November 17, 2020 ▸ History, People, Technology

Episode 534: Thomas Edison: Unbridled Genius

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On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time and look at the first tech giant in American history, the one and only Thomas Edison. Edison was credited for almost 1100 patents in his life (400 of them from just a short 8 year period!). He is known for inventing the light bulb (it already existed, but he perfected it), and he rolled out the phonograph, motion pictures, car batteries, chemicals, medical devices and anything you could think of. He’s also famous for having a huge ego and for going to war with Nikola Tesla about electricity.

He was born to a typical family in Ohio, and was a very smart child. He learned the best on his own, so he was home schooled, even though it kind of meant just sitting back and watching him learn. He read constantly and even did science experiments in his own house. When he was 12, he was was allowed to sell newspapers on the train route, but he was too clever for that. He got the scoop on what was happening from train passengers and telegraph operators and started printing his own newspaper, which was often more up to date than the city’s main paper. From there, his life as an idea man started.

A 15 year old Thomas Edison saved a kid from being crushed by a train, and his parents befriended him and taught him to use Morse Code. Within the year, he was a telegraph operator. He traveled the county taking different jobs with the telegraph. He went back home to find his parents and family financially ruined, and he started working to make them money. He created an improved stock ticker which he sold for $40,000, and his career as an inventor was born. He built a telegraph machine that could send a signal down both sides of the wire, and it made him enough money to open his famous Menlo Park research facility. From there, he hit his stride and his own golden age of invention. He became rich, he became famous, and he changed the face of the nation and the world.

HE battled other companies and was a bit of an egomaniac. He famously had a war between DC and AC electrical current between Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse. But aside from his inventions, what made him unique was his presence. The world would watch with baited breath as he would do another tech demo, the Steve Jobs of the steam age, the master of branding and building.

 

 

Visit Our Sources:

https://www.biography.com/inventor/thomas-edison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison

https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/thomas-edison

https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/thomas-edison

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/7-epic-fails-brought-to-you-by-the-genius-mind-of-thomas-edison-180947786/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/edison_lo.html

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/thomas-edison.html

https://www.edisonmuckers.org/fun-facts-about-tom/

https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-8-things-you-didn-t-know-about-thomas-alva-edison

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesla-wasnt-god-and-thomas-edison-wasnt-the-devil/?sh=570924f31a21