Born in 1847 in Ohio, Michigan, America, Thomas Alva Edison was both a scientist and an inventor. His inventions changed the live of millions of people around the world. Edison’s early schooling was a disaster. His mother took him out of school when he was eight, after just three months because his teacher called him ‘addled’, meaning mixed-up. So his angry mother decided to teach him at home. She gave Thomas a science book filled with experiments and he tried out every last one! He even built a science laboratory in his basement. At age twelve, Edison worked on the railway. He moved his laboratory to the luggage compartment, but his chemicals caused a fire and he lost his job. Five years later, Edison began working on the telegraph system. Telegraph machines sent messages as coded signals along telegraph wires. One day the machine that sent the gold prices across America broke down. Thomas did such a good job fixing the machine that we was asked to invent a better one. He was paid a lot of money for the improved machine. From then on Edison became a full-time inventor. He read books on electricity, chemistry, technology and more. He took equipment apart to understand how it worked and then he would invent ways to make it better. In 1876, Edison opened an ‘invention factory’. He expected a lot of hard work from his employees. Edison achieved some of his greatest successes at Menlo Park laboratory and indeed in the years following…
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