During his life, Thomas Edison received 1093 patents in the United States and several thousand patents in other states. Almost every one of his inventions made life easier for people and moved humanity towards the development of scientific and technological progress. We remembered the 10 most significant inventions of Edison for mankind, in our opinion. There are corresponding patents for all these inventions (except for 4 points), so there is no doubt about their “belonging” to Edison.
one ticker machine
The ticker machine was a device for displaying current stock quotes on the stock exchange. At one end of the telegraph line, a man was writing a quote on a typewriter, and a narrow strip of paper with numbers printed on the ticker machine would appear. The print speed was approximately 1 character per second. For this invention, Edison was paid 40 thousand dollars, which became a serious start-up capital for the development of his company.
2 Automatic telegraph
Thanks to this, the typing speed increased from 50 words per minute to 200. After a while, Thomas finalized the device, and the number of words increased to 3000. Interestingly, in the process of working on this particular project, Thomas met his future wife, Mary Stillwell, who became the inspiration for the creation hundreds of other devices.
3 Phonograph
The carrier had a spiral track, which in different parts could have a different depth, proportional to the volume of the sound. When the needle moved along the groove, it transmitted vibrations to the membrane, which in turn reproduced the sound. The phonograph became the progenitor of the gramophone and gramophone, which were used for the next few decades.
four The word “Hello”
In this “battle” he was opposed by Alexander Bell, the founder of American telephony, who offered a greeting when talking on the phone with the word “ahoy” (used when meeting ships). But the word “Hullo” (a derivative of the word “Hello”) took root better than we are witnesses.
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5 Mimeograph
Edison’s mimeograph was a rather complex design, which was then improved and simplified.
6 carbon microphone
The microphone was powered by direct current. Thanks to Edison’s improvement, the microphone increased the signal range. Edison received a patent for this device on December 9, 1879. Interestingly, in the future, the microphone was somewhat improved by Anthony White, but coal powder continued to be used in the device.
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Exploitation
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7 Incandescent lamp with carbon filament
However, Thomas Edison was the first to create an incandescent carbon filament lamp with a lifespan of 40 hours. At first glance, this may seem very small, given that modern LED devices work for 20-30 thousand hours, but at that time it was a breakthrough. Thanks to this, Edison was able to supplant gas lighting and replace it with electric lighting, which will be discussed in the next paragraph.
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eight Electric lighting system
Edison pioneered the concept of modern electric lighting. For this, he developed special rotary switches, unified (with the designation Exx, where xx is the diameter in millimeters) threaded sockets for screwing in light bulbs, terminals, sockets with plugs, fuses, incandescent lamps and the actual electricity meter. He did not make all these devices on his own, but he was able to connect them into a single power supply system.
He also added a three-wire 110 V DC network to this system.
In the same year (1880), when the system begins to operate, Edison introduces a new incandescent lamp with a service life of 1200 hours. Thanks to a similar lighting and power supply system, the Edison company began to sell 75% of all light bulbs in the United States.
9 Kinetoscope
ten alkaline battery
He patented it on July 31, 1906. Sales of these batteries brought the Edison company tens of millions of dollars.
These are not all of Edison’s inventions that have influenced the world as a whole. Share in the comments what discoveries of this brilliant scientist, in your opinion, are the most significant in the work of his workshop!
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