Necessity is the Mother of Invention
February 11, 1847 - Thomas Alva Edison - the Wizard of Menlo Park - was born on this day.
If necessity is the mother of invention, Thomas Edison may not have been the father, but he was most definitely one of her consorts. Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history and received over 1000 major patents for his inventions. The inventor and entrepreneur was born on this day in 1847.
Edison's inventions and business acumen greatly influenced the telephony and entertainment industries, besides his best known creation - the incandescent light bulb. Edison's earliest inventions were related to the telegraph and stock-ticker, and he made many improvements to his contemporary Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. While creating a better speaker for the phone, he was struck with the idea of capturing sound and being able to replay it. This lead to the creation of the phonograph 1878. The Kinetoscope, a cabinet that displayed moving pictures from a reel of film, and the Kinetophone which incorporated a phonograph to replay sound with the Kinetoscope's pictures would be unveiled in 1894 to display pictures taken with special camera Edison had created 1889, and the motion pictures industry was born.
Edison, the light bulb, and electricity are forever joined at the hip. While both the generation of electricity and the arc-light had been previously invented by others, neither were practical for everyday consumer use. The generating dynamos of the day were terribly inefficient and expensive to operate, and the open arc of electricity of the arc-light created a luminous glare too intense for general lighting purposes. Many other inventors were trying to create a light bulb for practical use in homes and businesses. However it was Edison that received the patent for the carbonized filament and brought the incandescent light bulb to the public. Legend has it that someone boasted that Edison had failed over 2000 times in creating the light bulb, to which Edison replied that he did not fail, but had discovered 2000 ways not to make a light bulb!
Edison was a truly successful inventor because he was also a savvy businessman who realized early on that his inventions would need both marketplaces and manufacturing plants. He knew light bulbs would be useless without a consistent and affordable electric supply, so he made innovations to the dynamo and in 1882 built the Pearl Street generating station and created the first public electric utility in Manhattan.
Quote for ToDay:
" Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." - Thomas Alva Edison
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