Final Report Employee Seminar
Marketing 1030 Customer complaint letter response
452 PMS Street Hormonal, MS 39525
1/22/2015 Dear Mrs. Angry, Thank you for taking the time to communicate to us why our product did not meet your expectations. I have every desire to address your needs and provide the best solution available to resolve your issue as soon as possible. We are very sorry that you did not like the choice of words we labeled on our product. In no way did we mean to sound condescending to our valued consumers. Our product is meant to be a result of having those awful menstrual cycles and give you a worry free experience. We value our loyal consumers and are very pleased to hear you enjoy our product. My department will start finding a solution for this problem as soon as possible. In the meantime we want you to keep enjoying our maxi pads, so we want to give you 1 month supply of our Flexi-Wings pads and hope you keep in business with us. Sincerely yours, Daniela Ortiz [email protected] I enjoyed this project because I liked knowing both of the perspectives, upset customer, and employee. Even though you do not agree with what some customers are upset about, you have to accommodate all of their needs and answer their questions. Getting right to the point and do not argue with their complaint, and always thanking them for doing business with you.
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PHYSICS 1010
Thomas Edison
Life, Achievements, and Hardships
Dabin Han, Dani Ortiz, Mechelle To, and Haige Zhang
Salt lake community college
Abstract
This paper represents the life success and hardships of Thomas Edison. You will read about the beginning of his career to the end. Following his accomplishments with a phenomenon of inventions, including the failures. Edison’s rise with famous unforgettable achievements that continue to be recognized in today’s society.
Life
Inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He was the youngest of seven from Samuel and Nancy Edison. Thomas's father was an exiled political activist from Canada. His mother was an accomplished school teacher, who became a major influence in his early life. Thomas had many health issues in his early life from dealing with scarlet fever as well as serious ear infections. His ear infections left him with hearing difficulties in both ears, a malady that would eventually leave him nearly deaf as an adult.
In 1854, the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where Edison attended public school for a total of 12 weeks. A hyperactive child, prone to distraction, he was deemed "difficult" by his teacher. His mother quickly pulled him from school and taught him at home. At the age of 11, he showed a voracious appetite for knowledge, reading books on a wide range of subjects. In this wide-open curriculum Edison developed a process for self-education and learning independently that would serve him throughout his life. Along with self –education, lab experiments proved to be very beneficial to his education as well. Later in his childhood, he built a lab to do science experiments. The lab first started in his basement and then on the baggage car of the train he worked on (Edison, Thomas Alva). He enjoyed his lab experiments because he was fascinated with uncovering possibilities others may not think possible as well as tinkering with different things to find out how they worked and ways to improve them. Over time he became quite the businessman, selling news papers to food and later his inventions.
With his ever-increasing financial success, in 1871 Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell, who was an employee at one of his businesses. During their 13-year marriage, they had three children; Marion, Thomas and William. Mary died of a suspected brain tumor at the age of 29 in 1884.
Thomas Alva Edison is one of the most famous inventors. He saw many changes in technology take place throughout his lifetime. Edison became a pioneer and paved the way for many scientists’ to follow. A few of his inventions include but are not limited to the telephone, light bulb, kinetoscope, and the phonograph. These inventions contributed to modern day, lights, movies, telephones, records and CDs. In addition, Edison led the General Electric Corporation, which was the major supporter of direct current (DC).
Career
Thomas Edison had great potential even in his early years. At the age of 12 Edison’s parents let him sell newspapers to passengers along the Grand Trunk Railroad line. After the same daily routine to the news bulletins teletyped to the station office, he began publishing his own small newspaper.
While working for the railroad an event happened that was very fortunate for Edison. He saved the life of a 3 year old boy from being run over from a train. The grateful father J.U MacKenzie offered to reward him by teaching him how to operate a telegraph. At age 15 he had learned enough to be employed as a telegraph operator. (Bellis, 2012)
While he was traveling the Midwest as a telegrapher, he studied and experimented with telegraph technology. At the age of 19 Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky and worked for The Associated Press. During this time he spent majority of his time reading and experimenting. He liked to prove things to himself through objective examination and experimenting. Being partially deaf, the early Morse code let him excel at his telegraph job. However, as the technology advanced, receivers were increasingly equipped with a sounding key, enabling telegraphers to read messages by the sounds of the clicks. After this, Edison had very few options of employment. (Cooperstein,2012)
During 1868, Edison returned home to his mother having a mental illness and his father had no place of employment. With the family falling into tragic times, he realized he needed to take control of his future. He then left to Boston upon receiving a job with the Western Union Company. In this era, Boston was America’s center for science and culture. He knew he had to take the opportunities ahead of him. He designed and patented an electronic voting recorder for quickly tallying votes in the legislature. Unfortunately the Massachusetts lawmakers were not interested. At the time most legislators did not want the votes to be tallied quickly.
Accomplishments
Controversy with who invented the stock ticker at this time was high. Edison did not invent the stock ticker, but invented the stock printer in 1871, for gold and stock. His new and improved invention included his key contributions to printing telegraphy.
The improvement he made in the stock ticker was a mechanism that enabled all the tickers on a line to be synchronized so that they printed the same information. The Gold and Stock Telegraph Company was very impressed, they offered to pay Edison $40,000 for the rights to the technology (The Thomas Edison papers, 2012). One of the many effective and longest used device was Edison’s screw-thread unison. With this device the transmitting operator could bring all the printers on a line into unison by sending electrical impulses to turn a shaft of each machine until a peg sitting a screw-thread on the type wheel hit a stop. Due to this accomplishment and impeccable invention (his ticker) was used on the stock exchange for several years before being replaced in 1960.
Two years after he invented the automatic vote recorder which was never used, he moved to New Jersey. As an entrepreneur, he formed partnerships and developed products for the highest paying company. With Western Union Telegraph Company being the highest bidder majority of the time. Edison devised the quadruplex telegraph for the Western Union Co. The quadruplex was capable of transmitting two signals in two different directions on the same wire. Originally created for the Western Union Co, railroad tycoon Jay Gould offered Edison more than $100,000 in cash, bonds and stock, and generating years of litigation.
He was at his height, earning his reputation as a first rate inventor for his time. Enlarging his operations in Menlo Park and New Jersey, he built an independent industrial research facility incorporating machine shops and laboratories. There he allocated all his money and devoted all his time to conceptualizing new inventions.
Figure 1
Carbon Telephone Transmitter
Edison began working on the telephone in 1876, after his rise in fame. His main focus was to improve Alexander Graham Bell’s system- the transmitter. In Bell's transmitter, sound waves vibrated a permanent magnet that in turn set up an induced current in the instrument's electromagnet. Instead of telegraphy's make-and-break signal, the telephone used a continuous variable current (termed undulatory) which, when transmitted through the line, could be turned back into sound waves by the receiver. However, the weak current set up by Bell's transmitter limited the distance over which it could be used (Rutgers, The Edison Papers, 2012).
