WEBVTT 00:02:56.674 --> 00:03:04.459 - sunshine in a bottle, music in a box. Sounds crazy, but I did it. In fact, I thought I could do anything. 00:03:04.459 --> 00:03:12.023 - From the time I was born, incidentally, my birthday is February 11th. Anyway, from the time I was just 00:03:12.023 --> 00:03:19.808 - a kid, I had a notion that nothing was impossible. It was just that no one had ever thought of it before. 00:03:19.808 --> 00:03:25.022 - So I spent my life doing things that no one else had ever done before. 00:03:25.986 --> 00:03:34.320 - When you were seven and moved here from Michigan, from Ohio, you figured out that birds could fly because 00:03:34.320 --> 00:03:42.418 - they ate worms. And if people ate them, then they could fly, too. But you also figured out that eating 00:03:42.418 --> 00:03:50.437 - worms wasn't such a super idea. So since I was younger than you, you told me that if I ate them, then 00:03:50.437 --> 00:03:55.390 - I could fly, too. Yeah. Yeah, well, I was wrong. You got sick. 00:03:55.586 --> 00:04:01.049 - and nobody flew. It wasn't the last time I was wrong, and it didn't keep me from doing the impossible. 00:04:01.049 --> 00:04:06.354 - I've been a teacher in this school for 20 years, but I've never seen anything like that Edison boy. 00:04:06.354 --> 00:04:11.658 - He's driving me crazy with his impossible questions. When I tell him I don't know, he wants to know 00:04:11.658 --> 00:04:16.962 - why I don't know. It's a waste of time to keep him in school. I'm going to recommend that they keep 00:04:16.962 --> 00:04:19.614 - him home and let his mother try to cope with him. 00:04:25.186 --> 00:04:32.912 - So for the next several years, I taught Tom at home. Okay, Tom, enough for today. Take your questions 00:04:32.912 --> 00:04:40.562 - and your experiment down to the basement and you can work on the impossible down there. I lived next 00:04:40.562 --> 00:04:48.136 - door to Tommy for a long time and me and him built some pretty neat stuff in that basement. We used 00:04:48.136 --> 00:04:53.438 - to kind of borrow things from the neighbors once we made a telegraph. 00:04:53.666 --> 00:05:00.374 - dope pipe wire and strung it on trees between our houses. We used rags and bottles for insulation and 00:05:00.374 --> 00:05:07.214 - brass for rings, and it worked, too. We sent Morse code just like real operators. Somewhere along about 00:05:07.214 --> 00:05:13.988 - that time, I got my first job. I was a candy butcher. Yeah, Tom went to work on my train selling candy 00:05:13.988 --> 00:05:16.158 - newspapers on the Detroit roads. 00:05:16.322 --> 00:05:22.131 - I think he was about 12 then. When Tom wasn't selling, he was reading, but reading wasn't enough. He 00:05:22.131 --> 00:05:28.228 - had to prove everything he read. So I let him set up a lab in one of the box cars. One of his experiments 00:05:28.228 --> 00:05:34.268 - caught the car on fire. I guess I should have fired him, but instead I moved him to another job. Between 00:05:34.268 --> 00:05:37.374 - his practical jokes and experiments, Tom moved a lot. 00:08:52.002 --> 00:08:58.247 - I finally ended up in Boston working as a telegraph operator for Western Union. I was 21 and starting 00:08:58.247 --> 00:09:04.370 - to go deaf in one ear and still experimenting. In fact, I finished my first invention that year and 00:09:04.370 --> 00:09:06.942 - made my first visit to the patent office. 00:09:25.218 --> 00:09:35.467 - It was a lot faster than those days. I was so proud of myself, I took that machine right over to Congress. 00:09:35.467 --> 00:09:45.428 - I thought my fortune was made, but the Don thing didn't work. As a veteran congressman said, I can tell 00:09:45.428 --> 00:09:54.910 - you what your problem was. Your machine worked. It just worked too good. It counted votes so fast, 00:09:55.106 --> 00:10:01.105 - It left no time for opposition to feel faster, so of course Congress wouldn't buy it. I decided right 00:10:01.105 --> 00:10:06.987 - then that if there was no market for an invention, it didn't work. So much for Boston. I decided to 00:10:06.987 --> 00:10:13.046 - move to New York. I got a job there working for the Golden Stock telegraph company. I had several more 00:10:13.046 --> 00:10:18.398 - unprofitable inventions, but finally I had a winner. So I am back to see the patent clerk. 