The Wizard of Menlo Park : Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Alva EdisonThe Wizard of Menlo Park

Early Life

1. Born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847, was the 7th

child2. “The Curious Boy”3. At the age of 5, he was found

sitting on a duck egg to see if he can hatch them.

School Life1. Edison started schooling

at Michigan2. His teachers complained

that he was backward & kept asking silly questions

3. He was homeschooled by her mother.

12 year old businessman

1. He started selling candy, newspapers in a railway trains

2. He also set up a small chemistry lab in a corner of the baggage cart

Aged 14, he started a publishing house

1. The paper was called “The Weekly Herald”

2. The first newspaper ever to be typeset and printed on a moving train

Partially Deaf & Jobless

1. Exposure to high noise levels made him partially deaf

2. His chemical experiments set the baggage on fire and he was thrown out at the age of 16

3. At that time, apart from printing, selling candies and newspapers and chemistry, he knew how to send telegrams. He became the fastest telegram operator of his time.

Universal Stock Ticker Tape (1869)

1. It could automatically transfer stock rates over telegram

2. Was bought by Western Union for $40000

3. Was not an invention but an improvement of existing systems

Problem Solved

1. Before Stock Ticker, an operator had to manually respond to stock rates, and note down readings

2. He automated the process. His ticker printed @ 1 character/ second

The Rich Edison

1. He invested money into building a house and an advanced chemistry lab

2. He married a 16 year old Ohio girl3. He claimed : “I make a new invention every

month and a major one every six months”4. He helped Bell in improving his telephone

The Phonograph (1877)

1. It was a machine that could record voices and play them back

2. Record industry became a multi million dollar business

Problem Solved

1. Edison’s vision of phonograph was a device that can record a message and transmit it to more that one receivers automatically over telegram (and later telephone)

2. Before phonograph the complete message had to signaled over telegram again

3. But people wanted to play music on this !

Light Bulb(1879)

1. He studied all material about electricity available at that time and concentrated his energy into building a light bulb

2. He figured out the principle and started prototyping in his labs

3. The electric bulb was finally created, a total of 360 different inventions welded together

He successfully lit America

1. Coal based power plants were set up in New York

2. The streets now had street lamps

3. Most households had access to light

Tesla Invented Light Bulb ?!

1. Tesla was humankind's most eccentric, badass, and volumetrically-insane scientific super genius.

2. He refined AC and did propose the design of Light Bulb as we know it now.

3. Edison didn’t invent it, he improved upon the ideas of 22 other men who pioneered the light bulb before him. He made it practical

Kinetoscope (1893)

1. His wanted to bring the revolution to vision, in the way phonograph revolutionised sound

2. He studied the work of George Eastman, the owner of The Kodak Camera Company and built the first projector and video camera. He later combined the phonograph and the camera

3. The projector was a kinetoscope initially

First Motion Clip

sou e : W ped a

Nickel Iron Battery(1901)

1. The first attempt to make a battery was by Galvani in 1780

2. Edison wanted to replace the car’s fuel engine with an electric engine

3. Edison announced his battery with great fanfare and bold claims, which it didn’t live up to

Nickel Iron Battery(1901)

1. He attempted to redesign and improve from 1905 to 1910

2. But the concept of electric cars almost died when his friend Ford introduced Model T in 1909

Natural Rubber(1927)

1. Ford presented him a problem : He wanted a cheap and natural source of rubber

2. He found a local weed, goldenrod that could supply high percentage of rubber

3. And developed a special fertilization and cultivation process that increased the size of the weed from 4 feet to 10 feet

1. Edison died on October 18, 1931 (aged 84)

2. Edison is the fourth most prolific inventor in history, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Humanity Before Edison

1. No power grids2. Hectic communication mediums3. No form of electronic storage4. No efficient way to synthesize natural rubber

Humanity A ter Edison

1. DC and later (Tesla’s) AC power grids2. Better telegraph and phone3. Phonograph and Kinetoscope4. Rubber from backyard weed

Edison Today

Edison co founded General Electric Company in 1892

It is one of the most profitable and powerful firms on this planet

Shivek KhuranaCluster Innovation Centre University Of Delhi

References1. http://www.exeter.ac.uk/bdc/young_bdc/movingpics/movingpics9.htm2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetoscope3. http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesla-wasnt-god-and-thomas-edison-wasnt-the-devil/4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_camera7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_bulb8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Edison_patents9. http://fi.edu/franklin/inventor/edison.html

10. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1910417_1910419_1910460,00.html11. http://www.stegen.k12.mo.us/tchrpges/sghs../aengelmann/EdisonThomasAlva.htm12. http://www.coned.com/history/electricity.asp13. http://edison.rutgers.edu/vote.htm14. http://www.ge.com/about-us/history/thomas-edison15. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmrrg.html16. http://www.filmsound.org/ulano/talkies2.htm17. http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/pic/1999/99.nov.html18. http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/museum/edisonbattery.html19. http://www.batteryfacts.co.uk/BatteryHistory/Edison.html20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93iron_battery21. http://www.grotenrathrubber.com/rubber-history22. Alan Axelrod, “Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business & Beyond” 23. http://www.clip.lagcc.cuny.edu/E1af0/Julian.htm