Edison bought the patent of the incandescent lamp from a young Englishman, Woodward, studying medicine in Toronto. I believe that he paid only $5000, as the rulers in Toronto were not interested in electric light and had all stock in the gas company. Edison owned the patent now, withdrew it from the Patent office and re-submitted it the next day with a small change. The name Woodward had been changed into Thomas, Alva, Edison., He did that trick with most of the ideas his engineers would come up with.
Good business of course but the biggest inventor was Tesla.
You have electric power thanks to him. Air conditioning and the binary system, used in computers etc.etc.
Thomas Edison's labs, up close and personal (photos)
by ZDNet Author | July 7, 2010 4:10am PDT | Image 1 of 25
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WEST ORANGE, N.J.--If you ask just about anyone who the best inventor in history is, you'd almost certainly get far more votes for Thomas Edison than anyone else. The man who is probably best known for inventing the light bulb also invented the phonograph, the moving picture, the alkaline storage battery, cement houses, and many others. And he made a mint with his ingenuity.
Already well-known and wealthy, he and his young bride moved here in 1887 from the famous Menlo Park, N.J., research and development labs where he'd invented the light bulb, and he quickly set about building a series of development and manufacturing buildings, as well as a spacious and lovely estate nearby.
On Road Trip 2010, CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman visited Thomas Edison National Historic Park here and got a behind-the-scenes tour of the labs and development offices that Edison and his team worked in every day for many years. These days, the National Park Service owns and operates the buildings, and after a six-year renovation, it recently fully re-opened them to the public with a series of new exhibits and archives on display.
Here, we see a group of different sized phonograph horns, in a storage room off the music room inside the lab buildings.
Click here to read the related story on Thomas Edison's labs. And click here to check out the entire Road Trip 2010 package.
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@Josephus Hap: Mr. Hap's comments are correct. In fact, Edison directly cheated a young Tesla out of a promised bonus after Tesla reorganized the power generation at Edison's labs. And of course, there is the well documented battle between Tesla's alternating current and Edison's direct current, the later being a complete non-starter for long distance power transport. In short, Edison gets a disproportionate amount of notoriety because of business acumen and a socially acceptable demeanor, as well as true inventor status for a number of well known household items. While Tesla, a troubled, reclusive genius, gave us a much longer list of inventions, some of which are fundamental to modern technology. A lot of history books need a rewrite concerning these two giants.
@Josephus Hap
Here's Edison's Patent List
http://www.nps.gov/archive/edis/edisonia/Table1_1.html
Which one of the more than ONE HUNDRED Electric Lamp
patents are you talking about?
Here's Edison's Patent List
http://www.nps.gov/archive/edis/edisonia/Table1_1.html
Which one of the more than ONE HUNDRED Electric Lamp
patents are you talking about?
Thank you for not mentioning Milan, Ohio. The birth place of Edison. Many of his ideas began there, but hell, who cares.
also see Robert Goddard's workshop similarly preserved in Roswell, NM.
Opcom, if it is not in West Orange or Menlo Park, then it just doesn't matter. Nice to know though, and I will definitely visit, but N.J. is all that counts.
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