00:10:25.762 --> 00:10:33.460 - Edison, Edison Universal Printer. Nice to see you again, Mr. Edison. As Vice President of the Golden 00:10:33.460 --> 00:10:41.082 - Stock Telegraph Company, I can tell you, Edison, we are very impressed. Yes, sir. This new and gold 00:10:41.082 --> 00:10:48.857 - stock ticker is a real breakthrough. We're prepared to offer you $40,000. Satisfactory. Satisfactory? 00:10:48.857 --> 00:10:54.878 - Little did he know I was hoping for five and would have gladly accepted three. 00:10:55.554 --> 00:11:04.217 - I spent my unexpected fortune setting up a workshop across the Hudson in New Jersey. I hired John, Will, 00:11:04.217 --> 00:11:12.797 - Batch, and Charlie, and some other top notch mechanics. I became a businessman. Well, actually, I hired 00:11:12.797 --> 00:11:21.212 - a bookkeeper to keep up with the business. And I went back to work, which, of course, brought me back 00:11:21.212 --> 00:11:25.502 - to the patent department. Thomas Edison, quadruplex 00:11:26.818 --> 00:11:33.186 - We're sending four messages simultaneously. You're getting to be a familiar face, Tom. I really enjoyed 00:11:33.186 --> 00:11:39.309 - that invention. You see, I got fired once for interrupting his supervisor while he was sending me a 00:11:39.309 --> 00:11:45.616 - telegraph message. With my telegraph, four people could send messages without interrupting each other. 00:11:45.616 --> 00:11:51.923 - Well, anyway, with the money from the quadruplex, we moved to Meadow Park and set up the world's first 00:11:51.923 --> 00:11:56.638 - research lab. Now, that was my greatest invention. I invented the invention. 00:11:56.898 --> 00:11:59.070 - Fiction factor. 00:15:19.010 --> 00:15:25.812 - to call him Edison Effect. He got so carried away that he let a guy named Bill beat him to the packin' 00:15:25.812 --> 00:15:32.416 - on the telephone. And Edison Effect didn't amount to anything until a guy named Marconi took it and 00:15:32.416 --> 00:15:39.218 - developed the radio. But we did come up with one good thing out of telephone research. Yeah, while the 00:15:39.218 --> 00:15:46.152 - boss was working on the carbon microphone, he got a wild notion. He said he was going to build a machine 00:15:46.152 --> 00:15:46.878 - that would 00:15:53.346 --> 00:16:00.114 - possible before, boss, but I'll bet you lots of guys this one won't work again. You build a machine 00:16:00.114 --> 00:16:06.679 - like I told you, and we'll see. So I did. Strange contraption with a cylinder, a needle, a tube, 00:16:06.679 --> 00:16:13.582 - and a crank. When the machine was finished, the boss turned the crank and shot it into the tube. Mary 00:16:13.582 --> 00:16:20.621 - had a little lamb. Then he stuck the needle back on the head of the cylinder and shot it into the tube. 00:16:20.621 --> 00:16:22.110 - Turn the crank again. 00:16:22.498 --> 00:16:28.859 - And the machine said Mary had little lamb. It nearly scared us all to death. Have a cigar, John, and 00:16:28.859 --> 00:16:32.638 - pass them around. You see, I told you nothing's impossible. 00:20:05.090 --> 00:20:11.409 - a machine that worked right the first time. Then you sure messed the chest in the next division, because 00:20:11.409 --> 00:20:17.366 - it didn't work right the first, second, or the third. Yeah, we did work on that thing a long time, 00:20:17.366 --> 00:20:23.384 - didn't we? In the beginning, it seemed simple enough. Simple? And the boss felt electricity fell on 00:20:23.384 --> 00:20:29.583 - the wrong track with the arc light, so we was just going to improve it a little. The truth is, someone 00:20:29.583 --> 00:20:33.374 - told the boss it was impossible to subdivide electric current. 00:20:33.474 --> 00:20:40.736 - So of course he had to prove. Nobody knew how to do it. Nobody knew how to do it. Right. Remember when 00:20:40.736 --> 00:20:48.208 - we started out looking for filaments? We couldn't find anything that would blow without burning to ashes. 00:20:48.208 --> 00:20:55.399 - We tried hundreds of things. Then we figured out that the filaments would burn better in a vacuum. So 00:20:55.399 --> 00:21:02.238 - I put them in a bulb and pumped the air out. Yeah, that was wonderful. Yeah, that was wonderful. 