Thomas_Edison

Kelley R and Dallas S 

=Embedded Technology: Thomas Edison and His Major Accomplishments= media type="youtube" key="LUX3xYGfamY" height="344" width="425" (View video at home; the school is mean and won't let it show up because it's YouTube)

=Social, Political, and Economic Impact= Edison orginially designed this for politicians to use, but, at first, they didn't want to use it. Now, people use voice recorders all the time for multiple situations. ||> "As Victor Parachin remarked: " Edison 's development of the electric light transformed the history of civilization. Because of his light bulb, daytime was lengthened--making it possible for people to enjoy evening leisure hours and to //conduct business for more hours in a day.// //Electric light freed factories to operate two or more shifts, producing more goods.// Edison 's electric light bulb made the lives of people far more comfortable than those of previous generations." (Edison, Thomas Alva) || Yes, the product didn't effect society immediately, but the phonograph, or record player, was a major influence on life for a long time [1870s-1980s]. ||> "In order to face his competition, Edison bought a film projector developed by Thomas Armat and Charles Francis Jenkins, renamed it the Vitascope, and marketed it as " Edison 's latest marvel, the Vitascope." When it premiered in New York, in April 1896, it was highly praised." Thought this is not of the governmental form of politics, it could be politics to inventors. Edison and his competitors constantly competed against each other, and this is just an example of dirty tactics in inventor's politics. ||> "As the technology grew more and more popular, telegraph wires were so overburdened that messages frequently had to be turned away, since only one message could be sent over a wire at any time. Edison began to study the problem and looked for ways to maximize wire use. He realized that if one message could travel in one direction, another could be sent in the opposite direction. In 1868 he perfected the duplex telegraph, which allowed two messages to travel at the same time." (Edison, Thomas Alva) By creating a more efficient wire, money was saved by being able to send two messages over one wire. Costs of the many wires were cut because less were needed. || Thomas Edison created a ton of jobs by setting up multiple factories for all the parts neccessary to light up the world, such as switches, fuses, and the light bulb itself. || Edison orginially designed this for politicians to use, but they didn't want to use it. Now, people use voice recorders all the time for multiple situations. ||>  ||>   || 
 * > **Social** ||> **Political** ||> **Economic** ||
 * > "As Victor Parachin remarked: " Edison 's development of the electric light transformed the history of civilization. Because of his light bulb, daytime was lengthened--//making it possible for people to enjoy evening leisure hours// and to conduct business for more hours in a day. Electric light freed factories to operate two or more shifts, producing more goods. Edison 's electric light bulb //made the lives of people far more comfortable// than those of previous generations." (Edison, Thomas Alva) ||> "His first invention, the electric vote recorder, received a patent in June 1869, but was a commercial flop because politicians were unwilling to use the machine." (Edison, Thomas Alva)
 * > "Edison imagined that the phonograph could be used to record messages, which could then be sent by telegraphs, or transcribed as letters. He did not believe it should be used to record music, however. 'I don't want it sold as an amusement,' he remarked, as quoted by John Kehoe in Biography (November 1, 1997, on-line). 'The phonograph is not a toy.' Though the phonograph astonished its first listeners, which included the staff of Scientific American, and garnered international renown for its inventor, the product did not take off for another 10 years." (Edison, Thomas Alva)
 * > "In 1862 Edison saved a three-year-old's life by pulling him off a track before a boxcar could roll over him. The child's father, J. U. MacKenzie, was so grateful that he offered to teach Edison about telegraphy as a reward." (Edison, Thomas Alva) ||>  ||> "Between 1881 and 1882 he designed the first power plant. He also established the companies to build and distribute the necessary parts for the system, including the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, the Edison Machine Works, the Edison Lamp Works, and the Edison Electric Tube Company." (Edison, Thomas Alva)
 * > "He quickly understood that such a pressure relay would improve the quality of sound over a telephone, a device invented by Alexander Graham Bell only a year earlier. By the end of 1877 Edison had perfected the carbon-button transmitter, which is still in use in modern telephone speakers and microphones." (Edison, Thomas Alva) ||>  ||>   ||
 * > "His first invention, the electric vote recorder, received a patent in June 1869, but was a commercial flop because politicians were unwilling to use the machine." (Edison, Thomas Alva)
 * > "His list of major inventions, including electric lighting, the phonograph, improved telegraph and telephone communications, and alkaline storage batteries, helped shape the 20th century. Edison received a record 1,093 patents from the U.S. government, including 150 for the telegraph, 34 for the telephone, 389 for electric light and power, 195 for the phonograph, and 141 for storage batteries. As Paul Gray wrote in Time (December 31, 1999): 'He created the look and sound of contemporary life.'" (Edison, Thomas Alva) ||>  ||>   ||
 * > "He founded the Grand Trunk Express, the first newspaper published aboard a train." (Edison, Thomas Alva) ||>  ||>   ||
 * > "While thinking about a way to popularize the phonograph by linking it to a zoetrope, a machine that created the illusion of motion by quickly flipping photographs in sequence, Edison envisioned a full-motion device, with synchronized sound. He entrusted the project to William K. L. Dickson, an Edison employee with an interest in photography. Dickson and Edison studied a number of European photographers who had experimented with recording full motion. They then attempted to build a cylinder-based device, which proved to be flawed. When Edison returned from a trip to Paris, in October 1889, Dickson surprised his boss with a new invention--celluloid-film strips that, when turned with a crank on a sprocket system, projected moving pictures. After some additional collaboration, Edison patented a motion-picture camera and a motion-picture peephole viewer, known respectively as the Kinetograph and the Kinetoscope. In one short film sequence shot in their laboratory, a man mimes a sneeze, accompanied by the sound of a sneeze recorded on an Edison phonograph. Unfortunately, the two men were unable to find a practical way to synchronize sound and motion, so they abandoned that idea, thus giving birth to the era of the silent movie." (Edison, Thomas Alva) ||>  ||>   ||

