Today, only an unenlightened person does not know the name of Edison - the famous inventor who managed to improve the light bulb, as well as the author of the electric chair and phonograph. In addition to the talent of an inventor, he possessed an equally valuable property - the ability to entrepreneurship.
Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847 in Maylen, a small American town. His parents were from Holland. As a child, Alva was a rather sickly child, moreover, he was short and deaf in one ear. Therefore, his parents took great care of him and watched over his health.
At school, Thomas was found unable to study and was sent home schooled. Everything that children learn in elementary school, he was taught by his mother - a woman with a brilliant education. And to the surprise of the family, he showed excellent academic ability.
He was very inquisitive, watched the life around him and tried to learn everything that was interesting to him: he hung around the carpenters, walked in the port.
At the age of seven, he learned to read and became a regular visitor to the People's Library. Mostly Thomas read books by Richard Burton, David Hume, Edward Gibbon. And at the age of 9 he repeated the experiments from the book by Richard Green Parker "Natural and Experimental Philosophy". That is, he wanted to get to everything himself, personally.
His experiments required a lot of money for various drugs, and in order to earn them, Edison began selling newspapers at the railway station. He even agreed to make a chemistry laboratory in an old carriage. But one day there was a bad experience, there was a fire, and Thomas lost both his job and the laboratory.
However, he was lucky: Thomas saved the station master's son from death, and he appointed him to the position of telegraph operator, where he worked for several years.
And he continued his experiments - it was his passion. He could never stop, and spent all the money he earned on books and inventions.
Inventions
The biography of a self-taught inventor is rich in many moments when he could be proud of himself: he received 1,093 patents in the United States and 3,000 in other countries.
However, luck did not come to him right away: society did not accept the electoral vote counter invented by him, considering it useless, like some other inventions.
Success came to Edison thanks to his experience in the repair of telegraph devices: in the company "Gold & Stock" such a device broke down, and only Thomas could fix it. Here he studied the telegraphing system and applied it to information on the price of gold and stocks. The young inventor made it more convenient and operational, and the company bought this invention from him. The money from the purchase went to a workshop that made tickers for the stock exchanges, and a year later, Edison already had three such workshops.
Further success awaited him: the founding of the Pope, Edison & Co company, the invention of the quadruplex telegraph, the opening of a laboratory in which the most advanced scientists of that time began to work. Inventions, experimentation, rationalization - all of this brought Edison great pleasure.
He was not limited to one particular area of knowledge: having invented the phonograph, he began to improve the light bulb. He simplified its production and increased the service life from 2 to 13 hours, and later to 1200 hours.
There were also failures in his life, and even one local war - the "war of currents". Edison advocated the use of direct current, and his laboratory assistant, Nikola Tesla, argued that alternating current was more suitable for long-distance transmission, and he won. Out of frustration, Edison invented the infamous electric chair.
Thomas Edison also invented the X-ray machine, carbon microphone, voice recorder, and alkaline battery. And he also became the forerunner of cinema: in his laboratory, on a kinetoscope, one could see a film through a special eyepiece.
Personal life
Thomas Alva Edison has been married twice. The first wife, a telegraph operator Mary Stillwell, was very attractive, and two months after meeting her, Thomas was ready to go down the aisle. However, the death of her mother prevented this event, and Mary and Thomas were married only in December 1871. Despite the ardent desire to become the husband of the beauty, the young husband immediately after the wedding went to the laboratory, forgetting about the wedding night - he was so carried away by the next discovery. In this marriage, Edison had two sons and a daughter.
A few years later, his wife passed away, and he married again - to Mina Miller, who was 20 years younger. In this marriage, three children were born - also two sons and a daughter.
Edison lived a long life - almost 85 years, and until the last day he was doing his favorite work. If it were not for diabetes, which caused complications, the great inventor would have lived for a long time. In 1931, Thomas Edison was buried in the backyard of his West Orange home.
