Which was thomas edisons favorite invention

Here's how: Sign-up for our newsletters. Become a KCRW member. Subscribe to our Podcasts. Donate to KCRW. Every generation has a unique sound to their music and probably always will. In a way, we can see Old Tom as a communication genius, giving us a variety of ways to express ourselves…first with great improvements to the telegraph, then an improved telephone, recorded sound and the movie industry. These innovations all involved something else…electricity…. Not bad for a guy from Milan, Ohio who never finished grammar school.

Each Kinetoscope was about 4 feet tall, 20 inches square, and had a peep hole magnifier that allowed the patron to view 50 feet of film in about 20 seconds. A battery-operated lamp allowed the film to be illuminated.

Edison was 22 years old and working as a telegrapher when he filed his first patent for the Electrographic Vote Recorder. The device was made with the goal of helping legislators in the US Congress record their votes in a quicker fashion than the voice vote system.

The legislators would move a switch to either yes or no, sending electric current to the device at the clerks desk. Yes and No wheels kept track of the votes and tabulated the final results. When someone spoke into the phone, the sound waves moved the diaphragm, and the pressure on the lampblack changed. Edison later replaced the lampblack with granules made from coal—a basic design that was used until the s.

Edison's filament lamp, with a glass bulb containing a partial vacuum. But he invented and marketed a design that was the first to be long-lasting enough to be practical for widespread use.

In the late s, Edison designed a vacuum bulb , in which a metal filament could be heated to create light. One night, after absent-mindedly rolling between his fingers a piece of lampblack, the material he used in his telephone receiver, he got the idea for switching to a carbonized filament.

After initially using carbonized cardboard, he began experimenting with other materials, and eventually settled upon bamboo , which possessed long fibers that made it more durable. Eventually, the combination of bamboo filaments and an improved vacuum pump that removed air more effectively enabled Edison to increase the lifetime of bulbs to approximately 1, hours.

While developing his telephone transmitter, Edison got the idea of creating a machine that could record and play back telephone messages.