would say it was his influence that lead to the industrial revolution of the late 1800s. His work in the early 1900s on electric vehicle storage batteries, and his vision for clean urban transportation, anticipated the importance of electric cars today. Edison recognised the importance of solar and wind energy in the late 1920s. He envisioned the future of pollution concerns and worries for the environment to keep it free from the issue.
Thomas Edison did invent the light bulb and adjusted it to make it last longer since the previous source of light was candles and fire. He started by placing a mini vacuum in the light bulb as well as finding a filament to use and lower voltage which resulted in the invention of the light bulb in 1879 (Palermo livescience.com). Edison replaced the gasoline light bulb with electricity. But to do so, he needed to have an electrical utility system. He decided to invent an electrical utility system in order to make his improvements on the light bulb
Thomas Edison was a great businessman who held over one thousand patents for his amazing, tremendously life changing inventions. His entrepreneurship began when he was only twelve years old, when he began to sell his self-published newspaper to the people who passed by him, at the “Grand Trunk Railroad.” At this same exact railroad, he set up a lab and began experimenting with chemicals. At the age of twenty-two he moved to New York, where he worked on his version of the stock ticker.
He was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio. His father was an exiled political activist from Canada and his mother a school teacher. She had a major influence on Edison’s childhood. Edison had multiple ear infections which lead to his hearing loss as an adult. He attended school in Michigan for about 12 weeks when his family moved there in 1854. His mother pulled him from school because he was hyperactive and prone to distraction. In my opinion he was probably bored with the level he was entered at. Edison developed a process for self-education and learning independently that would help him throughout his life. During the civil war, he traveled throughout the Midwest as an itinerant telegrapher. He used his spare time to read, study and experiment with telegraph technology and familiarized himself with electrical science. By the 1870s, Edison became known as a first-rate inventor. He invented the phonograph (figure 1) to compete with Alexander Graham Bells’ telephone. This brought him worldwide fame. In the 1880s he set out to develop the company that would deliver the electricity to power and light cities of the world. He funded the first investor-owned electric utility called Edison Illuminating Company, later to be known as General Electric
Edison may be the greatest inventor in history. He has over 1000 patents in his name. Many of his inventions still have a major affect on our lives today. He was also a business entrepreneur. Many of his inventions were group efforts in his large invention laboratory where he had many people working for him to help develop, build, and test his inventions. He also started many companies including General Electric, which is one of the biggest corporations in the world today.
Thomas Edison was an amazing Inventor who everyone knows about. He was born in Milan Ohio, February 11(“Thomas Alva Edison-Book”). Edison created many wonderful things like the electric lightbulb. He held more than 1,000 patents for his inventions(“Bio.com”). Thomas was also the last of seven children of Nancy and Samuel Edison(“History.com”)From being a very smart child, to becoming an amazing inventor, Thomas Edison became one of the most important Americans in history.
One of the most well-known American Inventor is Thomas Edison. Thomas was a very intelligent man. H was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio, and he died on October 18, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey. His major invention is so amazing that we even use it today. Edison was a smart man and life would be drastically different without his inventions.
Tesla and Edison worked together creating many inventions while Tesla made improvement on some of Edison’s work. But, unfortunately, as Edison mainly wanted to profit off of his works Tesla just focused on making inventions for the science and benefiting others with providing free electricity. So due to these differences the two parted ways. But this made Tesla vulnerable to profiteers. In 1885 Tesla got funding for Tesla Electric Light Company to improve Arc and AC electrical systems. As because of this he was successful in providing patents for his AC inventions. Soon businessman George Westinghouse purchased his patented AC inventions in order to accomplish providing long-distance power for $60,000 cash. As at this time Tesla was in competition with Edison. With all the negative press campaigns put towards Tesla’s AC electricity, Tesla invented what is known as the “Tesla coil” which is wireless technology we still use today. Along with the invention of the Tesla coil Nikola also helped invent electricity generators, and the induction motor which was mostly AC based machinery. The Westinghouse Corporation was chosen to supply the lighting for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. This was a big win for Tesla as he could show the world the benefits of AC power. Then in 1895 Tesla made the first hydroelectric power stations at
Had Edison not experienced failures in his lifetime as an inventor he might have not become one of the most extraordinary inventors of the century. Failures, like all things, are meant to encourage a problem-like solving mentality as Edison reports, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.” This particular mentality allows Edison to successfully create the electric light bulb regardless of the numerous accounts of failures he underwent in the developmental process. Even with the threat of failure looming above him like a dark thundercloud ready to unleash its mighty rage he
Though as a young child he liked to pull many pranks especially at school. At age 12 he liked to sell newspapers to passengers at the Grand Trunk Railroad. Later in the years he started publishing his own newspapers, he called his business the Grand Trunk Herald. That had sparked his ideas for becoming an entrepreneur in his future. He got permission to set up his own lab on a train car. One day he caught the train car on fire. The conductor rushed in and hit him in the head, that is probably the reason he was slightly deaf. At age 15 he saved a child that was stuck in the train tracks. In return the child’s father taught him how to operate a telegraph. He then moved throughout the midwest becoming a telegrapher. At age 19 he started studying electrical science and was becoming more familiar with it. He came back home to find his family in need. He decided to go to Boston and get a job there. He was a telegrapher for a while before he started making inventions. His first invention, the phonograph, was the first invention to record sound, and then play it back. It helped to change the way we listen to music. This was the start to his career and many