Inventor and entrepreneur — Thomas Alva Edison (Milan, Ohio, 1847 – West Orange, 1931) was an American inventor and entrepreneur, among the most prolific in history with more than a thousand patents to his name. Self-taught, with little formal education, he founded at Menlo Park one of the first organised industrial research laboratories, a forerunner of modern R&D centres. He is famous for perfecting the incandescent filament light bulb, making it commercially viable, and for designing the first direct-current electrical distribution system. He also invented the phonograph and contributed to the development of cinema. His industrial approach to innovation turned invention into a systematic enterprise.
Trivia
He was a central figure in the so-called “war of the currents” against Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, championing direct current against alternating current, which ultimately prevailed for long-distance distribution.
Theories and contributions
- Incandescent light bulb — Perfected a high-resistance filament in an evacuated bulb, achieving durable, commercially viable electric lighting.
- Edison effect (thermionic emission) — Observed current flowing in a vacuum from a heated filament to an electrode, a phenomenon underlying vacuum tubes.
Appears in chapters
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