Edison paid close attention to the weakness in Bell’s transmitter and knew he could reform and strengthen the idea. He then decided to employ a battery current on the line and use the sound waves to vary the current’s strength by varying the resistance of the current. To do this he decided to use carbon, he built cables using high-resistance rheostats made of carbon filled glass tubes. This kind of sensitive variable resistance was just what he needed for the telephone (Isarel, 2012) .
Carbon Microphone
There are many different types of microphones in existence today, they all have to do with the carbon microphone, which was the first microphone ever produced. Even in present day, these microphones have made a great contribution to the digital world including; the music industry, medical field, and zoological research.
Figure 21 Edison Innovation Foundation, July 2014
Edison developed this carbon microphone in 1877. Although there was controversy with the question to who really invented the carbon microphone, between Edison and Emile Berliner. The controversy was settled in 1892. The carbon microphone is a sound to electrical signal transducer consisting of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon. When sound waves strike the plate, the pressure on the granules change, which in turn changes the electrical resistance between the plates. Edison turned the telephone from a promising gadget into an indispensable machine with real and practical applications (Grimes, 2014).
Motion Pictures
Motion pictures were explored by many inventors’ during the 1800’s. Making moving images a form of entertainment was a favorable idea but putting the invention together proved to be harder than envisioning the concept. Eadweard Muybridge became successful in the United States with his invention of the zoopraxiscope during 1879. These images were captured by using multiple cameras and projected in a series of images in successive phases of movement (“History of Edison Motion Pictures”, 2014, para. 3). Muybridge wanted to collaborate with Edison to create a remarkable invention that would produce images and sound, by combining Edison’s phonograph with Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope. Edison wanted to protect his future endeavors so he declined the offer to work with Muybridge on further expanding the zoopraxiscope. Edison went on to, “… filed a caveat with the Patents office on October 17, 1888, describing his ideas for a device which would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” – record and reproduce objects in motion” (Bellis, 2014, pg. 4).
William K. L. Dickson was one of Edison’s trusted associates that became a major role in the development of Edison’s idea of the Kinetoscope (“History of Edison Motion Pictures: ”, para. 4). Carlson & Gorman have stated in “Understanding Invention as a Cognitive Process: The Case of Thomas Edison and Early Motion Pictures,” that many arguments have been raised about Edison’s involvement in the Kinetoscope (1990, pg. 5). Dickson was chosen as the top associate to work on the kinetoscope project because he had previous knowledge of photography (Carlson, 1990, pg. 16). “Edison broke down the kinetoscope project into two broad areas, electrical/mechanical and photographic/opt (Carlson, 1990, pg. 16)”. Edison decided to take the electrical/mechanical area of the kinetoscope project because he was well acquainted with the field and having just developed the phonograph which he wanted to one day use in conjunction with the kinetoscope (Carlson, 1990, pg. 16).
Edison and Dickson spent several years developing the kinetoscope. Edison gathered many good ideas from fellow inventors with models of their own cinematography. Dickson himself came up with many different concepts to improve Edison’s idea of the kinetoscope but was rejected by Edison on numerous accounts. One of the many inventions Dickson came up with that Edison rejected was the tachyscope, which projected images onto a screen. He connected the tachyscope to the phonograph so that his projections could speak (Carlson, 1990, pg. 21). Edison did not like the idea and wanted to continue to pursue the kinetoscope because he had a plan for his invention.
The phonograph was thriving! Small businessmen had established phonograph parlors, where customers were welcomed to come and enjoy music. Edison had the same marketing strategy for his kinetoscope. He wanted to have kinetoscope parlors where patrons could come in and enjoy a short film. The kinetoscope was designed to be able to watch a short film through a little peephole (Carlson, 1990). Edison will later combined the use of the phonograph to add sound to the short films on the kinetoscope (Bellis, pg. 4).
After Dickson and Edison completed the kinetoscope, Edison used his same marketing scheme for the phonograph’s to market the kinetoscope. During 1894 kinetoscope parlors opened up in several major cities (Bellis, pg. 4). People seemed to like the idea of being able to watch short films. The kinetoscope became one of the last contributions Edison made to the film industry (Carlson, 1990, pg. 31). Although, Dickson believed the motion picture business would advance into projection systems, Edison was not willing to promote or work towards that advancement. Dickson encouraged his competitors to pursue projection systems and was fired by Edison. Dickson was not worried because he “… went on to form the American Mutoscope Co. along with Harry Marvin, Herman Casler, and Elias Keepman” (Bellis, pg. 4).
Competition started boiling between other motion picture companies which caused Edison many legal battles. Edison still continued to manufacture and distribute filming equipment and produce films for about twenty years (Carlson, 1990, pg. 31 (416)). After many legal battles the courts found Edison’s Motion Picture Patents Co. to be an unfair monopoly (Bellis, pg. 4). Edison discontinued his involvement in the Motion Picture industry in 1918. Although he did not continue to expand the filming industry he paved a path for many to follow fellow scientist to follow. Edison and William Dickson established important technology and information needed for people to expand and develop new filming technology.
Nickel-Iron Battery
Thomas Edison patented the idea of the nickel-iron battery in 1901. It was not created until 1902 with the help of Edison’s associate Waldemar Jungner. The battery comprises of two electrodes, “…mixture of iron compounds and carbon, gives off electricity that flows to a sheet of nickel, discharging the battery” (Powell, 2012, para. 4). According to the New York Times, “nickel-iron batteries were marketed for cars until the 1920s, but then dropped out of the picture because they were not as powerful as petrol and diesel fuel engines” (2012, para. 5).
The nickel-iron battery had many advantages as well as disadvantages. The materials it takes to assemble the battery were cheap and abundant as well as less toxic compared to other batteries. Mark Shwartz states, “… battery’s long life and reliability made it a popular backup power source for railroads, mines, and other industries until the mid-20th century” (2012, para. 8). Although it was an economical and healthy choice for our environment, the convenience was not there. The two biggest drawbacks for the nickel-iron battery are:
· Charge time
· Power storage
With many advantages and disadvantages to look at, scientists from Stanford have found ways to eradicate Edison’s nickel-iron battery and give it new life. Hongjie Dai and his Stanford colleagues were able to improve the performance of the battery by “… reshaped its electrodes at nanometer scales. Instead of simply mixing iron and carbon, the researchers grew iron pellets on top of atom-thick sheets of carbon chicken wire called grapheme. Tiny plates of nickel perched atop carbon tubes formed the other electrode” (Powell, 2012, para. 4). The nickel-iron battery was nearly 1,000 times faster than the original battery created by Thomas Edison and Waldemar Jugner.
The prototype nickel-iron battery created by the Stanford team is only capable of being used for short projects such as powering up a car battery. If scaled up for the appropriate project the nickel-iron battery would be very beneficial to our environment as well as economical. The battery is a lot cheaper to manufacture and the materials are more abundant and less harmful for our mother earth. With that being said there is still much needed research to be done before we can complete replace other common forms of batteries with the nickel-iron battery (Powell, 2012).
