Thomas Edison

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2010

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the innovations and influence of Thomas Edison, one of the architects of the modern age.Edison is popularly remembered as the man who made cheap electric light possible. Born in 1847, he began his career working in the new industry of telegraphy, and while still in his early twenties made major improvements to the technology of the telegraph. Not long afterwards he invented a new type of microphone which was used in telephones for almost a century. In the space of three productive years, Edison developed the phonograph and the first commercially viable light bulb and power distribution system. Many more inventions were to follow: he also played a part in the birth of cinema in the 1890s. When he died in 1931 he had patented no fewer than 1093 devices - the most prolific inventor in history. As the creator of the world's first industrial research laboratory he forever changed the way in which innovation took place.With:Simon SchafferProfessor of the History of Science, University of CambridgeKathleen BurkProfessor of History, University College LondonIwan MorusReader in History, University of AberystwythProducer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for down learning the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.
0:10.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:11.0	Hello, United States patent at number 9,646 is for a device described by its inventor
0:19.3	as an apparatus which records and registers in an instant and with great accuracy the votes of
0:25.9	legislative bodies thus avoiding loss of valuable time consumed in counting and registering
0:31.1	the votes and names as done in the usual manner.
0:34.4	The year was 1868, the inventor, a 21-year-old entrepreneur called Thomas Alba Edison.
0:40.6	This was his first patent.
0:42.3	By the time of his death, 63 years later, he'd registered a further
0:45.5	one thousand and 92 of them, making him the most prolific inventory in history. His contributions
0:50.8	to modern technology are legion from affordable electric light and power to major improvements to the telegraph and the telephone.
0:57.0	He created the phonograph and was one of the fathers of the cinema.
1:01.0	Alyssa's genius was commercial as well as technical and it's not just
1:04.9	its inventions which have shaped the modern age. We'll meet to discuss Thomas
1:08.1	Edison and Kathleen Burke, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at
1:12.1	University College London.
1:13.6	Simon Schaffer, Professor of the History of Science and Fellow of Darwin College at the University of Cambridge,
1:19.1	and Ewen Morris, reader in history at the University of Abariss with
1:23.6	Karlinburg. Before we discuss Edison, let's talk about the USA
1:28.7	into which he was born. What's going on there in the middle of the 19th
1:31.3	century? Well he's born in 1847, which actually is rather a good start, because the U.S. is just coming
1:37.5	out of a profound recession dating from a panic, and just at that point railways take off.
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