Thomas Edison Chemist

The most prolific inventor in American history, Thomas Edison played a major role in creating industries that have altered life around the globe: electric light and power, recorded sound and motion pictures. He also made significant innovations in telecommunications, battery technology, office machinery, the manufacture of Portland Cement, and processes for working low-grade ores. He was able to contribute to such a wide array of industries because he was not a lone inventor. At his workshops and laboratories in Newark, Menlo Park, and West Orange in New Jersey, Edison brought together teams of skilled research assistants and machinists. These teams allowed him to do more than any one person could do. In the process he transformed invention by making it part of a larger process of research, development, and commercialization that we now call innovation. That transformation—as much as any single invention—has become a crucial feature of the modern world. Includes a detailed chronology of Edison’s life and work. An introduction that provides an overview of Edison’s life and work. The A-to-Z section includes three hundred encyclopedic entries on Edison’s inventions, laboratories, business enterprises, public image and numerous individuals with whom he was associated. An extensive bibliography of Edison’s publications and select interviews; modern, contemporaneous, and juvenile biographies; and thirteen subject areas related to Edison’s work and influence. The index thoroughly cross-references the chronological and encyclopedic entries.

As a child, Thomas Alva Edison was filled with an ambition to lead an extraordinary life. By the time he was twelve, he had a job riding trains and selling newspapers, and he became an expert telegrapher. But science was his main interest, and before long, Edison focused his full attention on the task of inventing. Filing his first patent at the age of twenty-one, Edison embarked on a remarkable career that saw him overseeing the creation and improvement of thousands of products. From his innovative research laboratories in Menlo Park, New Jersey, and in New York City, Edison spent days on end in the lab, constantly experimenting and struggling to find ways to create or improve different products and technologies. Edison played a part in the creation of products ranging from the phonograph to the light bulb to the movie camera. Despite many personal setbacks, from the severe damage to his ear drums suffered as a child to the loss of many family members, Thomas Edison invented the products that defined the twentieth century. Book jacket.

Explores the life and work of Thomas Edison, including his childhood, education, and invention of such items as the phonograph, light bulb, and kinetoscope.

Thomas Edison, one of the world's greatest inventors, is introduced in this fascinating activity book. Children will learn how Edison ushered in an astounding age of invention with his unique way of looking at things and refusal to be satisfied with only one solution to a problem. This book helps inspire kids to be inventors and scientists, as well as persevere with their own ideas. Activities allow children to try Edison's experiments themselves, with activities such as making a puppet dance using static electricity, manufacturing a switch for electric current, constructing a telegraph machine, manipulating sound waves, building an electrical circuit to test for conductors and insulators, making a zoetrope, and testing a dandelion for latex. In addition to his inventions and experiments, the book explores Edison's life outside of science, including his relationship with inventor Nikola Tesla, his rivalry with George Westinghouse, and his friendship with Henry Ford. A time line, glossary, and lists of supply sources, places to visit, and websites for further exploration complement this activity book.

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