Light bulb
The history of the light bulb reads like a story straight out of a tabloid magazine. Contrary to what schools have taught for years, the American icon, Thomas Edison, neither invented the light bulb, nor held the first patent to the modern design of the light bulb. Apparently, we gave the esteemed Mr. Edison credit for the invention solely because he owned a power company, later known as General Electric, and a light bulb is just a bulb without a source of electricity to light it. In reality, light bulbs used as electric lights existed 50 years prior to Thomas Edison's 1879 patent date in the U.S.
By the time of Edison's 1879 lamp invention, gas lighting was a mature, well-established industry. The gas infrastructure was in place, franchises had been granted, and manufacturing facilities for both gas and equipment were in profitable operation. Perhaps as important, people had grown accustomed to the idea of lighting with gas. (Bold, 2007)
Incandescent lamps make light by using electricity to heat a thin strip of material (called a filament) until it gets hot enough to glow. Many inventors had tried to perfect incandescent lamps to "sub-divide" electric light or make it smaller and weaker than it was in the existing electric arc lamps, which were too bright to be used for small spaces such as the rooms of a house. The device also needed a tremendous source of power and the batteries. (Bold, 2007)
Edison Electric Light Company
In the period from 1878 to 1880 Edison and his associates worked on at least three thousand different theories to develop an efficient incandescent lamp.
Edison’s lamp would consist of a filament housed in a glass vacuum bulb. He had his own glass blowing shed where the fragile bulbs were carefully crafted for his experiments. Edison was trying to come up with a high resistance system that would require far less electrical power than was used for the arc lamps. This could eventually mean small electric lights suitable for home use.
By January 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting. Still, the lamp only burned for a few short hours. In order to improve the bulb, Edison needed all the persistence he had learned years before in his basement laboratory. He tested thousands and thousands of other materials to use for the filament. He even thought about using tungsten, which is the metal used for light bulb filaments now, but he couldn’t work with it given the tools available at that time.
He tested the carbonized filaments of every plant imaginable, including bay wood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, and bamboo. He even contacted biologists who sent him plant fibers from places in the tropics. Edison acknowledged that the work was tedious and very demanding, especially on his workers helping with the experiments. He always recognized the importance of hard work and determination. "Before I got through," he recalled, "I tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material."(Bold, 2007)
Edison decided to try a carbonized cotton thread filament. When voltage was applied to the completed bulb, it began to radiate a soft orange glow. Just about fifteen hours later, the filament finally burned out. Further experimentation produced filaments that could burn longer and longer with each test. By the end of 1880, he had produced a 16-watt bulb that could last for 1500 hours and he began to market his new invention.
The invention of the light bulb
Who invented light bulb? It was Thomas Edison in 1879, wasn't it? That is what many people think and was taught in school. Like most stories, however, there is a lot more behind the creation of this important and ubiquitous object than just Mr. Edison. He was neither the first nor the only person trying to invent an incandescent electric lamp. Many inventors had tried and failed some were discouraged and went on to invent other devices.
Between the years 1878 and 1892 the electric light industry was growing in terms of installed lights but shrinking in terms of company competition as both Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse determined to control the industry and its advancement. They even formed the Board of Patent Control, a joint arrangement between General Electric and the Westinghouse Company to defend the patents of the two companies in litigation. This proved to be a wise decision as over 600 lawsuits for patent infringement were filed. (Bold, 2007)
Humphry Davy
The story of the light bulb really starts almost seventy years earlier. The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. This is called an electric arc.(Invention of the Light Bulb, 2000)
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan
Much later, in 1860, the English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was determined to devise a practical, long-lasting electric light. He obtained the first patent for the same light bulb in Britain one year prior to Edison's patent date. Swan even publicly unveiled his carbon filament light bulb in New Castle, England a minimum of 10 years before Edison shocked the world with the announcement that he invented the first light bulb. Edison's light bulb, in fact, was a carbon copy of Swan's light bulb. (Invention of the Light Bulb, 2000)
How do two inventors, from two different countries the invent exact same thing? Very easily, if one follows in the others footsteps. Swan's initial findings from tinkering with carbon filament electric lighting, and his preliminary designs, appeared in an article published by Scientific American. Thomas Edison Without a doubt, Edison had access to, and eagerly read this article. Giving Mr. Edison the benefit of the doubt, and stopping short of calling him a plagiarist, we can say that he invented the light bulb by making vast improvements to Swan's published, yet unperfected designs. Swan, however, felt quite differently, as he watched Edison line his pockets with money made from his invention, and took Edison to Court for patent infringement. The British Courts stood by their patent award for the light bulb to Swan, and Edison lost the suit. The British Courts forced Edison, as part of the settlement, to name Swan a partner in his British electric company. Eventually, Edison managed to acquire all of Swans' interest in the newly renamed Edison and Swan United Electric Company.
The inventor Thomas Alva Edison (in the USA) experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for 40 hours. Edison eventually produced a bulb that could glow for over 1500 hours. (Invention of the Light Bulb, 2000)
War of Currents
In this famous war of current, the General Electric (GE) Corporation, which led by Thomas Edison, was the major supporter of direct current (DC). On the other side, George Westinghouse, who supported alternating current (AC), was the competitors against Thomas Edison in the early promotion of electric power systems and applications. George Westinghouse was a famous American entrepreneur and engineer. He was a pioneer in the electric power industry.
GE is the world largest diversified services company. Their service range covers aircraft engines, power generation, financial services, medical, television programming and even
Figure 3 General Electric Corporation
plastics. They committed themselves to creating better life with numbers of advanced technologies and services. GE’s history can be traced back to Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison established Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. In 1892, the Edison Electric Light Company amalgamated with Houston Electric Company and formed the General Electric Corporation (General Electric, 2014). The model of GE Company determined the only possible choice of current for them is direct current, not alternating current. This is because Thomas Edison was the one who take responsibility to make a decision. Therefore, the adoption of everything was depended on Edison’s likes or dislikes. The control of desires and habits Edison determined would not adopt the AC. Edison was a self-taught experimenter, so he never experienced high education, and, of course, he did not understand calculus. All the things Edison was good at were those things that were able to find the skills through own researches. Since AC needs the knowledge of frequency, phase, etc, math knowledge is necessary. As a result, it means Edison had to ask someone to do the Alternating Current for him. To Edison, he would never hand the control power to others.
The war between AC and DC tended to incandesce because the participation of JP Morgan. JP Morgan stood on the side of Thomas Edison. When Thomas Edison established Edison Electric Light Company in 1878, one of the partners, Egisto P. Fabbri, was also the partner of JP Morgan, thus, JP Morgan became Edison’s investor.
