EDISON 



1926 



EDISON 



To a flatterer who once tried to compliment 

 him on his achievements, Edison replied that 

 "Genius is about two per cent inspiration and 

 ninety-eight per cent perspiration." When he 

 works, which is nearly all the time, he becomes 

 unconscious of time and place. His absorption 

 is at times so intense that it is necessary for 

 someone to remind him that he must eat or 

 sleep. He has said that up to 1902 he worked 

 an average of nineteen and one-half hours 

 daily; since that time his working day has 

 averaged eighteen hours. His habit is not so 

 much to do without sleep as to "sleep when 

 lie wants to," as he puts it. He has worked 

 practically without sleep for sixty hours, after 

 which he has taken sleep lasting eighteen hours 

 or more and awakened fully refreshed. 



When a task is completed and he seeks a 

 vacation he plays as hard as he has worked 

 and drives care entirely from his mind. When 

 he has conceived a new idea he reads every- 

 thing obtainable relating to the subject; then, 

 with the aid of his assistants, he makes a series 

 of tests, sometimes hundreds, sometimes thou- 

 sands, of them, no test being omitted that will 

 aid in finding the best device for the purpose. 

 One of the best examples of Edison's method 

 in invention is the incandescent lamp; this is 

 explained in the article ELECTRIC LIGHT. 



Edison's part in the development of the 

 electric railway consists principally of his in- 

 vention of a dynamo that is self-regulating, 

 giving out more current to the line when more 

 current is needed without change of voltage 

 the compound wound dynamo. Such a dy- 

 namo will furnish current for one car or for a 

 number of cars and adjust itself automatically 

 to the load that it is called on to carry. 



The moving-picture camera and the machine 

 for showing moving pictures on the screen are 

 both inventions of Edison. The difficulty 

 which he overcame in perfecting the moving- 

 picture camera was that of making twenty 

 pictures a second in one camera. By means of 

 the phonograph and the moving-picture ma- 

 chine he has provided entertainment for mil- 

 lions of people and opened up vast possibilities 

 in the field of amusement and education. By 

 a process of combination, in 1914, he developed 

 a machine which would not only show the 

 moving pictures but present dialogue to ac- 

 company the action of the plot. This machine 

 showed defects, and it was recalled to undergo 

 further study, and experimentation. 



Edison's industry in invention is well illus- 

 Jrated in his development of the storage bat- 



tery that bears his name. After a long series 

 of tests, when the storage battery appeared 

 to be a success, it was put on the market, 

 but Edison continued to experiment with a 

 view to improving it. After several thousand 

 cells had been sold it was found that occa- 

 sionally a cell would prove defective. The 

 customers were satisfied, but Edison was not. 

 He shut down the factory, though it meant 

 great loss, and for five years conducted experi- 

 ments with the determination to improve it. 

 The result was even better than he expected, 

 and again the Edison battery was put on the 

 market. 



In the field of telegraphy Edison invented 

 systems of duplex, then quadruplex and finally 

 sextuplex transmission; this means that two, 

 four and now six messages can be sent over 

 one wire at the same time. In the telephone 

 field Edison is the inventor of the carbon 

 transmitter, which in a modified form is used 

 to-day in practically all telephone systems. 

 After the beginning of the War of the Nations 

 in 1914 Edison devoted considerable time to 

 perfecting processes for making carbolic acid, 

 benzol and other materials previously imported 

 from Europe and not manufactured in America. 



The number of Edison's patents is more than 

 2,500; about 1,400 of these are registered in 

 the United States, and nearly 1,200 in other 

 countries. His laboratories and factories are 

 in Orange, N. J., a few miles west of New 

 York City. Edison belongs not to the United 

 States alone, but to the world, and his mod- 

 estly-won honors are from many nations. In 

 1878, when his genius was in what proved its 

 early stages of development, he was given the 

 appointment of Chevalier of the Legion of 

 Honor from France, and fourteen years later 

 was made a Commander in the same Order. In 

 1892 Great Britain honored him with the Albert 

 Medal of the Society of Arts. In 1915 he re- 

 ceived the Nobel Prize for physics, and was 

 also appointed chairman of the Advisory Board 

 of civilian inventors and engineers to consider 

 plans for raising the efficiency of the United 

 States navy. While he appreciates the honors 

 bestowed on him he will never wear medals, 

 for a characteristic of Edison is his dislike of 

 display. Often visitors who have taken medals 

 to him have been met with what appeared to 

 be scant courtesy. At one time a visitor called 

 at his laboratory with a medal to present to 

 Mr. Edison and asked him if he had any more. 

 ''Oh yes," he replied, ''I have a couple of 

 quarts more up at the house." His apparent 



