Thomas Edison

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the innovations and influence of Thomas Edison, one of the architects of the modern age.Edison is popularly remembered as the man who made cheap electric light possible. Born in 1847, he began his career working in the new industry of telegraphy, and while still in his early twenties made major improvements to the technology of the telegraph. Not long afterwards he invented a new type of microphone which was used in telephones for almost a century. In the space of three productive years, Edison developed the phonograph and the first commercially viable light bulb and power distribution system. Many more inventions were to follow: he also played a part in the birth of cinema in the 1890s. When he died in 1931 he had patented no fewer than 1093 devices - the most prolific inventor in history. As the creator of the world’s first industrial research laboratory he forever changed the way in which innovation took place.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Simon Schaffer 25 episodes
  Professor of the History of Science, University of Cambridge
• Kathleen Burk 11 episodes
  Professor of History, University College London
• Iwan Morus 4 episodes
  Reader in History, University of Aberystwyth

Related episodes

• Nikola Tesla
  
  4 Apr, 2024 620 Engineering
• Electrickery
  
  4 Nov, 2004 500 Science
• Michael Faraday
  
  24 Dec, 2015 530 Physics
• The Invention of Radio
  
  4 Jul, 2013 620 Engineering
• Maxwell
  
  2 Oct, 2003 530 Physics
• Benjamin Franklin
  
  1 Mar, 2012 970 History of North America
• Albert Einstein
  
  14 Sep, 2023 500 Science
• The Industrial Revolution
  
  23 Dec, 2010 940 History of Europe
• Brunel
  
  13 Nov, 2014 620 Engineering
• Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
  
  30 Dec, 2010 330 Economics

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: b00wdjr8

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wdjr8

Auto-category: 609 (History of technology)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. United States patent number 9,646 is for a device described by its inventor as an apparatus which records and registers in an instant and with great accuracy the votes of legislative bodies thus avoiding loss of valuable time consumed in counting and registering the votes and names as done in the usual manner.