Figure 4 John Pierpont Morgan
John Pierpont “J. P.” Morgan was an American financier and banker. He was also the one who arranged the merger of General Electric. As a leader of the financial area, Morgan was very rich. Morgan not only liked to make money, but he also wanted to change the world with his power. Morgan was very good at using information. In the nineteenth century in U.S., the market was undergoes the era of chaos and highly inaccurate information. There wasn’t any listed company that would voluntarily publish their financial situations. Even the shareholders could not obtain any information about the company’s assets, income, and earnings. The issue of stocks all relyed on the brains. There was no report, even the prospects. Numerous kind of improper trading happened all the time. Morgan involved himself in many company’s board and management by his identity of investment banker. He mastered tons of accurate information, and that information made Morgan become the largest capital. He was able to take the advantage of the industry trends and shake the market. Eventually, Morgan led his company achieved commercial success and occupied the market.
Morgan’s show up complemented many disadvantages of Edison on the business strategies. With business visionary, Morgan asked Edison to bought large number of related patents about DC immediately. Then they achieved the Direct Current technology monopoly. However, unlike Edison, Morgan’s purpose was to make money by build a cost-efficiency electricity network. He didn’t care it must be DC or AC. In fact, Morgan had already realized the advantages of AC in earlier time. He tried to convince Edison to consider the Alternating Current, but didn’t work. When Morgan realized that they are likely to lose the war. He soon turned to Westinghouse and Tesla because he thought they are the better collaborators.
Direct Current (DC)
Direct Current, also known as Constant Current, is a unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct Current adopts the DC Circuit. It is a closed loop constituting of the Direct Current power supply and the electric resistance. In the DC’s electric circuit, the current is constant. Outside the power supply, the positive electrical charge flies from the high electric potential to the low electric potential through the electric resistance. Inside the power supply, the positive electrical charge is depends on the non-electrostatic function of the power supply. It overcomes the electrostatic force, and then flows from the low electric potential to the high electric potential. By both outside and inside circulating, it composes the closed circuit line. In the Direct Current electric circuit, the function of the power supply is to provide the constant electrodynamics force, and complement the energy that has consumed in the electric resistance (DC, 2005).
Thomas Edison and his General Electric Corporation are mainly adopting the Direct Current; include their products, as well as the direct current transmission lines. So in order to make his company profitable, Edison put his effort on marketing his Direct Current and slandering the Alternating Current.
Alternating Current (AC)
Figure 5 Nikola Tesla
The direction and magnitude of the Alternating Current usually changed periodically. Sine wave-current is the usual waveform of an AC. The method of creating AC was discovered after people discovering the electromagnetic induction. The earliest alternator to produce AC was developed by Nikola Tesla, Michael Faraday and Hippolyte Pixii. Among them, Hippolyte Pixii invented the first AC motors based on the principle of Michael Faraday’s (Alternating current, 2014).
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian- American inventor, mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. He was considered an important promoter of commercial electricity. Tesla also well-known for presided and designed the modern AC power system. In late 19th and early 20th century, Tesla made great contribution to electricity and magnetism. His patents and theoretical work were all based on the theory of Alternating Current electric power system, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC generator. In 1882, Tesla invented the “high frequency” (which is 15,000 Hz) AC generator after Edison invented the DC. He created numbers of power transmission technologies as well. In this War of Current, Tesla was one of the major supporters of AC (Chenmenzhe, 2014).
Comparison
AC can be very easy to adjust its voltage. We can get a transformer by only using coil and magnetic core. It is also convenient for AC to transport electric power within a long distance. On the other hand, when transporting the same power, DC mode only need about 2/3 or ½ of the materials that AC model needs. In the DC transporting lines, both pole works interdependently and doesn’t influence others. So whenever problem happened to one pole, people can just stop and repair the pole that has problem with. At this time, the other pole can still transport with no less than half of the electric power. However, in AC transporting lines, if one pol has something wrong, all the lines must be stopped (Brain, Harris, & Lamb, 2004).
During the competition between AC and DC, Edison tried various ways to make people believe Tesla’s Alternating Current was “Death Current”. In order to show that his idea was right, Edison even had a number of animals electrocuted. Moreover, Edison also invented the electric chair by using Tesla’s AC power. This electric chair sent a man to death. It was the first execution by electric chair, and also it was used by Edison to prove Tesla’s AC was wrong. Edison even introduced a new word to the American public, which was becoming more and more concerned by the dangers of electricity. The convicted criminals would be “Westinghoused” (Gilbert, 2011)
When the “War of Current” was growing in intensity, Chicago was preparing for a World’s Fair. The organizer hoped to find lighting equipment that could light up the entire venue. Thus, Westinghouse offered an attractive contract to the organizer; he tried to take this business from Edison’s hands. In the opening of the fair on January 1893, more than 90,000 lights were provided by Tesla’s Alternating Current lit up the whole venue. It was a great success, and it was also a prelude to the final victory of AC.
Shortly after, a world’s first hydroelectric power station was going to build in Niagara Falls. The AC system was selected because of its affordable and easy to manufacture. Westinghouse gave the design task to the Scottish engineer George Forbes. George Forbes invented a set of equipment that used three Tesla’s alternators. Each of the alternators has 110 kilowatts. The power station was built in 1895. It could transfer the current power to the power station which was 35 kilometers away from Buffalo. This event announced that Alternating Current defeated Direct Current, and Edison’s Direct Current instantaneously became an outdated technology. Since then, the AC has become the only choice for industrial, commercial and public electricity.
Edison and his General Electric Corporation made great contribution to people’s daily life. DC’s discovery was a huge milestone in human history. It brought people to the use of power technology. People no longer afraid of darkness and can complete a lot of work that are hard to achieve in the past. However, the advantages of AC’s use of power transmission in the daily life are not what DC can be compatible with. People eventually chose the one that they believe it better—the Alternating Current.
Conclusion
Since his rise to fame in the 1870s, he has been as the one of history's most mythologized figures (Millard, 1990). The richness and complexity of his work, combined with the legends that have surrounded it, make Edison's career an especially challenging puzzle for those who seek to recover the "real" Edison. However, because of the availability of millions of pages of Edison laboratory notebooks, correspondence, and other documents, historians now have a much clearer understanding of Edison's life and work. If anything, writings based on the Edison papers have only reinforced the remarkable nature of his career; Edison remains a towering figure in the history of modern technological and business development.
Edison thus devoted much of his professional life-especially after opening the West orange facilities in 1887-to founding and operating manufacturing facilities. Historians continue to debate how effective he was as an industrialist, although there is little question that he was strong, if not exceptional, as a businessman, especially given the range and complexity of his various enterprises. Edison's greatest business strength in marketing-in both perceiving and shaping demand for mass consumer products.
However, in his own day and today, Edison chiefly stands as an example of a heroic inventor and, more broadly, a heroic U.S. citizen. His lack of much formal education, his strong practical bent, his independent habits, his apparent willingness to take on virtually any technical challenge-all resonated deeply with a nation that was becoming more and more bureaucratic, scientific, and professionalized yet feeling ambivalent about the transition. Edison left an enormous legacy. He was simultaneously a one-of-a-kind "wizard" and an everyman who aspired to greatness through hard work and creativity.
