Top 10 Inventions by Thomas Edison

Photo of author

Updated On

3. Electricity distribution

Power plant by edison

Edison was not just a great inventor but was also a great entrepreneur too. Thanks to him, electricity made its way into the homes of the common people. He worked out the electrical sums and started the business of giving D.C electricity to the homes.

He developed a complete electrical distribution system for light and power, set up the world’s first electricity generation plant in New York City. And without which his famous light bulb would never reach its potential, good job Edison!

2. Electric generator

Electric Generator: Alva Edison

And yes he did that too! Edison introduced the world’s first economically viable system of centrally generating and distributing electric light, heat, and power. (See “Greatest Achievement? The generator! Duh .”) Powerfully, instrumental in impacting upon the world we know today. During the first months of 1879, Edison designed a dynamo that differed in important ways from contemporary designs. Many contemporary electrical experts thought a generator would work best when its internal electrical resistance was equal to the external resistance of the circuit.

But because Edison considered the economic efficiency of his system to be related to the number of lamps per horsepower, he determined that a generator with a small internal resistance would produce more efficient power output. The other key feature of the Edison dynamo was its large bipolar magnets, which gave the generator its nickname, the “long-legged Mary-Ann” (a somewhat rude joke). In arriving at this design, Edison drew in part on Michael Faraday’s half-century-old work regarding the electromagnetic generation of current by a conductor   moving through the magnetic lines of force generated by a field magnet. Way to go Edison!

 

1. The Electric light bulb

light bulb: edison

The electric bulb is an invention almost as important as when we invented the wheel for the first time in human history. The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. This is called an electric arc.

The carbon had still to be worked on and then Thomas Alva Edison experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for 40 hours. Edison eventually produced a bulb that could glow for over 1500 hours.

The concepts of electricity almost would have made no sense without worthy inventions like the durable light bulb which harnessed the power of electricity to light up our homes and streets in the dark of the night. Imagine a night without bulbs and you can see how unproductive the night time becomes.

 Conclusion

Reflecting at what we found here gave us a glimpse of what a man Thomas Edison was in his days. The inventor who invented 1000 inventions in a lifetime is truly justified by his nickname “the wizard”. From the light bulb to the electricity distribution program to the voting machine, he has done something that the world shall remember and also if you remember he has legal patents on all his inventions! that’s a hell of a job. He did not just invent stuff but started a whole another level of business industries around the globe. He once said “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” And he kept to his quote, he worked hard invented hard! Also nonviolence was key to Edison’s moral views, and when asked to serve as a naval consultant for World War I, he specified he would work only on defensive weapons and later noted, “I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.” Edison’s philosophy of nonviolence extended to animals as well, about which he stated: “Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.” In the end hats off to such a brilliant man!

Spread the love

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.