A presentation on a great American scientist Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931) who gave fascinating concepts to the world, particularly in the field of Electrical Engineering

2. Presented By:
 Shehsawar Azeem
 Amir Ali Khan
 Umair Ahmed
 Saad Rafiq Awan
 Suleman Rasheed

3. TOPIC
A GREAT SCIENTIST AND
ENGINEER

5. Science is a process by which we discover
truths about the natural world. It’s the study of
nature and the accumulation of knowledge
about it.
While Technology is science of craft, the
cunning of hand i.e. practical application of
scientific knowledge. It is the collection of
techniques, skills, methods and processes
used in the production of goods or services.

6. • Pursuit of
knowledge
• Create
products to
improve
human life
“Science is knowing” “Technology is doing”

7. Thomas Alva Edison
 A Name
 A Person
 A Legend
(1847-1931)

9. BIOGRAPHY

10. Childhood
 He was born on February
11, 1847 at Milan, Ohio,
United States.
 He was the youngest of
all of his siblings.
 During childhood his
hearing was affected due
to scarlet fever

11.  In 1854, his family moved to
“Michigan” where he spent his
childhood.
 Spent short period of only three
months at school and was mainly
tutored by his mother.
 He was expelled from school, as his
teacher thought he was too stupid to
learn anything.
 At the age of 12 he sold fruits, snacks
and newspapers on a train.

12.  Thomas loved reading and experimenting. He
also used to read books from his father's
extensive library
 Edison also used his access to the railroad to
conduct chemical experiments in a small
laboratory he had set up in a train baggage car.
 During one of his experiments, a chemical fire
started and a car caught fire. The conductor
rushed in and struck Thomas on the side of the
head, furthering some of his hearing problem.

13. Professional Telegrapher
 Edison saved a 3-year-old
from being run over by a
train, the child’s grateful
father rewarded him by
teaching him to operate a
telegraph.
 He became a professional
telegrapher and army hired
him and he served the army
as telegrapher during civil
war.

14. Adulthood
 After the failure of his first invention, the electric
vote recorder, Edison moved to “New York” City.
 During this time he married his first wife, Mary
Stilwell, on Christmas Day, 1871. They had three
children
 Edison moved from New York to Menlo Park,
New Jersey, in 1876. There he built his most
famous laboratory.

15.  Edison hired "muckers"
to help him out.
 Edison is sometimes
called the "Wizard of
Menlo Park" because he
did two of his three
greatest works there.
 The PHONOGRAPH was
the first machine he
manufactured in Menlo
Park and light bulb was
second.

16.  Edison married his
second wife “Mina
Miller” on February
24, 1886 and had
three children.
 A year later, Edison
built a laboratory in
“West Orange” that
was ten times larger
than the one in Menlo
Park.

17.  He also worked on X-rays, storage
batteries and the first talking doll.
 At West Orange he also worked on one of
his greatest ideas: motion pictures, or
"movies” and invented
 The inventions made here changed the
way we live even today.
 He worked here until his death on October
18, 1931, at the age of 84.

18. "Genius is 1% inspiration
and 99% perspiration”

19. INVENTIONS

20. Means of illumination
IT is possible to imagine a time to
come when the hours of work and
rest will once more be regulated by
the sun. But the course of
civilization has been marked by an
artificial lengthening of the
day and by a constant striving
after more perfect means of
illumination. To nothing does he
cling more tenaciously than to his
devices for furnishinglight.

21. Edison’s Invention of
light BULB
 Edison is known as the father of light
as he invented the incandescent light
bulb.
 Why Edison is credited as the
inventor of bulb ???
 Indeed light bulb existed before him, but its use was
very limited and cant be used at commercial level. In his
time it was thought that the division of electricity wasn’t
possible beyond that limit.
 He gave the bulb the practical form in which it can used
at large scale for commercial purposes.

22. History of light bulb
 “Humphrey Devy” invented the first
incandescent light bulb in 1806 but that
hadn’t any practical value.
 In old days carbon piece or any other
metal was used as a filament between
the electrodes with nitrogen gas filled
in the glass globe.
 Numerous number of genius minds
overall the world had been assiduously
working on this subject for about a
quarter of century but didn’t come up
with the remarkable results.

23. Invention of bulb
Edison was working on the whole lighting system.
Edison’s bulb was able to outstrip others because of these
three factors:
 An effective
“incandescent material”.
 A “higher vacuum” inside
the bulb.
 A “high resistance” that
made power distribution
from centralized source
economically viable.

24. Work on bulb
 He came early to the conclusion that the only
solution lay in the use of a lamp of “high
resistance” and “small radiating
surface” .
 During his tests for a market –viable bulb he
tried more than 6000 different filaments
,some filaments burnt out and others were too
expensive to the source.
 “Negative results are just I want. They are just
as valuable to me as positive results. I can never
find the thing that does the job best until I find
the ones that don’t.”