In conclusion, Mr. Thomas Edison was a great inventor which enhances our everyday life with his unbelievable inventions. If Thomas Edison never found DC’s discovery and, never invented such as Carbon Telephone Transmitter, Carbon Microphone, Motion Pictures, light bulb, Nickel-Iron Battery and so on, who knows what the world would be like today. Therefore, Thomas Alva Edison was a great inspiration and inventor to many people today. He was always coming up with new ideas and always s trying to test them out. Edison was a normal being just as everyone else today. He had a great mind, which led him to help our society a great deal today. A lot of the things we use today, it is because there was Edison’s help.
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Thomas Edison
Life, Achievements, and Hardships
Dabin Han, Dani Ortiz, Mechelle To, and Haige Zhang
Salt lake community college
Abstract
This paper represents the life success and hardships of Thomas Edison. You will read about the beginning of his career to the end. Following his accomplishments with a phenomenon of inventions, including the failures. Edison’s rise with famous unforgettable achievements that continue to be recognized in today’s society.
Life
Inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. He was the youngest of seven from Samuel and Nancy Edison. Thomas's father was an exiled political activist from Canada. His mother was an accomplished school teacher, who became a major influence in his early life. Thomas had many health issues in his early life from dealing with scarlet fever as well as serious ear infections. His ear infections left him with hearing difficulties in both ears, a malady that would eventually leave him nearly deaf as an adult.
In 1854, the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where Edison attended public school for a total of 12 weeks. A hyperactive child, prone to distraction, he was deemed "difficult" by his teacher. His mother quickly pulled him from school and taught him at home. At the age of 11, he showed a voracious appetite for knowledge, reading books on a wide range of subjects. In this wide-open curriculum Edison developed a process for self-education and learning independently that would serve him throughout his life. Along with self –education, lab experiments proved to be very beneficial to his education as well. Later in his childhood, he built a lab to do science experiments. The lab first started in his basement and then on the baggage car of the train he worked on (Edison, Thomas Alva). He enjoyed his lab experiments because he was fascinated with uncovering possibilities others may not think possible as well as tinkering with different things to find out how they worked and ways to improve them. Over time he became quite the businessman, selling news papers to food and later his inventions.
With his ever-increasing financial success, in 1871 Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell, who was an employee at one of his businesses. During their 13-year marriage, they had three children; Marion, Thomas and William. Mary died of a suspected brain tumor at the age of 29 in 1884.
Thomas Alva Edison is one of the most famous inventors. He saw many changes in technology take place throughout his lifetime. Edison became a pioneer and paved the way for many scientists’ to follow. A few of his inventions include but are not limited to the telephone, light bulb, kinetoscope, and the phonograph. These inventions contributed to modern day, lights, movies, telephones, records and CDs. In addition, Edison led the General Electric Corporation, which was the major supporter of direct current (DC).
Career
Thomas Edison had great potential even in his early years. At the age of 12 Edison’s parents let him sell newspapers to passengers along the Grand Trunk Railroad line. After the same daily routine to the news bulletins teletyped to the station office, he began publishing his own small newspaper.
While working for the railroad an event happened that was very fortunate for Edison. He saved the life of a 3 year old boy from being run over from a train. The grateful father J.U MacKenzie offered to reward him by teaching him how to operate a telegraph. At age 15 he had learned enough to be employed as a telegraph operator. (Bellis, 2012)
While he was traveling the Midwest as a telegrapher, he studied and experimented with telegraph technology. At the age of 19 Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky and worked for The Associated Press. During this time he spent majority of his time reading and experimenting. He liked to prove things to himself through objective examination and experimenting. Being partially deaf, the early Morse code let him excel at his telegraph job. However, as the technology advanced, receivers were increasingly equipped with a sounding key, enabling telegraphers to read messages by the sounds of the clicks. After this, Edison had very few options of employment. (Cooperstein,2012)
During 1868, Edison returned home to his mother having a mental illness and his father had no place of employment. With the family falling into tragic times, he realized he needed to take control of his future. He then left to Boston upon receiving a job with the Western Union Company. In this era, Boston was America’s center for science and culture. He knew he had to take the opportunities ahead of him. He designed and patented an electronic voting recorder for quickly tallying votes in the legislature. Unfortunately the Massachusetts lawmakers were not interested. At the time most legislators did not want the votes to be tallied quickly.
Accomplishments
Controversy with who invented the stock ticker at this time was high. Edison did not invent the stock ticker, but invented the stock printer in 1871, for gold and stock. His new and improved invention included his key contributions to printing telegraphy.
The improvement he made in the stock ticker was a mechanism that enabled all the tickers on a line to be synchronized so that they printed the same information. The Gold and Stock Telegraph Company was very impressed, they offered to pay Edison $40,000 for the rights to the technology (The Thomas Edison papers, 2012). One of the many effective and longest used device was Edison’s screw-thread unison. With this device the transmitting operator could bring all the printers on a line into unison by sending electrical impulses to turn a shaft of each machine until a peg sitting a screw-thread on the type wheel hit a stop. Due to this accomplishment and impeccable invention (his ticker) was used on the stock exchange for several years before being replaced in 1960.
Two years after he invented the automatic vote recorder which was never used, he moved to New Jersey. As an entrepreneur, he formed partnerships and developed products for the highest paying company. With Western Union Telegraph Company being the highest bidder majority of the time. Edison devised the quadruplex telegraph for the Western Union Co. The quadruplex was capable of transmitting two signals in two different directions on the same wire. Originally created for the Western Union Co, railroad tycoon Jay Gould offered Edison more than $100,000 in cash, bonds and stock, and generating years of litigation.
He was at his height, earning his reputation as a first rate inventor for his time. Enlarging his operations in Menlo Park and New Jersey, he built an independent industrial research facility incorporating machine shops and laboratories. There he allocated all his money and devoted all his time to conceptualizing new inventions.
Figure 1
Carbon Telephone Transmitter
Edison began working on the telephone in 1876, after his rise in fame. His main focus was to improve Alexander Graham Bell’s system- the transmitter. In Bell's transmitter, sound waves vibrated a permanent magnet that in turn set up an induced current in the instrument's electromagnet. Instead of telegraphy's make-and-break signal, the telephone used a continuous variable current (termed undulatory) which, when transmitted through the line, could be turned back into sound waves by the receiver. However, the weak current set up by Bell's transmitter limited the distance over which it could be used (Rutgers, The Edison Papers, 2012).
Edison paid close attention to the weakness in Bell’s transmitter and knew he could reform and strengthen the idea. He then decided to employ a battery current on the line and use the sound waves to vary the current’s strength by varying the resistance of the current. To do this he decided to use carbon, he built cables using high-resistance rheostats made of carbon filled glass tubes. This kind of sensitive variable resistance was just what he needed for the telephone (Isarel, 2012) .
Carbon Microphone
There are many different types of microphones in existence today, they all have to do with the carbon microphone, which was the first microphone ever produced. Even in present day, these microphones have made a great contribution to the digital world including; the music industry, medical field, and zoological research.