00:21:03.810 --> 00:21:10.082 - We had to go back and test all those inventions over again. As your banker, Mr. Edison, I must tell 00:21:10.082 --> 00:21:16.542 - you that your electric light experiment is taking too long and having no results. Our patience and our 00:21:16.542 --> 00:21:22.877 - money are coming to an end. He was right. We didn't seem to be making any progress. But I figured if 00:21:22.877 --> 00:21:29.462 - I worried about him, I wouldn't make any progress. So I went back to work. Charlie, let's try that black 00:21:29.462 --> 00:21:32.222 - carbon. We already did. It burned too fast. 00:21:32.514 --> 00:21:38.770 - But that was because of the oxygen in the air. There's no oxygen in a vacuum. Let's try it again. Here, 00:21:38.770 --> 00:21:45.085 - Batch, you carbonize this carbon thread. It took us hours to get the carbon thread into the bulb without 00:21:45.085 --> 00:21:51.100 - breaking it. But we finally did it. Then we pumped the air out and turned on the current. So we sat 00:21:51.100 --> 00:21:57.295 - down and watched and watched and watched. We stayed all night. And when our shift ended, the day shift 00:21:57.295 --> 00:22:01.566 - came in and they sat down and watched. We sat there watching that bulb 00:22:02.178 --> 00:22:04.414 - In two days, it lasted 45 hours. 00:23:29.410 --> 00:23:36.711 - Yeah, you guessed it. I went straight to the patent office. Congratulations, Tom. I thought that talking 00:23:36.711 --> 00:23:43.873 - machine, that photograph, was a great invention. But this, well, I don't know what to say. Most people 00:23:43.873 --> 00:23:50.896 - didn't know what to say when they read about the new electric light. So the boss figured they needed 00:23:50.896 --> 00:23:57.502 - to see it for themselves. So he invited anyone who was interested to come to Menlo Park on New 00:23:58.178 --> 00:24:06.705 - electric light works. We welcomed in 1880 the electric lights but it wasn't as convincing as we wanted 00:24:06.705 --> 00:24:15.066 - it to be. No we worked another year and did a lot more experimenting before we convinced anyone that 00:24:15.066 --> 00:24:21.854 - electricity is here to stay. We went back to working on filaments. We tried snake 00:24:29.570 --> 00:24:38.496 - And bamboo. Bamboo! That's it! That's it! It works fine! Now let's see which one works the best! Oh, 00:24:38.496 --> 00:24:47.687 - no! So we tested bamboo. Six thousand samples. But we found the right one. In 1881, we had a New Year's 00:24:47.687 --> 00:24:56.612 - Eve party like no one had ever had before. But that wasn't all. The boss's dream was to get electric 00:24:56.612 --> 00:24:58.910 - lights in ordinary homes. 00:24:59.202 --> 00:25:05.283 - To do this, he had to convince investors that electric lights are more practical and less expensive 00:25:05.283 --> 00:25:11.668 - than gas lights, so the bus came up with an impossible scheme. The bus said we would light up the square 00:25:11.668 --> 00:25:17.566 - mile of New York City. Every house, every street would glow with our new electric suction bulbs. 00:27:08.898 --> 00:27:16.210 - James Hennessy and I built when we were kids. We had to invent or adapt everything we used. I was in 00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:23.667 - seventh grade. Sockets, switches, dynamos, meters, fuses, cutouts, fixtures, generators, wires. Wires, 00:27:23.667 --> 00:27:31.269 - voltage, we laid wires. I wondered if I were an electrician or a ditch digger. We laid 18 miles of wires 00:27:31.269 --> 00:27:37.278 - underground. Mr. Edison working right along with us in the trenches checking every 00:27:38.242 --> 00:27:46.130 - board and every connection made. But it was worth it because it worked. It all worked. Every bulb and 00:27:46.130 --> 00:27:54.096 - every street and every house came out when I pulled the master switch. What a show. We got our backing 00:27:54.096 --> 00:28:01.830 - and started the Edison Illuminating Company and the Electronic Age. It was a dream come true. Yeah, 00:28:01.830 --> 00:28:05.310 - not just the electric lights, but what I can 00:28:05.538 --> 00:28:11.240 - could afford because of it, new labs in a new location in West Orange, New Jersey. All new equipment 00:28:11.240 --> 00:28:14.910 - and supplies, everything and anything an inventor could ask for.