ThomasAlvaEdison发明家爱迪生.doc

Thomas Alva Edison 发明家爱迪生

　　Thomas Alva Edison was a man of wonderful ability who had the good luck to be born at a good time. In the period just after the American Civil War the United States was growing conditions were right for the talents of a man like Edison.

　　The Edison family had come to the United States from Holland in the early part of the l8th century．Thomas Alva the youngest of Samuel's seven children was born in 1847.

　　Thomas was an unusually curious child．Even at an early age he loved to read and make experiments．Because he was so dreamy and quiet a teacher once accused him of being stupid．Thomas's mother was so displeased by this remark that she took her son out of school and never sent him back. She took charge of his education herself and taught him reading history science and philosophy．Edison was a very quick reader and he remembered everything．Once he got the idea of starting at the first shelf of a large library and reading everything in it．But after reading through fifteen feet of books he gave up this ambition.

　　In order to earn money for books and for his scientific experiments Thomas sold vegetables from the family garden. This work did not bring in enough money and so he began to sell newspapers and candy on a train that ran between Port Huron Michigan and Detroit． Because people were so eager for the latest news about the Civil War which was then at its height Thomas decided in February 1862 when he was fifteen years old to print a newspaper of his own the Weekly Herald, in a baggage car of the train where he worked．In four years he earned two thousand dollars from this business.

　　While he worked on the train young Edison continued to experiment setting up a laboratory in the baggage car. One day a stick of phosphorus fell to the floor and set the car on fire． The conductor of the train as so angry that he threw Tom and all his equipment off the train at the next station； he also struck Tom causing a permanent injury which later made him deaf in the right ear.

　　One day not long after he had started his newspaper, Edison saw a child playing on the tracks in front of a train. He jumped off the station platform and snatched the child from the wheels of the train. The father who happened to be the stationmaster was so grateful that he offered to teach Tom to become a telegraph operator．He gave him lessons four days a week after the station had closed for the night and in three weeks Edison was a better telegrapher than his teacher.

　　Edison was sober and independent for his age, but hen was restless and very careless in his dress． He began to wander from city to city and from job to job． Because his ideas were too strange to please the men who hired him, they often asked him to leave． During this time, he worked in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Louisville．

　　Edison went to Boston's where he had been promised work as operator, mainly because of the neat handwriting in his letter of application, When he appeared in that city, he looked so untidy and strange that the superintendent asked him to return later in the day to take a test in telegraphy, with the idea of making the test so difficult that the young man could not possibly pass it, As the rapid message came in, Edison realized clerks in the station were playing a joke on him. They had arranged for the new York operator to send him a message, faster and faster, in an effort to make Edison admit that he could not write it down at such a rapid pace, But Edison was not discouraged. He decided to outwit these fellows, and he began to send a message himself. He said to the New York operator,“Come on, don't go to sleep．Get busy! That ended the joke, and Edison won his job, as well as the title of fastest telegraph operator in the Western Union Company.

　　In 1869 he borrowed some money and went to New York． During the first three years he spent there, he nearly died of starvation. He slept in a room belonging to a company that sent information on stock prices to the business houses of New York． One day the machine that printed news about gold stopped．Six hundred banks and business houses were without information about what was being bought and sold that day. Edison succeeded in repairing the machine, and he was then offered a job as manager for $300 a month．He was soon hard at work making improvements in the machine and inventing new parts．His Universal Printer, invented at this time, printed full information about gold prices, instead of showing them only by a few letters and numbers． This was his first big success．General Marshall Efforts, president of the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, bought this and several other inventions of Edison's for forty thousand dollars.

　　Edison then put his new money to work．He opened a factory in Newark, New Jersey． Soon he had over one hundred and fifty men building machines to record stock prices, while he himself continued to work on new ideas. At one time, he had forty-five separate inventions in his laboratory, including several important improvements of the telegraph. He invented a way of sending two messages at the same time in opposite directions, and then a way of sending two messages at the same time in the same direction, In 1874 he invented and sold to Western Union a system by which four messages could be sent over one wire at the same time, two in each direction. He also perfected a new system for sending telegrams. These inventions saved Western Union millions of dollars in the cost of wires and telegraph poles alone.