Figure 21 Edison Innovation Foundation, July 2014
Edison developed this carbon microphone in 1877. Although there was controversy with the question to who really invented the carbon microphone, between Edison and Emile Berliner. The controversy was settled in 1892. The carbon microphone is a sound to electrical signal transducer consisting of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon. When sound waves strike the plate, the pressure on the granules change, which in turn changes the electrical resistance between the plates. Edison turned the telephone from a promising gadget into an indispensable machine with real and practical applications (Grimes, 2014).
Motion Pictures
Motion pictures were explored by many inventors’ during the 1800’s. Making moving images a form of entertainment was a favorable idea but putting the invention together proved to be harder than envisioning the concept. Eadweard Muybridge became successful in the United States with his invention of the zoopraxiscope during 1879. These images were captured by using multiple cameras and projected in a series of images in successive phases of movement (“History of Edison Motion Pictures”, 2014, para. 3). Muybridge wanted to collaborate with Edison to create a remarkable invention that would produce images and sound, by combining Edison’s phonograph with Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope. Edison wanted to protect his future endeavors so he declined the offer to work with Muybridge on further expanding the zoopraxiscope. Edison went on to, “… filed a caveat with the Patents office on October 17, 1888, describing his ideas for a device which would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” – record and reproduce objects in motion” (Bellis, 2014, pg. 4).
William K. L. Dickson was one of Edison’s trusted associates that became a major role in the development of Edison’s idea of the Kinetoscope (“History of Edison Motion Pictures: ”, para. 4). Carlson & Gorman have stated in “Understanding Invention as a Cognitive Process: The Case of Thomas Edison and Early Motion Pictures,” that many arguments have been raised about Edison’s involvement in the Kinetoscope (1990, pg. 5). Dickson was chosen as the top associate to work on the kinetoscope project because he had previous knowledge of photography (Carlson, 1990, pg. 16). “Edison broke down the kinetoscope project into two broad areas, electrical/mechanical and photographic/opt (Carlson, 1990, pg. 16)”. Edison decided to take the electrical/mechanical area of the kinetoscope project because he was well acquainted with the field and having just developed the phonograph which he wanted to one day use in conjunction with the kinetoscope (Carlson, 1990, pg. 16).
Edison and Dickson spent several years developing the kinetoscope. Edison gathered many good ideas from fellow inventors with models of their own cinematography. Dickson himself came up with many different concepts to improve Edison’s idea of the kinetoscope but was rejected by Edison on numerous accounts. One of the many inventions Dickson came up with that Edison rejected was the tachyscope, which projected images onto a screen. He connected the tachyscope to the phonograph so that his projections could speak (Carlson, 1990, pg. 21). Edison did not like the idea and wanted to continue to pursue the kinetoscope because he had a plan for his invention.
The phonograph was thriving! Small businessmen had established phonograph parlors, where customers were welcomed to come and enjoy music. Edison had the same marketing strategy for his kinetoscope. He wanted to have kinetoscope parlors where patrons could come in and enjoy a short film. The kinetoscope was designed to be able to watch a short film through a little peephole (Carlson, 1990). Edison will later combined the use of the phonograph to add sound to the short films on the kinetoscope (Bellis, pg. 4).
After Dickson and Edison completed the kinetoscope, Edison used his same marketing scheme for the phonograph’s to market the kinetoscope. During 1894 kinetoscope parlors opened up in several major cities (Bellis, pg. 4). People seemed to like the idea of being able to watch short films. The kinetoscope became one of the last contributions Edison made to the film industry (Carlson, 1990, pg. 31). Although, Dickson believed the motion picture business would advance into projection systems, Edison was not willing to promote or work towards that advancement. Dickson encouraged his competitors to pursue projection systems and was fired by Edison. Dickson was not worried because he “… went on to form the American Mutoscope Co. along with Harry Marvin, Herman Casler, and Elias Keepman” (Bellis, pg. 4).
Competition started boiling between other motion picture companies which caused Edison many legal battles. Edison still continued to manufacture and distribute filming equipment and produce films for about twenty years (Carlson, 1990, pg. 31 (416)). After many legal battles the courts found Edison’s Motion Picture Patents Co. to be an unfair monopoly (Bellis, pg. 4). Edison discontinued his involvement in the Motion Picture industry in 1918. Although he did not continue to expand the filming industry he paved a path for many to follow fellow scientist to follow. Edison and William Dickson established important technology and information needed for people to expand and develop new filming technology.
Nickel-Iron Battery
Thomas Edison patented the idea of the nickel-iron battery in 1901. It was not created until 1902 with the help of Edison’s associate Waldemar Jungner. The battery comprises of two electrodes, “…mixture of iron compounds and carbon, gives off electricity that flows to a sheet of nickel, discharging the battery” (Powell, 2012, para. 4). According to the New York Times, “nickel-iron batteries were marketed for cars until the 1920s, but then dropped out of the picture because they were not as powerful as petrol and diesel fuel engines” (2012, para. 5).
The nickel-iron battery had many advantages as well as disadvantages. The materials it takes to assemble the battery were cheap and abundant as well as less toxic compared to other batteries. Mark Shwartz states, “… battery’s long life and reliability made it a popular backup power source for railroads, mines, and other industries until the mid-20th century” (2012, para. 8). Although it was an economical and healthy choice for our environment, the convenience was not there. The two biggest drawbacks for the nickel-iron battery are:
· Charge time
· Power storage
With many advantages and disadvantages to look at, scientists from Stanford have found ways to eradicate Edison’s nickel-iron battery and give it new life. Hongjie Dai and his Stanford colleagues were able to improve the performance of the battery by “… reshaped its electrodes at nanometer scales. Instead of simply mixing iron and carbon, the researchers grew iron pellets on top of atom-thick sheets of carbon chicken wire called grapheme. Tiny plates of nickel perched atop carbon tubes formed the other electrode” (Powell, 2012, para. 4). The nickel-iron battery was nearly 1,000 times faster than the original battery created by Thomas Edison and Waldemar Jugner.
The prototype nickel-iron battery created by the Stanford team is only capable of being used for short projects such as powering up a car battery. If scaled up for the appropriate project the nickel-iron battery would be very beneficial to our environment as well as economical. The battery is a lot cheaper to manufacture and the materials are more abundant and less harmful for our mother earth. With that being said there is still much needed research to be done before we can complete replace other common forms of batteries with the nickel-iron battery (Powell, 2012).
Light bulb
The history of the light bulb reads like a story straight out of a tabloid magazine. Contrary to what schools have taught for years, the American icon, Thomas Edison, neither invented the light bulb, nor held the first patent to the modern design of the light bulb. Apparently, we gave the esteemed Mr. Edison credit for the invention solely because he owned a power company, later known as General Electric, and a light bulb is just a bulb without a source of electricity to light it. In reality, light bulbs used as electric lights existed 50 years prior to Thomas Edison's 1879 patent date in the U.S.
