Thomas Edison 

By on

American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. He was the youngest of seven children and received little formal schooling. Most of his education happened at home under the care of his mother, Nancy.

When he was young, Edison suffered from a bout of scarlet fever that left him with permanent hearing problems. In his late teens he was trained as a telegraph operator by a thankful station master whose son Edison had saved from being run over by a train.

At the age of 24, Edison married Mary Stillwell. Together they had three children, Marion (nicknamed "Dot"), Thomas Jr. (nicknamed "Dash"), and William before Mary died in 1884 from a brain tumor. He later remarried to Mina Miller who gave birth to Edison's younger children, Madeleine and Charles.

Edison possessed extensive entrepreneurial skills which led him to found more than a dozen companies, among them General Electric. His first patent was for inventing an electric vote recorder. However, the device was a commercial failure. It wasn't until he created a highly improved stock ticker that Edison began to make money from his inventions. His most famous and successful inventions, many of which were developed in his personal laboratory at Menlo Park, include the phonograph and the incandescent light bulb.

Thomas Edison died at the age of 84 on October 18, 1931. At his time of death, he held more than 1,000 U.S. patents in his name. In 1983, Congress designated Edison's birthday as National Inventor's Day.

Related Links

Our Wiki page on Thomas Edison



More interesting Notes:
Steven McFadyen's avatar Steven McFadyen

Steven has over twenty five years experience working on some of the largest construction projects. He has a deep technical understanding of electrical engineering and is keen to share this knowledge. About the author

myElectrical Engineering

comments powered by Disqus



How to measure power supply quality

If your are ever called out to troubleshoot something on your electrical system, one of the first things consider is the supply voltage. You want to ensure...

Batteries

A battery consists of one or more cells, each of which use stored chemical energy to produce electrical energy, There are many types of cells and these...

Laplace Transform

Laplace transforms and their inverse are a mathematical technique which allows us to solve differential equations, by primarily using algebraic methods...

Cold Fusion (or not?)

Recently I have seen a few interesting articles on viable cold fusion; the combining of atoms at room like temperatures to create boundless energy. Now...

Cable Trumps

Bored at work and would rather be playing trump card game with you son. The next best thing (or not) maybe the online cable trump card game from AEI Cables...

Thermoplastic and Thermosetting Insulation

While there are a vast array of cable insulation materials, these are often divided into two general types; Thermoplastic or Thermosetting. For example...

Periodic Electrical Installation Inspection – How Often?

How often installations are inspected is up to the owner of the installation, provided such durations do not exceed any regulatory maximums in force. ...

Getting Started with Patents

If you have a great idea or invent something the last thing you want is someone to steal the idea. One of the things you can do is protect the intellectual...

UPS Sizing - Rules of Thumb

It wasn't so long ago I was telling someone that I don't use rules of thumb as most things are easily calculated anyhow.   As it turns out I last week...

Voltage Levels to IEC 60038

The standard aims to consolidate AC and traction voltages within the industry and defines the following bands: band 1 - A.C. systems 100 V to 1...

Have some knowledge to share

If you have some expert knowledge or experience, why not consider sharing this with our community.  

By writing an electrical note, you will be educating our users and at the same time promoting your expertise within the engineering community.

To get started and understand our policy, you can read our How to Write an Electrical Note