　　Western Union then suggested to Edison that he try to develop a commercially useful telephone, Alexander Graham Bell had already patented the te1ephone, but Bell's telephone could be heard only over short distances． Edison added several improvements, which were adopted, and are still used in the telephone today． Western Union paid Edison one hundred thousand dollars for his inventions.

　　In l876 he built a workshop and laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey．He was known after that as he Wizard of Menlo Park, because of the wonderful discoveries he made there, He began to study the attempts of other men to invent an incandescent electric light． He tried over and over again to make a soft light that would be suitab1e for use in private houses． He tested over two thousand materials before discovering one that would work． He needed something that would become hot and give off light when electricity passed through it in a glass container from which the air had been removed． He spent a hundred thousand dollars searching for the best material． Men were sent to India, China, Brazil, and finally, Japan, where a material was finally found.

　　In January,1880, the electric light was patented. Edison then built a factory for the production of his light in Menlo Park, and an electric power station in New York City. But it was fourteen years before the public really accepted the electric light． After that, the electric light business grew So great that Edison was able to sell his share in the electric light for more than one million dollars.

　　Edison patented over one thousand separate inventions during his life, He never stopped trying to learn more about science and what it could do for man, His discoveries probably increased the wealth of the world more than those of any other single man in history.

　　On October l8,1931,Edison died at the age of eighty-four at his home in Orange New Jersey． Several days later, the whole United States turned off its electric lights for one minute, in honor of the man whose discoveries had so changed and improved the life of people everywhere.

