Thomas Edison
Arguably the World’s Greatest Ever Inventor
Thomas Alva Edison was born on 11th February 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He was arguably the greatest inventive genius of all time, with more than 1,000 United States patents to his name, but he was relatively modest about his achievements, once stating that: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”.
At the heart of his work was the desire to create innovations that were of practical value in making peoples’ lives more productive and enjoyable. He said that he never wasted his time working on things that people would not want to buy.
He also stated that many of his inventions were not original in concept, but he took the concept forward so that it became a reality. The invention for which he is best remembered, namely the electric light bulb, was a case in point. The idea of heating platinum strips to incandescence by applying an electric current had been formulated in 1801 by the British scientist Sir Humphrey Davy. However, Edison turned this into a practical proposition, after considerable trial and error, 78 years later.
Edison’s first invention was the electric machine for recording votes, although this was rejected by the government of Massachusetts realized that it would no longer be possible to rig votes if such a device became commonplace…
