The amazing facts about Thomas Edison

Want to make a movie? You need high-quality lamps, recording equipment and a good movie camera. Thomas Alva Edison helped develop these three technologies. He was born in Milan, Ohio on February 1847. By the time he died in 193 1, he had accumulated 1093 patents. There are 1 1 things you should know about this prolific inventor, manufacturer and businessman.

Thomas Edison's father took part in the failed revolution in Canada.

1837 and 1838, the democratic rebels in Canada began to * * * the British royal family to manage its North American territory. Samuel Ogden Edison Jr., a Nova Scotia native, is one of them. In this short and intense period, Edison marched into Toronto. Later, he did not bear the legal consequences for his actions, but fled to the United States where his son Thomas was born.

Thomas Edison built a chemistry laboratory on the train when he was young.

The Edison family moved from Ohio to Port Huron, Michigan on 1854. /kloc-at the age of 0/2, Thomas Edison began to sell candy and newspapers on the trunk railway that transported passengers to and from Detroit. Edison not only set up a chemical laboratory on the luggage cart, but also built a printing press for the original newspaper, The Trunk Herald, which he founded.

Thomas Edison's first patented invention was the counting device.

When Edison applied for a patent for his electronic voting recorder at 1869, he thought it would speed up the voting process in the American legislature. Delegates don't have to shout "yes" or "no" one by one, but they can press the switch and count the votes electronically. However, politicians don't like this idea because, unlike the old system, it doesn't leave any room for blocking or last-minute transactions. The device is not used.

Thomas Edison thought that his poor listening helped him to concentrate.

As he grew older, Edison was completely deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other. A case of scarlet fever in childhood may be the cause. Edison wrote: "First the earache, then the deafness, became more and more serious, until I could only hear a few words from time to time in the theater."

However, he feels that listening problems give him a professional advantage: they make it easier for inventors to concentrate on their work without being distracted. "My deafness is not an obstacle, but a help to me," he claimed.

Thomas Edison was not the only inventor of the light bulb.

The electric light began to appear at 1802. Warren De La Rue, an English inventor, invented one of the earliest light bulbs in 1840. However, the first light bulb is not commercially feasible because of its short brightness and short life. Expensive parts become another obstacle. )

1880 65438+1On October 27th, Edison obtained a patent for a cheap and durable incandescent light bulb, which can run without much electricity. Then, together with his staff, he developed a light switch, an electric meter and a power system that can run the whole program.

Thomas Edison gave his children a telegraph nickname.

Edison started in the telegraph industry. As a recognition of Morse code system, he named his two eldest sons-Marion Edison and Thomas Edison Jr——DOT and Dash respectively.

7. nikola tesla worked for Thomas Edison briefly.

Alternating current and direct current are two different modes of conduction and transmission. Edison's equipment depends on DC power supply; He thinks alternating current is unsafe.

Nikola tesla didn't agree. The Serbian-born American engineer and inventor was employed by a company of Edison on June 8, 1984. Unlike his boss, Tesla saw the potential of alternating current. After parting ways with Edison, Tesla sold the patent of relying on alternating current to industrialist George Westinghouse.

Tesla's cooperation with Westinghouse Electric-and the ultimate dominance of AC power-led to a rift between the two inventors, but historians say that they are not sworn enemies as claimed by popular culture. Edison once provided a temporary workspace for Tesla, when Tesla caught fire in the laboratory of 1895. In a speech by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Tesla made sure Edison got a standing ovation.

Thomas Edison made a creepy talking doll.

The phonograph can record and play sounds, which is one of Edison's great achievements. His experiment with chat toys was not very successful.

After the phonograph came out, Edison began to develop talking dolls. Their bodies are equipped with miniature phonographs, which can play familiar nursery rhymes and songs. He hired an actress to recite songs such as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to make the dolls "talk". But critics complain that they can't understand what (quite expensive) toys are saying. Edison always sells only 500 dolls.

Thomas Edison made one of the earliest cat videos in the world.

Black Maria, also known as "Dog House", is the first film studio in history. It was built in Edison Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey in 1893, and produced a series of short films for the public-including annie oakley's shooting demonstration, the oldest known Native American lens and a mini movie about boxing cats. After years of experiments, Edison applied for a patent for a movie camera named Kinetograph at 1897. This is just one of many patents related to movies that he has obtained.

Thomas Edison asked potential employees in a job interview.

Edison was dissatisfied with some college graduates he had hired for many years, and created a strict job interview test in the1920s. Applicants must answer dozens of questions, from Italian operas ("Who wrote the bard?" ) to astronomy ("What is the distance between the earth and the sun?" ), and then to the presidential trivia ("Where was Lincoln born?" ) popular exams often make people feel stressed. A job seeker later told * * * that "only a walking encyclopedia" can pass.

A museum claims to have Thomas Edison's last words.

The Henry Ford Museum in dearborn, Michigan has a test tube which is said to contain Thomas Edison's last breath. Edison is an old friend of Henry Ford. He is best known for his Model T and assembly line (and anti-Semitism). According to legend, when Edison died, one of his sons trapped the inventor's last breath in a test tube, sealed it and gave this creepy souvenir to Ford.

To tell the truth, it is one of many test tubes in the bedroom where Thomas Edison1931Kloc-0/018 died. Ford got this thing to commemorate their friendship.