Thomas Edison was born in 1847. He first went to school at the age of
eight and a half. But after only three months his teacher called him
"stupid" and he came home crying. From that time his mother taught him
at home and he read science books by himself. He got a job sending
telegraph messages. Then he started inventing things. At the age of 12
he had a job selling newspapers. He made money in a clever but simple
way. He checked the news stories first. When the news was interesting he
took a lot of papers; when it was boring he took only few.
In 1877 he made a "phonograph" - the first ever sound recorder.
The following year he invented the light bulb. In 1882 New York was the
first city in the world with electric lights. In 1889 he made a
"kinetoscope' He also made films for his new machine. In 1903 he made
the world's longest film (it was ten minutes long!) After more than one
thousand inventions, Edison died at the age of eighty-four. In his
honour they switched off the lights all over America.
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Edison is known as one of the greatest inventors of his time. He
invented so much that it is difficult to say which of his achievements
is the greatest. He was an experimenter and a practical man more than a
theoretician.
Edison did not have any education. He went to school only for three
months. Then he left it because the teacher considered him a dull boy.
His mother became his teacher. The boy loved books and his mother said
that he had a wonderful memory. When he first visited a public library
and saw a lot of shelves with books he decided that he would know
everything in the world. He measured the shelf and decided to read a
foot of books every week.
In 1868 Edison built his first patented invention - an
electromagnetic device.
It is said that he planned to ask three thousand dollars for his
invention, though he secretly decided he would sell it for two thousand
if necessary. He was invited to a meeting of businessmen who were
interested in buying his invention, but when he was asked to name the
price he was very nervous and quite unable to speak.
"It is no use asking us a big price", said one of the businessmen,
"we have already decided how much we will pay. Forty thousand dollars is
our limit".
With this money Edison established a workshop and began his career
as a professional inventor at the age of twenty one.
All his inventions were the result of hard work. He sometimes made
thousands of experiments. According to his words the idea that a genius
works only by inspiration was absurd. "Genius is 2 per cent inspiration
and 98 per cent perspiration", he often said.
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