Thomas Edison Research Paper

Thomas Edison was born February 11, 1847. He was one of seven kids. He lived in Ohio and was educated mostly at home by his mother. Edison passed away October 18, 1931 due to complications of diabetes. In his lifetime, Edison was known for all of his inventions in American History. He has a total of 1093 patents. Edison’s patents spread across a variety of fields including: telecommunications, electric power, sound recording, motion pictures, primary and storage batteries, and mining and cement technology. Thomas Edison referred to himself as an inventor and not a scientist. My goal in this paper is to inform about Thomas Edison’s life and about his many inventions.

Edison started his career as an inventor in Boston in 1868 working mostly

It was the first machine that could record and reproduce sound, it was also known as the tin foil phonograph. The tin foil phonograph brought Edison a lot of recognition. The tin foil phonograph worked by a piece on tin foil wrapped around a cylinder in the middle. A short message was shouted into the piece on one side of the cylinder while the handle was being turned. Inside the piece was a needle; voices would make the needle shake/ vibrate. The sound vibrations would go through the needle on and make a line into the tin foil. A needle on the opposite side would play back what was just recorded. Unfortunately after replaying it a few times the tin foul would tear up and the message could no longer be replayed. The later phonographs were able to play records. Unlike records today the first ones were in the shape of a cylinder with the music on the outside. Over the next fifty years Edison continued to improve the

Thomas Edison worked hard in his lifetime but he also achieved a lot and made many patents and inventions. Edison had 389 for electric light and power, 195 for the phonograph, 150 for the telegraph, 141 for the storage and batteries, and 34 for the telephone. Even more important, he created a model for modern industrial research. Edison broadened the notation of invention to encompass what we now call innovation-invention, research, development, and commercialization-and invented the industrial research laboratory. Edison had two major laboratories at Menlo Park and West Orange in New Jersey. He formed more than 300 companies worldwide to manufacture and market his inventions. By the time he died he was one of the most well-known and respected Americans in the world. He had been at the forefront of America’s first technological revolution and set the stage for the modern electric world. After his passing in 1931, many communities and corporations throughout the world dimmed their lights or briefly turned off their electrical power to commemorate his