By the time of Edison's 1879 lamp invention, gas lighting was a mature, well-established industry. The gas infrastructure was in place, franchises had been granted, and manufacturing facilities for both gas and equipment were in profitable operation. Perhaps as important, people had grown accustomed to the idea of lighting with gas. (Bold, 2007)
Incandescent lamps make light by using electricity to heat a thin strip of material (called a filament) until it gets hot enough to glow. Many inventors had tried to perfect incandescent lamps to "sub-divide" electric light or make it smaller and weaker than it was in the existing electric arc lamps, which were too bright to be used for small spaces such as the rooms of a house. The device also needed a tremendous source of power and the batteries. (Bold, 2007)
Edison Electric Light Company
In the period from 1878 to 1880 Edison and his associates worked on at least three thousand different theories to develop an efficient incandescent lamp.
Edison’s lamp would consist of a filament housed in a glass vacuum bulb. He had his own glass blowing shed where the fragile bulbs were carefully crafted for his experiments. Edison was trying to come up with a high resistance system that would require far less electrical power than was used for the arc lamps. This could eventually mean small electric lights suitable for home use.
By January 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting. Still, the lamp only burned for a few short hours. In order to improve the bulb, Edison needed all the persistence he had learned years before in his basement laboratory. He tested thousands and thousands of other materials to use for the filament. He even thought about using tungsten, which is the metal used for light bulb filaments now, but he couldn’t work with it given the tools available at that time.
He tested the carbonized filaments of every plant imaginable, including bay wood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, and bamboo. He even contacted biologists who sent him plant fibers from places in the tropics. Edison acknowledged that the work was tedious and very demanding, especially on his workers helping with the experiments. He always recognized the importance of hard work and determination. "Before I got through," he recalled, "I tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material."(Bold, 2007)
Edison decided to try a carbonized cotton thread filament. When voltage was applied to the completed bulb, it began to radiate a soft orange glow. Just about fifteen hours later, the filament finally burned out. Further experimentation produced filaments that could burn longer and longer with each test. By the end of 1880, he had produced a 16-watt bulb that could last for 1500 hours and he began to market his new invention.
The invention of the light bulb
Who invented light bulb? It was Thomas Edison in 1879, wasn't it? That is what many people think and was taught in school. Like most stories, however, there is a lot more behind the creation of this important and ubiquitous object than just Mr. Edison. He was neither the first nor the only person trying to invent an incandescent electric lamp. Many inventors had tried and failed some were discouraged and went on to invent other devices.
Between the years 1878 and 1892 the electric light industry was growing in terms of installed lights but shrinking in terms of company competition as both Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse determined to control the industry and its advancement. They even formed the Board of Patent Control, a joint arrangement between General Electric and the Westinghouse Company to defend the patents of the two companies in litigation. This proved to be a wise decision as over 600 lawsuits for patent infringement were filed. (Bold, 2007)
Humphry Davy
The story of the light bulb really starts almost seventy years earlier. The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. This is called an electric arc.(Invention of the Light Bulb, 2000)
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan
Much later, in 1860, the English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was determined to devise a practical, long-lasting electric light. He obtained the first patent for the same light bulb in Britain one year prior to Edison's patent date. Swan even publicly unveiled his carbon filament light bulb in New Castle, England a minimum of 10 years before Edison shocked the world with the announcement that he invented the first light bulb. Edison's light bulb, in fact, was a carbon copy of Swan's light bulb. (Invention of the Light Bulb, 2000)
How do two inventors, from two different countries the invent exact same thing? Very easily, if one follows in the others footsteps. Swan's initial findings from tinkering with carbon filament electric lighting, and his preliminary designs, appeared in an article published by Scientific American. Thomas Edison Without a doubt, Edison had access to, and eagerly read this article. Giving Mr. Edison the benefit of the doubt, and stopping short of calling him a plagiarist, we can say that he invented the light bulb by making vast improvements to Swan's published, yet unperfected designs. Swan, however, felt quite differently, as he watched Edison line his pockets with money made from his invention, and took Edison to Court for patent infringement. The British Courts stood by their patent award for the light bulb to Swan, and Edison lost the suit. The British Courts forced Edison, as part of the settlement, to name Swan a partner in his British electric company. Eventually, Edison managed to acquire all of Swans' interest in the newly renamed Edison and Swan United Electric Company.
The inventor Thomas Alva Edison (in the USA) experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for 40 hours. Edison eventually produced a bulb that could glow for over 1500 hours. (Invention of the Light Bulb, 2000)
War of Currents
In this famous war of current, the General Electric (GE) Corporation, which led by Thomas Edison, was the major supporter of direct current (DC). On the other side, George Westinghouse, who supported alternating current (AC), was the competitors against Thomas Edison in the early promotion of electric power systems and applications. George Westinghouse was a famous American entrepreneur and engineer. He was a pioneer in the electric power industry.
GE is the world largest diversified services company. Their service range covers aircraft engines, power generation, financial services, medical, television programming and even
Figure 3 General Electric Corporation
plastics. They committed themselves to creating better life with numbers of advanced technologies and services. GE’s history can be traced back to Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison established Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. In 1892, the Edison Electric Light Company amalgamated with Houston Electric Company and formed the General Electric Corporation (General Electric, 2014). The model of GE Company determined the only possible choice of current for them is direct current, not alternating current. This is because Thomas Edison was the one who take responsibility to make a decision. Therefore, the adoption of everything was depended on Edison’s likes or dislikes. The control of desires and habits Edison determined would not adopt the AC. Edison was a self-taught experimenter, so he never experienced high education, and, of course, he did not understand calculus. All the things Edison was good at were those things that were able to find the skills through own researches. Since AC needs the knowledge of frequency, phase, etc, math knowledge is necessary. As a result, it means Edison had to ask someone to do the Alternating Current for him. To Edison, he would never hand the control power to others.
The war between AC and DC tended to incandesce because the participation of JP Morgan. JP Morgan stood on the side of Thomas Edison. When Thomas Edison established Edison Electric Light Company in 1878, one of the partners, Egisto P. Fabbri, was also the partner of JP Morgan, thus, JP Morgan became Edison’s investor.
Figure 4 John Pierpont Morgan
John Pierpont “J. P.” Morgan was an American financier and banker. He was also the one who arranged the merger of General Electric. As a leader of the financial area, Morgan was very rich. Morgan not only liked to make money, but he also wanted to change the world with his power. Morgan was very good at using information. In the nineteenth century in U.S., the market was undergoes the era of chaos and highly inaccurate information. There wasn’t any listed company that would voluntarily publish their financial situations. Even the shareholders could not obtain any information about the company’s assets, income, and earnings. The issue of stocks all relyed on the brains. There was no report, even the prospects. Numerous kind of improper trading happened all the time. Morgan involved himself in many company’s board and management by his identity of investment banker. He mastered tons of accurate information, and that information made Morgan become the largest capital. He was able to take the advantage of the industry trends and shake the market. Eventually, Morgan led his company achieved commercial success and occupied the market.