26. CONSTRUCTION OF BULB
 Edison had conceived carbon as the ideal substance for
a burner. After a long series of experiment he concluded
that the “carbon filament” was commercially stable
and would stand without disintegration and oxidation.
 The production of a hair-like carbon filament, capable of
withstanding mechanical shock, and susceptible of being
maintained at a temperature of over 2000 degrees for
a long time.
 He carbonized a piece of cotton sewing-thread and
had it sealed into a glass globe so perfectly formed and
constructed that not a particle of air could enter to
disintegrate the filament.
 He was also successful to create a mercury pump
that would produce a perfect vacuum up to one
millionth part of atmospheric pressure.

28. Invention of bulb
• After working on all these factors ,This lamp, when put
on the circuit, lighted up brightly to incandescence and
maintained its integrity for over 1000 hours.
• On December 31st,1879 Edison gave the first public
demonstration of the incandescent light bulb at his
laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
• This discovery marked the beginning of commercially
manufactured light bulbs. And “Edison Electric
Light Company” began marketing its new product.

29. FIRST SUCCESSFUL BULB
MANUFACTURED BY
EDISON COMPANY

30.  This great invention was
neither the result of improving
some process or device that
known at that time, nor due to
any unforeseen lucky chance,
nor the accidental result of
other experiments. On contrary
it was the legitimate outcome
of a series of exhaustive
experiments founded upon
logical and original reasoning.
 During his invention of bulb he failed 10,000 times but
he never gave up .
 Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most
certain way to succeed is to try just one more time.

32. World –Hunt for
filament material
 He developed a whole suite of inventions that made
the use of light bulbs practical.
 It was the earliest of 1880,s that during his search he
discovered that “a thin bamboo slice” can serve as
the best filament when carbonized.
 The results of this trial were exceedingly successful, far
better than with anything else thus far used.
 After further experiments Edison was able to make a
thoroughly stable commercial lamp that can last even
more than 1500 hours.

34. DETERMINED PESONALITY
 In addition to that he also worked on distribution of
electricity so that an electric incandescent bulb could
operate independently .
 He tried to find all the ways that would covert the electricity
in light best and dared to go to every limit to make it
possible.
 It was his will and sheer determination that lead him to the
success .He is the man of inspiration for now and the
centuries to come, who with his miraculous invention
lightened up our lives.

35. THE PHONOGRAPH
 World’s first recording
and playback device.
 It changed the way the
world listening of music.
 One day he placed a
small phonograph inside
a doll, he was also the
inventor of world’s first
talking doll.

36. PHONOGRAPH
Recording
Needle
Recording
Sound box
Hand
Crank
Reproducer
Sound box
Tin foil
covered
cylinder

37. WORKING OF PHONOGRAPH
 Thomas phonograph consisted of two needles, one for
recording and other for playback.
 Sounds make the needle shake, or vibrate. The sound
vibrations would go through the needle and groove into
the tin-foil. A needle on the other side could play. After
just a few plays, the tin-foil would tear up and the
message could no longer be played.

38. THE MOVIE PROJECTOR
 Edison company developed its
own projector, known as
KINETOSCOPE.
 The first motion pictures shown
in the “movie theater” in USA
was presented to audience on
Apr 23, 1896, in New York City.

39. WORKING OF
KINETOSCOPE

40. ELECTRIC POWER
DISTRIBUTION After devising a commercially viable electric
light bulb Edison went on to develop an electric
power distribution system.
 He founded Edison Illuminating Company, the
basic purpose of this company was to provide
DC power to domestic consumers.
 It was on September 4, 1882, that Edison’s
power station provided 110V DC current to 59
domestic consumers in Manhattan in USA.

41.  Photograph of Lower Manhattan illuminated by Edison’s DC power
station.

42. Carbon telephone transmitter
 In 1877–78, Edison invented and developed
the carbon microphone used in all telephones
along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s.
 The carbon microphone was
also used in radio broadcasting
and public address work
through the1920.

44. FAILED
INVENTIONS

45.  Electrographic Vote
Recorder
 The inventor’s first patented invention was an
electrographic vote recorder to be used by
governing bodies. The machine let officials
cast their votes and then quickly calculated
the tally.
 To Edison, this was an efficient tool for
government. But politicians didn’t share his
enthusiasm, apparently fearing the device
might limit negotiations and vote trading

46. Cement
 One concept that never took off was Edison's interest in
using cement to build things.
 He formed the Edison Portland Cement Co. in 1899,
and made everything from cabinets (for phonographs)
to pianos and houses.
 Unfortunately, at the time, concrete was too expensive
and the idea was never accepted. .

47. Electric Pen
 Trying to solve the problem of making copies of the same
document in an efficient manner, Edison came up with an
electric pen.
 The device, powered by a battery and small motor,
punched small holes through paper to create a stencil of
the document you were creating on wax paper and make
copies by rolling ink over it.
 Unfortunately, the pens weren’t, as we say now, user-
friendly. The battery required maintenance, the $30 price
tag was steep, and they were noisy. Edison abandoned
the project.