Picture of Thomas Edison
The Bettmann Archive
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison was an American inventor who lived between 1847-1931. He patented 1093 inventions in his life, including the incandescent light bulb, which provided a practical means of electical lighting for every family in the U.S.
Edison also invented the phonograph, a device which records and plays back sound. He used his design for the phonograph to later develop the kinetoscope, a motion picture machine used in moviemaking.
Edison credited hard work for his success, and had experimented with 6000 different materials for the filament in his light bulb before finding one that worked. He used to say that "genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration".
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