Morgan’s show up complemented many disadvantages of Edison on the business strategies. With business visionary, Morgan asked Edison to bought large number of related patents about DC immediately. Then they achieved the Direct Current technology monopoly. However, unlike Edison, Morgan’s purpose was to make money by build a cost-efficiency electricity network. He didn’t care it must be DC or AC. In fact, Morgan had already realized the advantages of AC in earlier time. He tried to convince Edison to consider the Alternating Current, but didn’t work. When Morgan realized that they are likely to lose the war. He soon turned to Westinghouse and Tesla because he thought they are the better collaborators.
Direct Current (DC)
Direct Current, also known as Constant Current, is a unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct Current adopts the DC Circuit. It is a closed loop constituting of the Direct Current power supply and the electric resistance. In the DC’s electric circuit, the current is constant. Outside the power supply, the positive electrical charge flies from the high electric potential to the low electric potential through the electric resistance. Inside the power supply, the positive electrical charge is depends on the non-electrostatic function of the power supply. It overcomes the electrostatic force, and then flows from the low electric potential to the high electric potential. By both outside and inside circulating, it composes the closed circuit line. In the Direct Current electric circuit, the function of the power supply is to provide the constant electrodynamics force, and complement the energy that has consumed in the electric resistance (DC, 2005).
Thomas Edison and his General Electric Corporation are mainly adopting the Direct Current; include their products, as well as the direct current transmission lines. So in order to make his company profitable, Edison put his effort on marketing his Direct Current and slandering the Alternating Current.
Alternating Current (AC)
Figure 5 Nikola Tesla
The direction and magnitude of the Alternating Current usually changed periodically. Sine wave-current is the usual waveform of an AC. The method of creating AC was discovered after people discovering the electromagnetic induction. The earliest alternator to produce AC was developed by Nikola Tesla, Michael Faraday and Hippolyte Pixii. Among them, Hippolyte Pixii invented the first AC motors based on the principle of Michael Faraday’s (Alternating current, 2014).
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian- American inventor, mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. He was considered an important promoter of commercial electricity. Tesla also well-known for presided and designed the modern AC power system. In late 19th and early 20th century, Tesla made great contribution to electricity and magnetism. His patents and theoretical work were all based on the theory of Alternating Current electric power system, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC generator. In 1882, Tesla invented the “high frequency” (which is 15,000 Hz) AC generator after Edison invented the DC. He created numbers of power transmission technologies as well. In this War of Current, Tesla was one of the major supporters of AC (Chenmenzhe, 2014).
Comparison
AC can be very easy to adjust its voltage. We can get a transformer by only using coil and magnetic core. It is also convenient for AC to transport electric power within a long distance. On the other hand, when transporting the same power, DC mode only need about 2/3 or ½ of the materials that AC model needs. In the DC transporting lines, both pole works interdependently and doesn’t influence others. So whenever problem happened to one pole, people can just stop and repair the pole that has problem with. At this time, the other pole can still transport with no less than half of the electric power. However, in AC transporting lines, if one pol has something wrong, all the lines must be stopped (Brain, Harris, & Lamb, 2004).
During the competition between AC and DC, Edison tried various ways to make people believe Tesla’s Alternating Current was “Death Current”. In order to show that his idea was right, Edison even had a number of animals electrocuted. Moreover, Edison also invented the electric chair by using Tesla’s AC power. This electric chair sent a man to death. It was the first execution by electric chair, and also it was used by Edison to prove Tesla’s AC was wrong. Edison even introduced a new word to the American public, which was becoming more and more concerned by the dangers of electricity. The convicted criminals would be “Westinghoused” (Gilbert, 2011)
When the “War of Current” was growing in intensity, Chicago was preparing for a World’s Fair. The organizer hoped to find lighting equipment that could light up the entire venue. Thus, Westinghouse offered an attractive contract to the organizer; he tried to take this business from Edison’s hands. In the opening of the fair on January 1893, more than 90,000 lights were provided by Tesla’s Alternating Current lit up the whole venue. It was a great success, and it was also a prelude to the final victory of AC.
Shortly after, a world’s first hydroelectric power station was going to build in Niagara Falls. The AC system was selected because of its affordable and easy to manufacture. Westinghouse gave the design task to the Scottish engineer George Forbes. George Forbes invented a set of equipment that used three Tesla’s alternators. Each of the alternators has 110 kilowatts. The power station was built in 1895. It could transfer the current power to the power station which was 35 kilometers away from Buffalo. This event announced that Alternating Current defeated Direct Current, and Edison’s Direct Current instantaneously became an outdated technology. Since then, the AC has become the only choice for industrial, commercial and public electricity.
Edison and his General Electric Corporation made great contribution to people’s daily life. DC’s discovery was a huge milestone in human history. It brought people to the use of power technology. People no longer afraid of darkness and can complete a lot of work that are hard to achieve in the past. However, the advantages of AC’s use of power transmission in the daily life are not what DC can be compatible with. People eventually chose the one that they believe it better—the Alternating Current.
Conclusion
Since his rise to fame in the 1870s, he has been as the one of history's most mythologized figures (Millard, 1990). The richness and complexity of his work, combined with the legends that have surrounded it, make Edison's career an especially challenging puzzle for those who seek to recover the "real" Edison. However, because of the availability of millions of pages of Edison laboratory notebooks, correspondence, and other documents, historians now have a much clearer understanding of Edison's life and work. If anything, writings based on the Edison papers have only reinforced the remarkable nature of his career; Edison remains a towering figure in the history of modern technological and business development.
Edison thus devoted much of his professional life-especially after opening the West orange facilities in 1887-to founding and operating manufacturing facilities. Historians continue to debate how effective he was as an industrialist, although there is little question that he was strong, if not exceptional, as a businessman, especially given the range and complexity of his various enterprises. Edison's greatest business strength in marketing-in both perceiving and shaping demand for mass consumer products.
However, in his own day and today, Edison chiefly stands as an example of a heroic inventor and, more broadly, a heroic U.S. citizen. His lack of much formal education, his strong practical bent, his independent habits, his apparent willingness to take on virtually any technical challenge-all resonated deeply with a nation that was becoming more and more bureaucratic, scientific, and professionalized yet feeling ambivalent about the transition. Edison left an enormous legacy. He was simultaneously a one-of-a-kind "wizard" and an everyman who aspired to greatness through hard work and creativity.
In conclusion, Mr. Thomas Edison was a great inventor which enhances our everyday life with his unbelievable inventions. If Thomas Edison never found DC’s discovery and, never invented such as Carbon Telephone Transmitter, Carbon Microphone, Motion Pictures, light bulb, Nickel-Iron Battery and so on, who knows what the world would be like today. Therefore, Thomas Alva Edison was a great inspiration and inventor to many people today. He was always coming up with new ideas and always s trying to test them out. Edison was a normal being just as everyone else today. He had a great mind, which led him to help our society a great deal today. A lot of the things we use today, it is because there was Edison’s help.
References
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