=Summary of Accomplishments=

Thomas Alva Edison made quite a few accomplishments throughout his life. However, one of the accomplishments he is most famous for is actually a myth. It is often said that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, however, the light bulb’s true inventor was Joseph Wilson Swan. Although Edison did not, in fact, create the light bulb, he did greatly improve it by figuring out that a piece of carbonized thread could produce a lasting light while burning inside a vacuum. "Edison set out to build an inexpensive light source, capable of brightening a small room as well as a street. His leading trouble was coming up with a filament that had the ability to burn inside a vacuum. He experimented with platinum, chromium, nickel, osmium, boron, and silicon, among others, before discovering that a filament of carbonized thread could produce a long-lasting light source." (Edison, Thomas Alva)

Another one of Edison’s greatest accomplishments was his invention of the phonograph. The phonograph is a machine that is able to record and play back sounds, for example, the human voice. When Edison invented this he did not want his new invention to be used for recreational purposes. “Edison imagined that the phonograph could be used to record messages, which could then be sent by telegraphs, or transcribed as letters. He did not believe it should be used to record music, however. "I don't want it sold as an amusement," he remarked, as quoted by John Kehoe in Biography (November 1, 1997, on-line).” (Edison, Thomas Alva) Thomas Edison was a very accomplished man.

=Time Line= To view this pretty time line correctly, click on the button in the upper right-hand corner with two squiggle-line-columns instead of one. Then, use the little rounded square, at the bottom, to scroll through the events in the life of Thomas Edison. media type="custom" key="3095788"

=Quizlet=

[|Thomas Alva Edison]
= = = = =Works Cited=

Embedded Technology: Thomas Edison and His Major Accomplishments
" Edison, Thomas A.." Leaders of the Information Age. 2003. Biography Reference Bank. H. W. Wilson. 19 Feb. 2009 <http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/.

//Pictures in order of appearance://
 * 1) http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheepbackcabin/3186870124/
 * 2) http://www.flickr.com/photos/tresi/1314140927/
 * 3) http://www.flickr.com/photos/tresi/1314140927/
 * 4) http://www.flickr.com/photos/ercy/213441394/in/photostream/

Social, Political, and Economic Impact
" Edison, Thomas A.." Leaders of the Information Age. 2003. Biography Reference Bank. H. W. Wilson. 19 Feb. 2009 .

Edison, Thomas Alva (1847-1931). Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia. Helicon Publishing. 2005. eLibrary. ProQuest LLC. UPPER MERION AREA HIGH SCHOOL. 17 Feb 2009. <[|http://elibrary.bigchalk.com]>.

"Edison, Thomas A.." Leaders of the Information Age. 2003. Biography Reference Bank. H. W. Wilson. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/.

Time Line
//Pictures in order of appearance:// = =
 * Links to the web pages where our glorious information was obtained are included with each fact.*
 * 1) http://photonparadise.blogspot.com/2008/08/god-of-modern-era.html
 * 2) http://www.videointerchange.com/audio_history.htm
 * 3) http://www.menloinnovations.com/abouttheinstitute.htm
 * 4) http://www.americancorner.org.tw/AmericasLibrary/aa/edison/aa_edison_phonograph_1_e.html
 * 5) http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/document.html?doc=11&title.raw=Thomas%20Edison
 * 6) http://thegreatgeekmanual.com/blog/this-day-in-geek-history-october-21