Thomas Edison: The Most Influential Inventor From 1800 to 1950

  Thomas Alva Edison, The Wizard of Menlo Park, made many, many contributions to the world during the time period of 1800 to 1950.He invented the main source, (if not the only source), of light in our homes, but also the camera that lets us watch movies. He also invented the microphone, that let’s you hear live music or someone talking a level much louder then their regular voice and he invented the way to get power to our houses. He improved the x-ray and invented the phonograph. Now I am going to use a few of these inventions to convince you that Thomas Edison is the most influential inventor in this time period and all other time periods.

            First for his most famous invention, yes you know it, the light bulb. This alone could make him the most influential inventor ever. Without it, there wouldn’t be cool light effects, like strobe lights, spotlights, multi colored lights, and things like that. And there would just be candles to light up the space around you. And since they don’t light very much space, then you would need tons of candles to light up your house rather then the few amounts of lights that you need. You would also have to read by candle light, and that could possibly set your book on fire so you drop it, and then it lights your floor on fire and your house burns down. So, thanks to the light bulb, we don’t have as many fires and it provides us with a lot of light to helps us do the things that we have to inside our houses. It lets us do our homework late at night and still be able to read. In fact, it is one of the main reasons that we are able to school and schoolwork.

            Then there is another awesome invention, the one that lets you watch movies at the movie theater, the movie camera. It projects the movie on to the twenty foot tall movie screen which is amazing seeing as it’s just light projected and how he discovered that is another reason that Thomas Edison is the most influential inventor from 1800-1950.

            Then there’s the microphone. We have seen and heard in everything from pep rallies, to talent shows, to concerts, whether they be choir or some band like AC/DC, Bon Jovi, or other bands like them. We also hear them for lectures and they are all around us. And even though you might not believe it, they way that they do the announcements is through a microphone that is connected to a speaker in every room. Then u see microphones on TV, when people are getting interviewed and the small little one that people wear on their collars that let you hear the people speaking on the TV. 

            Then he essentially invented the way that we get power to our house to light all our light bulbs. It was originally DC, or direct current, that was sent to 53 costumers in Manhattan when it was first introduced. Later on Edison had help form one Nikola Tesla, who invented alternating current, which is mostly what we use today, even though the New York City Subway system is still run on DC. (And if you haven’t realized, AC/DC, the band and alternating current, or AC, was the invention of Nikola Tesla then direct current, or DC, was invented by Thomas Edison, then they combined it and put a lightning bolt between the two. Interesting, huh?)

            While Edison did not invent the x-ray machine, he did improve it to almost the level that we have today. What Edison did was use calcium tungstate fluoroscopy, which produced better images then the widely used barium platinocyanide screens. So thanks to Edison, we can actually see the bone that was broken with suprising accuracy.

            Then Edison invented the phonograph, which was the first way to listen to music without a radio. It was the first way to record music. Then that originally led to vinyl, which led to cds that are now mp3s and many other things. And you have Edison to thank for that. That’s another great reason that Thomas Alva Edison is the most influential inventor of this time period.

            Now, I have explained a few ways of why I think that Thomas Edison is the greatest inventor ever, but there are many, many more ways that prove this. While the few I have listed may be the most important, you could thing of a bunch of other things that you have Edison to thank for. So because of the light bulb, movie camera, microphone, the way to get power to our houses, the way to see our bones, the x-ray, and the phonograph, the original way to listen to recorded music. And that is why Thomas Alva Edison, The Wizard of Menlo Park, is THE most influential inventor from 1800-1950 and all of history.