Thomas Alva Edison

The Biography of Thomas Alva Edison

Edison was born -on Feb. 11, 1847 - to middle-class parents. Edison, who was the last of seven children in his family, did not learn to talk until he was almost four years of age. Immediately thereafter, he began pleading with every adult he met to explain the workings of just about everything he encountered. If they said they didn't know, he would look them straight in the eye with his deeply set and vibrant blue-green eyes and ask them "Why?" He spent only 12 weeks in a school, where his teacher lost his patience with the child’s persistent questioning and seemingly self-centered behavior. His mother became aware of the situation, she promptly withdrew him from school and began to "home-teach" him.

As a youngster he developed deep interest in world history and English literature. Due to his fondness for Shakespeare's plays, he briefly considered to become an actor. He soon gave up the idea because of his extreme shyness before every audience. He was a voracious reader. His parents taught him how to use the resources of the library. Starting from the last book on the bottom of the shelf he read every book.

At age 16, after working in a variety of telegraph offices, where he performed numerous "moonlight" experiments, he finally came up with his first authentic invention. Called an "automatic repeater," it transmitted telegraph signals between unmanned stations, allowing virtually anyone to easily and accurately translate code at their own speed and convenience. A beautifully constructed electric vote-recording machine was the first to be patented by Tom. As the machine was too advanced in those days, people could not understand its importance and hence tom could not market it. He was very disappointed by this event that he vowed he would never waste time inventing things that people would not want to buy.

During his free time, Edison soon resumed his habit of "moonlighting" with the telegraph, the quadruplex transmitter, the stock-ticker, etc. Shortly thereafter, he was absolutely astonished - in fact he nearly fainted - when a corporation paid him $40,000 for all of his rights to the latter device. In 1879, he invented the first commercially practical incandescent electric light bulb.

He has set up the world’s first full-fledged research and development center in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1890 he has developed the first vitascope or the first silent motion picture. At the turn-of-the-century, Edison invented the first practical dictaphone, mimeograph, and storage battery. After creating the "kinetiscope" and the first silent film in 1904, he went on to introduce The Great Train Robbery in 1903, which was a ten minute clip that was his first attempt to blend audio with silent moving images to produce "talking pictures." When World War I began, he was asked by the U. S. Government to focus his genius upon creating defensive devices for submarines and ships. During this time, he also perfected a number of important inventions relating to the enhanced use of rubber, concrete, and ethanol.

Edison holds 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Thomas Edison died On Oct. 18th, 1931 in New Jersey. He was 84 years of age. Shortly before passing away, he awoke from a coma and quietly whispered to his very religious and faithful wife Mina, who had been keeping a vigil all night by his side: "It is very beautiful over there...". Recognizing that his death marked the end of an era in the progress of civilization, countless individuals, communities, and corporations throughout the world dimmed their lights and, or, briefly turned off their electric power in his honor on the evening of the day he was laid to rest at his beautiful estate at Glenmont, New Jersey.

Some of the famous quotes by Edison:

1. "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."
2. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
3. "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
4. "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
5. "There is no substitute for hard work."
6. "If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves...."