Thomas Alva Edison

He was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. The number of patents has exceeded 1,000 and is called the 'King of Inventions'. Born as the youngest son of his father Samuel, who ran the Sanctuary, he moved to Fort Huron, Michigan, in 1854, and entered an elementary school there, but his mother taught him at home three months later after hearing that he was a distracted child.

As the family was poor, at the age of 12, they sold newspapers and snacks on railways, but moved their laboratories into trucks to save time and concentrated on experiments. One year when the newspaper was sold in a train lab, a fire that caused a fire and was beaten by the conductor caused deafness to the ears, and after that, he stopped socializing with people and began to focus on research.

When he was 15 years old, he learned telegraphy in return for saving the life of a station master's child and worked as a telegraphy in many parts of the U.S. and Canada until 1869. Around that time, I was impressed by Faraday's book The Experimental Study of Electrical Science in Boston. I was very interested in the fact that the explanation of the book was not using complex formulas, and while studying the experiments in the book, I invented the electric voting recorder in 1868 and received the first patent.

The following year, the company invented a stock listing indicator and built a factory in Newark, New Jersey, based on the funds gained from the invention. He moved to Menlo Park in 1876 and West Orange in 1887. These laboratories continued to invent factors and electronic devices in 1871, double-electronics in 1872, carbon phones in 1876, phonographs in 1877, incandescent light bulbs in 1879, film cameras and consoles in 1891, magnetic ray photography in 1891-1900, and Edison's accumulator between 1900 and 1910.

When the First World War broke out and the U.S. entered the war, the U.S. once suspended its business and became the chairman of the Navy Advisory Council, then returned to the West Orange lab and factory, focusing on the exploration of rubber substitutes, and continued its research until its life ended.

Throughout his life, the 1876-1881 period spent at Menlo Park was the most creative period. Inventors were thriving, and the Wall Street tycoons he said were competing with each other to get his patents. Dozens of systematic inventions, including improvements in telegraph, telephone, and incandescent light bulbs, were being made simultaneously.

Of particular importance was the improvement and development of incandescent bulbs and the invention of its production methods. Already, comparisons between platinum and carbon lines as materials for filament were being discussed, and in the 1870s it was concluded that the use of moderate carbon lines was relatively promising.

Beginning to concentrate on the study of incandescent bulbs in 1878, he finally succeeded in creating a light bulb that continued for more than 40 hours on October 21, 1879, the following year with the improvement of mercury exhaust pumps and the recruitment of carbon filaments. Knowing that bamboo was suitable for the material of filament, people were sent to the bamboo mountain resort in many parts of the world to collect the material. The best price for flying near Kyoto, Japan, was found to have been used for about 10 years.

In order to supply light bulbs, he devised sockets, switches, safety fuses, power distribution systems, and distribution systems, including the design of high-efficiency generators and power distribution boards, and created the entire equipment system from auxiliary facilities of electric lights to power distribution, charging, and power generation. In 1882, the world's first central power plant and Edison Electric Company were founded. And in 1883, the Edison effect, which he discovered during his light bulb experiment, entered the 20th century and was studied as a thermoelectric phenomenon and applied to vacuum tubes, became the basis for subsequent electronic industrial development.

His company suffered a lot of economic losses from the lawsuit over the patent rights of light bulbs, resulting in his removal from the company. The words "I invented the light bulb, but I didn't benefit at all" at that time well reflect Wall Street, or his woe of being abandoned by proprietary capital.

He despised the lecture at the university. Even about education, he usually says, "The current system is, the brain is going into one mold. It does not cultivate original ideas. What's important is to watch what's being made," he said sharply. "Genius is 99% perspiration, and the other 1% inspiration" was his famous motto throughout his life. It is a symbol of his tenacious inventor spirit, which has continued ceaseless research and creation, along with the phrase, "I always invent to get money to keep inventing."

Milan's birthplace is designated as a historic site, and the Menlo Park Institute and West Orange Institute, which were moved to Dearborn, Michigan, remain museums, respectively.