Inventor and promoter of applied research, b. 11 February 1847 (Milan, Ohio, USA), d. 18 October 1931 (West Orange).
Thomas Edison is the incarnation of North American technological development and one of the fathers of the age of universal electricity. Although he focussed on "invention on demand" and ran an "invention factory", some of his best inventions such as the phonograph (the ancestor of the record player) were the result of keen observation of the unexpected.
At the end of his life Edison held 1,093 patents, among which were
Edison's role in the development of technology will be discussed in Lecture 26.