“Expanding Electronics”
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work” - Thomas Edison
The field of electronics is one that has changed vastly over time thanks to the countless innovations by those like Thomas Edison, Alessandro Volta, and Guglielmo Marconi. Their many successes and failures have led to what is now one of the most advanced and widespread fields.
Thomas Edison had accumulated 1,093 patents at the time of his death. Edison used his deafness to his advantage, he invented things that he would be able to use despite his loss of hearing. In 1869 Edison quit his job as a telegrapher and became a full-time inventor. In 1870 Edison got back into telegraphs by working for multiple companies, including Western Union Telegraph Company, developing many telegraph related products. In 1877 Edison invented the carbon transmitter, a device that improved the clarity of audio in telephone calls, that same year he used his work with telegraphs and telephones to help invent the phonograph, a device that would produce music from indents on paraffin-coated paper.
In 1878 Edison decided to take a break from telegraph related inventions and focused more solely on creating a safe, and inexpensive light that could be the replacement to the gaslight. Edison was not the only inventor going after the idea of a light bulb. Among others, Joseph Swan was working to create his own light bulb. Swan made many prototypes but none were practical or cost effective. Edison took the general idea of Swan's light bulb and made a breakthrough when he made a bulb that used a platinum filament. Using platinum filament let the bulb burn for around 150 hours, which made it more practical than Swan's bulb, which became covered in soot after only a few seconds. In 1880 he found that carbonized bamboo proved to be longer lasting and even more affordable. The bulb could now burn for around 600 hours and became one of the most practical things Edison invented. Edison's lights were used in events like the 1881 Paris Lighting Exhibition and the Crystal Palace in London in 1882. By 1889 The Edison General Electric Co. merged with another company and became General Electric Co.
Edison's light bulbs, however, have become the center of a lot of controversies, especially in more recent years. Edison did not come up with the plans for the invention and borrowed a lot of others ideas. Edison has patents to prove that he created the light bulb but as journals and papers have been uncovered, so has past drama around who actually created the bulb.
Later in life, Edison had the idea of linking together the phonograph and the zoetrope, a device that strings together series of photographs to make a moving image, Working with another inventor Edison was able to create a working motion picture camera, the kinetograph, and a viewing device the kinetoscope. He patented these in 1891 and soon after got engulfed by a sea of legal battles, and by 1918 he decided to give up on working with moving film. During his time dealing with legal battles Edison invented an alkaline storage battery, and in 1912 he worked for Henry Ford to create a battery for the self-starter, that was introduced on the Model T. Thomas Edison is credited more than any other individual for building the framework for modern technology, and electricity.
Although Alessandro Volta published his first paper on electricity nearly 25 years after his birth he had an interest in electricity since day one. Volta made his first important contribution in 1774 when he invented the electrophorus, a device that provided a sustained and replenishable source of electric potential using static electricity. He hoped to use the electrophorus to try and improve the sensitivity of electrometers.
Volta also studied chemical nature for a small period of his life. He experimented with exploding various types of glasses and observed that when certain gasses explode the amount diminishes. In order to measure the exact changes in the amount of volume Volta created a graduated glass container, the eudiometer, and used it to study marsh gas. Using the eudiometer Volta was also able to find characteristics that could be used to distinguish between methane and hydrogen.
Volta got a great deal of recognition for his work in the field most notably in 1779 he was appointed to the newly created chair of physics at the University of Pavia, in 1782 he became a corresponding member of the French Academy, in 1791 he was elected to be a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1794 he was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society.
In 1786 Luigi Galvani discovered that when an electrical machine was discharged near an amputated frog leg, the muscles would contract. Galvani started conducting more experiments to see what was causing the phenomenon, through his tests he discovered that the frog's leg could contract if he attached a copper hook to the nerve ending and then pressed the hook against an iron plate that the frog leg was placed on. Galvani concluded that the contraction originated in the organism and named this new energy as “animal energy”. In 1791 Galvani sent a paper based on these experiments to Volta who came to the conclusion that the metals were creating the electricity. By 1794 Volta was convinced that the metals were creating the electricity and referred to it as “metallic electricity”. When Volta published his thoughts and experiments he added to one of the greatest controversies in science. Galvani eventually withdrew his thoughts on the phenomenon from the public but Volta stayed and actively pursued his research on the subject.
Volta discovered that when metals came in contact with certain fluids it would also create electricity. He found that the best results came from two dissimilar metals were held in contact and joined by a liquid third body, that would complete the circuit between them. Observations like those led to the discovery of the electric battery in 1800, the first source of significant electric current. It was the first instrument capable of producing a continuous and steady flow of electricity. In 1801 Napoleon invited Volta to Paris to give a series of lectures on his discoveries. By the end of Volta's life he stopped applying his discoveries to the field but kept teaching at the University of Pavia, and eventually became the director of the philosophy faculty at the school.
Guglielmo Marconi was fascinated by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz and built his own wave- generating device when he was a young boy living in his parents' estate. Marconi tried to impress the Italian government with his work but after years of their disinterest, he moved to London to try his hand with a new government. When Marconi first arrived he was quickly backed by the British post office and was soon broadcasting signals up to twelve miles. Marconi was one of the first to believe that radio waves don't travel in straight lines, and in fact, would curve with the planet.
Marconi became a leading force behind radio and telegraphs. He was dubbed “father radio” but caused much controversy around whether or not he actually came up with the idea. Marconi Companies Radios played an important part of saving the 700 survivors of the Titanic. He continued to work and would try to broadcast signals from his 700-ton yacht.
James Clerk Maxwell was a genius from birth, at the age of 16 he was accepted into the University of Edinburgh and pursued studies in optics and color research. During his years at various Universities, he came up with the idea that maybe Saturn's rings are composed of particles. He then took a teaching position at King's College and taught there until 1865 when he resigned to do research and make inventions full time.
Maxwell had continued his research on color and made groundbreaking discoveries around gas velocity. During his time at King's College he started to share ideas around light and electromagnetism, Maxwell expanded on Michael Faraday's work and came up with the notion that electromagnetic motion was in waves and traveled at light speed. Maxwell also took the first color photograph and created structural engineering plans for bridge maintenance
During his lifetime Maxwell got many awards including the Rumford Medal, Keith Prize, and Hopkins Prize, he also received memberships to groups like the Royal Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam.
There were also many failures that went into expanding the field of electronics most notably were Thomas Edison and his countless failures. Edison saw a problem and wanted to fix it, one of the first problems that he tried to fix was how senators counted their votes, each person would call out their vote and it would be written down, it was a process that took hours. Edison had the idea to create an electronic vote counter that would shave hours off the voting process, he made the product and brought it to the Senate expecting to just hand it off and be thanked, but when he gave them his pitch and they turned him down he was upset, and vowed to never create something that doesn’t have a viable need.
Edison also had many non-electronics failures, like his inability to have a business making cabinets and concrete products, and his inability to find a way to mine iron ore. Although these failures weren’t directly related to the field they were important in helping Edison be the inventor he was, without all those failures he would never have learned how valuable perseverance is. Without his failures and without him sticking to what he knew, he might’ve never invented the first modern light bulb, or helped create the first motion picture with sound.
Sometimes in order to succeed you also need to fail, and these inventors knew that. They knew that they were paving the way for thousands of other inventions and thousands of others inventors to fail and get back up. More than anything failure expanded the world of electronics because if these inventors failed and didn’t get back up we would be hundreds of years behind.
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