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media type="file" key="thomas edison.wmv"
 * //__Thomas Edison__//**

Thomas Edison is by far the most important inventor of the 19th century. His invention with the light bulb has revolutionized the world. He is known as the Wizard of Menlo Park. He invented the light bulb, phonograph, telephone transmitter, and the kinetiscope which is a motion picture projector. Edisons first job was a telegraph operator. In this job, he re-designed the stock ticker machine which got him money...enough money to have a lab of his own and the utencils to make his inventions. This lab is where he got all of his ideas and made all his famous inventions. His laboratory was in Menlo Park, New Jersey which is where he got his name. Edison had tried many many times and has experimented with tons of different light bulb filaments. Finally, Edison found that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for quite a while. Edison was the most important inventor in the 19th century because as you can see his invention back then, has now reached bigger and better inventions now. After time, he finally made the light bulb stand for a long time and his invention gave the world a new era of electricity and light bulbs. After making the light bulb, later on, people made smaller ones that could fit inside flashlights and other items that were branched off of the light bulb. Edisons light bulb invention played a big part in future inventions, but that was not the only invention he made that was important. In fact, he got little money compared to the phonograph where he got paid $40,000 where he didnt know what to do with it. Another invention that he was famous for and was a big invention was the kinetoscope or a motion picture camera. This is no digital camera, it is big and bulky and is not simple to use.



Edison said that he wanted to create a device which would, "do for the eye what a phonograph does for the ear." The phonograph is another type of recorder. His goal was to record and reproduce objects in motion. He called it a, Kinetoscope. Using the Greek word, "kineto" meaning "movement" and "scopos" meaning "to watch." The first motion picture ever copyrighted was a picture of Edisons friend pretending to sneeze. The problem was that there was not a good film for the pictures so about 4 years later, Eastman Kodak, began supplying motion picture film stock, so Edison can continue producing motion pictures. How did this device work? It pojected lots of images drawn around the edge of a glass disc, producing the illusion of motion. It would be a sreies of images in the kinetoscope so when you looked into it, and rolled the handle on the side, you would see the images really fast, and would appear to be one motion picture. Edison has inspired the world with very important inventions. He has made nothing into something and that something has been growing and growing into present time. His inventions have branched off into bigger and better inventions used today. On October 21, 1931, a few days after Edison's death, electric lights in the United States were dimmed for one minute.