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THOMAS ALVA EDISON

Thomas Edison was a true genius. He invented over 1000 different things. Among Edison's inventions are the movie camera, the movie projector and the phonograph (record player).

Edison found that sound could vibrate a thin disc or a diaphragm. And if a needle was fixed to the disc it made dents in tin foil covering a cylinder. If the needle and the disc (diaphragm) vibrated, the original sound was reproduced. The first record Edison made was ' Mary Had a Little Lamb', a nursery rhyme.

In 1879 Thomas Edison invented his electric light bulb.

Before Thomas Edison no one knew how to use electricity outside of a laboratory. Edison and his workers had to create a safe electric system. First they had to build a factory. Then they had to build the dynamos (generators) to make the electricity. Next they had to send out the electricity. To show people that he was serious, Edison began his project in New York City. By 1887, much of the city had electricity.

Edison founded the Edison Electric Light Company and continued to supply electricity to New York and other places.

Thomas Edison lived until 1931.

Text 2michael faraday (1791-1667)

Michael Faraday's family was very poor. His father was a blacksmith. At the age of thirteen Michael's schooling ended, and he got a job with a bookseller. The bookseller was also a bookbinder. Michael bound books and read many of them; these books taught him to think. He attended about a dozen lectures in natural philosophy and made his first acquaintance with Newton and other masters of science. He made notes of everything he heard, bound these notebooks himself and kept them all his life. He learned drawing, so that he might illustrate his notes with diagrams.

In 1813 Faraday was accepted as Sir Humphry Davy's assistant. After a few months of work in the laboratory, Sir Davy invited Faraday to go with him in his travels through Europe. Faraday made many acquaintances in the scientific world.

In 1815 he returned to England and worked in the laboratory in the Royal Institution for more than fifty years, that is to the end of his days.

Faraday succeeded in liquefying several gases by combining pressure and cold for the

purpose. He produced several new kinds of optical glasses. His greatest chemical discovery was benzene, which He separated from oil gas, and which since then found world-wide application.

Faraday's attention was turned to the relation between magnetism and electricity. In 1821 he placed a wire carrying an electric,current from a battery round the pole of a magnet. When the wire began to move he,also danced round the revolving circuit, his face shining with joy. Many years will pass before has discovery becomes the basis of the electric motor.

All that scientific world had known about electromagnetism by that time was that if current is run through a copper wire around a piece of iron, the iron becomes a magnet. Faraday asked himself: can electricity be made with the help of a magnet? For a long time he tried different experiments to solve the problem. He first produced a current in a wire by a magnet. In 1831 he showed that an electric current can induce another current in a different circuit. This discovery of the induction of electric currents later became the basis of all modem electrical engineering. Faraday founded the theory of electric and magnetic fields.

Faraday had no forma) education, especially in mathematics. All his conclusions and theories were based on many experiments. He recorded and described in his diary 16,041 experiments he had made. He believed only the fitngs which could be tested, shown and touched.

All his life Faraday remained poor. He believed that a scientist could not serve science for money.

He was a famous scientist but he remained a modest man. Through his love for truth and untiring work He became one of the greatest men of science.

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THE INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH

The first practical telegraph was invented by the famous English scientist Charles Wheatstone in 1837. His telegraph was used in England for several years. But the telegraph invented by the American inventor Samuel Morse was more successful. Morse began work on his model in 1832, the same year as Wheatstone, and completed it in 1837. He proposed to put it in use in the United Slates. The first experimental telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore was built in 1844.

Many improvements have been made on the Morse telegraph, including one by Thomas Edison, who invented a method of sending four messages over the same line at the same time.