New Delhi: The name of Thomas Edison is one of the greatest ones in the field of invention. The inventor and businessman left his mark on fields like the generation of electric power, sound recording, motion pictures and mass communication. His inventions, including the electric light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, impacted the modern industrialized world greatly.
An early inventor to applied the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, Edison also established the first industrial research laboratory. Today is the death anniversary of the inventor and in this article, we will take a look at some interesting facts of his life.
The Hearing Loss of Thomas Edison
He was just 12 years old when Thomas Edison developed hearing problems. Reportedly, it was due to a bout of scarlet fever that he suffered from during childhood. He also had recurring untreated middle-ear infections which led to his deafness. Though Edison always had elaborate fictitious stories about the reason for his deafness. He was not just deaf in one ear but could hardly hear in the other as well. He opined that the hearing loss helped him to concentrate easily. As per modern-day historians and medical professionals, he possibly had ADHD.
The first patent of his work
In the first phase of his career, Thomas Edison worked as a news butcher, selling newspapers, candy, and vegetables on trains and was churning out profit by age 13. When he was 15, Edison saved a 3-year-old boy who was about to be struck by a runaway train. The boy’s father trained Edison as a telegraph operator which would help him in his later inventions. Edison got his first patent for the electric vote recorder on June 1, 1869. But there was little demand for the machine and Edison had to move to New York City.
The Wizard of Menlo Park
In 1876, Thomas Edison established his first laboratory facility in New Jersey’s Menlo Park where many of his early inventions were developed. It was there that he came up with an invention which fetched him the first wave of popularity, the invention of the phonograph in 1877. The invention created such a ripple that Edison was called “The Wizard of Menlo Park”.
America’s most prolific inventor
While most of Edison’s earlier inventions took place in Menlo Park, he later founded a botanical laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, along with Henry Ford and Harvey S. Firestone. He also founded a laboratory in New Jersey’s West Orange which had the first film studio in the world, the Black Maria. Edison has 1,093 US patents in his name and also patents in other countries, which has reportedly made him the most prolific inventor in the history of the United States. He passed away on October 18, 1931, at the age of 84.