　 托马斯.阿尔法.爱迪生是一位诞生在好时代里的天才人物。 南北战争以后,美国正在成长壮大,各种条件对于像爱迪生这样有天才的人都是有利的。
　　爱迪生一家人在十八世纪早期从荷兰来到美国。托马斯·阿尔法生于1847年,是撒缪尔的七个孩子中最小的一个。
　　托马斯是一个好奇心特强的孩子。即使还在幼年时代,他就爱读书和做实验。因为 他如此爱好空想和不声不响,以致一位老师有一次骂他愚蠢。托马斯的母亲对这个评语很不高兴,她令孩子退学不再返校。母亲自己照管孩子的教育,教他阅读,教他历史、科学和哲学等。爱迪生读起书来,领会得快,而且过目不忘。有一次他异想天开,要从一所大图书馆的第一个书架看起,看完书架上每一本书。但在看完了书架上十五英尺厚的书籍后,他放弃了这个野心。
　　为了挣钱买书和搞科学实验,托马斯就出售他家菜园中的蔬菜。这工作挣不到足够的钱,所以他就开始在一列专跑休伦港、密执安和底特律的火车上卖报纸和糖果。因为人们在南北战争的高潮中急于了解战争的新情况,托马斯在1862年2月间,他十五岁时,决定在他所工作的火车行李车上印刷他自己的报纸《先驱周报》。四年之间他从这张报纸上赚了二千美元。
　　年轻的爱迪生在火车上工作时继续搞实验,在行李车上建立了一间实验室。有一天 一根磷棒掉在地板上使这节车厢着火。列车长十分生气,在下一个车站把汤姆和他的所有实验设备都扔下了火车,还揍了汤姆一顿,造成永久性伤害,使爱迪生右耳聋了。
　　爱迪生在开办他的报纸后不久,有一天望见一个小孩在火车前面的铁轨上玩耍。他急忙从站台上跳下把小孩从火车轮子下抢救出来。这孩子的父亲正好是站长,他很感激,主动 提出要教会汤姆成为电报员。他在车站夜晚关门后,每周给他上四次课,三个星期之后爱迪生 便成为比他老师更好的电报员了。
　　就他的年龄来说,爱迪生很稳重,有独立性,但他见异思迁,而且对于衣着很不注意。 他开始从一个城市漫游到另一个城市,从一个 职业换到另一个职业。因为他的想法太离奇, 不能使雇用他的人满意,雇主们常常叫他卷铺盖走路。在这段时间里,他在印地安纳波利斯,辛辛那提,孟菲斯和路易斯维尔等城市都工作过。
　　爱迪生去到了波士顿,在那里有人答应给他电报员的工作,主要因为他的求职信中字迹写得工整。当他在波士顿露面时,他是如此的衣冠不整,怪里怪气,以致主管人叫他当天晚些时候去参加电报技术的考试,目的是要故意出难题,使这位青年考不及格。当电报迅速拍进来时,爱迪生意识到电报局的职工们是在和他开玩笑。他们已经和纽约市的电报员安排好,给爱迪生拍一份电报来,越拍越快,企图迫使爱迪生承认他抄不下这么快的电报。但爱迪生没有泄气。他决心以智取胜,于是他开始自己拍出一份电报。他对纽约市的电报员说：“来吧,别去睡觉,使劲吧！”这就结束了这场玩笑,爱迪生也赢得了他的职位,同时还赢得了西联电讯公司最快电报员的称号。
　　1869年爱迪生借了些钱去到纽约,他在纽约的头三年里,几乎饿死。他睡在一家公司的一间房子里,这公司专给纽约各商行提供股票行情。一天,那台印刷黄金行情的机器不动了。六百家银行和商行都收不到关于那天买进卖出的商情,爱迪生把这机器修好了,因此人家给了他一个经理的职位,月薪三百美元。他很 快地就努力改进这台机器,并且还发明了许多新部件。他当时发明的万能印刷机印出了关于金价的全部情报,而不只是以少数字母和数字来显示行情。这是他第一个巨大的成功,金价和股票电报公司的经理马歇尔。莱费兹将军出资四万美元把这台机器和爱迪生的其他几项发明买了下来。
　　爱迪生就拿这新到手的钱做生意。他在新泽西州纽阿克市开了一家工厂。很快地他就雇了一百五十人制造纪录股票行情的机器了,而他自己则继续试验他的一些新想法。有一段时间在他实验室里共有四十五个不同的发明项目,包括几项对于电报机的重要改进。他想出了一种方法,可从两个相反方向同时各拍出一份电报,随后又想出一种方法,可从一个方向同时拍两份电报。1874年他发明并售给西联电讯公司一种装置,用了它可以在一根电线上拍发四份电报,即从每一方向可同时拍发两份电报。他还改进了一种拍电报的新方法。使之趋于完善。这些发明,仅在电线和电线竿的成本上就为西联电讯公司节约了几百万美元。
　　西联电讯公司又向爱迪生建议：叫他试制一部商用电话,亚历山大.贝尔已经取得了电话机的专利,但贝尔的电话机只能在短距 离内听见。爱迪生增大了几项改进,被采用了,这些改进直到今天仍然应用在电话上。西联电讯公司为他的几项发明付给爱迪生十万美元。
　　1876年,爱迪生在新泽西州门洛园建造了一个车间和实验室,由于他在那里搞出了许多奇妙的发明,以后他被人们称为“洛园的巫师”。他开始研究别人为发明白热电灯所作的尝试。他一次再一次地试制一种适子家用的柔光灯。在找到,种合用的材料之前,他竟试验了两千种以上的材料。他需要某种可放在抽去空气的玻璃容器内,通过电流后能变热并发出光来的材料。他花了十万美元寻找最好的材料。他派人去印度、中国、巴西,最后终于在日本找到了。
　　在1880年1月,他取得了电灯专利权。爱迪生在门洛园建造了一家生产电灯的工厂,并在纽约市建成了一座发电站。但是直到过十四年公众才真正接受他的电灯。在那以后,电灯业发展得规模如此之大。以致爱迪生出售他的电灯股票时,竟得了一百多万美元。
　　爱迪生一生中得到一千多种发明项 国的专利为了学习更多的科学并使科学为人类服务,他永不停息。他的各种发明为世界增加的财富可能比历史上任何一个人都多。
　　1931年10月18月,爱迪生在新泽西州奥兰奇城的家中去世,终年八十四岁。几天后全美国都停电一分钟以纪念这个以他的发明大大改变并改善了各地人民生活的人。