The below information is from the quick
information that pops up on the side of the screen when you do an
initial Google search of Thomas Edison.
Thomas Edison was a great inventor.
He developed many things that improved life in the world greatly.
Inventions like the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long
lasting electrical light bulb. Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on
February 11, 1847. He died October 18, 1931 in West Orange, New
Jersey. His full name is Thomas Alva Edison.
Edison received many awards, such as:
-Congressional Gold Medal
-Distinguished Service Medal
-Franklin Medal
-John Fritz Medal
-Matteucci Medal
-Technical Grammy Award
-John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium
-Edward Longstreth Medal
-Rumford Prize
He had six children:
-Theodore Miller Edison
-Charles Edison
-Thomas Alva Edison Jr.
-Madeleine Edison
-William Leslie Edison
-Marion Estelle Edison
The tin foil phonograph was the first
great invention by Edison in Menlo Park.
Here is a short paragraph from the
above website talking about the phonograph and recording telephone
messages.
“While
working to improve the efficiency of a telegraph transmitter,
he noted that the tape of the machine gave off a noise resembling
spoken words when played at a high speed. This caused him to wonder
if he could record a telephone message. He began experimenting with
the diaphragm of a telephone receiver by attaching a needle to it. He
reasoned that the needle could prick paper tape to record a message.
His experiments led him to try a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which,
to his great surprise, played back the short message he recorded,
"Mary had a little lamb."”
Electricity
and the Light Bulb
Edison's
greatest challenge was creating electric light. Popular belief says
that Edison did not invent the light bulb, he just improved a fifty
year old idea. Edison also had to invent seven system elements that
would be required for the electric light bulb.
They
are:
-The
parallel circuit
-a
durable light bulb
-an
improved dynamo
-the
underground conductor network
-the
devices for maintaining constant voltage
-safety
fuses and insulating materials
-light
sockets with on and off switches
Edison
Motion Pictures
Thomas
Edison was interested in motion pictures before 1888. However, that
year he decided to invent a camera for motion pictures when Eadweard
Muybridge visited his laboratory in West Orange.
Here
is a short paragraph from the same website:
“Muybridge
proposed that they collaborate and combine the Zoopraxiscope with the
Edison phonograph. Although apparently intrigued, Edison decided not
to participate in such a partnership, perhaps realizing that the
Zoopraxiscope was not a very practical or efficient way of recording
motion. In an attempt to protect his future, he filed a caveat with
the Patents Office on October 17, 1888, describing his ideas for a
device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for
the ear" -- record and reproduce objects in motion. He called it
a "Kinetoscope,"
using the Greek words "kineto" meaning "movement"
and "scopos" meaning "to watch."”
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