Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (now Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.
Edison is the fourth most prolific inventor in history, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures.
Plot
After having his medical license revoked for performing unorthodox experiments, lovable mad scientist Dr. Bromegrass finds himself losing hope in his work. Inspired by his idol Thomas Edison, he seeks to come up with the Ultimate Scientific Creation to regain the respect of the scientific community. A musical of wacky proportions.
Plot
Historical fiction based on real fact about what allowed Nicola Tesla to continue inventing for 20 years after his near demise by his own hand. It's the third decade of the 20th century, and master inventor/innovator Nicola Tesla is getting...old, his physical health not doing so good. His mental health is not so good either. He has spent his entire life trying to serve and revolutionize the world through his ground breaking inventions, but his scientific and economic competitors have thrown him out of the loop, leaving him in a dingy apartment in New York with barely enough money to feed himself and the animals around him, the only life forms he still trusts. The most prominent person who discredited and betrayed Nicola is Thomas Edison, all American success story who made much of his fortune by stealing Tesla's work, particularly in Nicola's younger years when he came to America to work for the famous inventor. But now Nicola is done...no one is listening to him anymore, and all of his funding has dried up. His brain has dried up with regard to new ideas as well, and 'when the singer has no songs to sing, the singer should be no more'. He puts off jumping off the roof of his overdue-rent apartment by a reporter, Virginia, a young woman who claims to have been sent by Milosovich, the only historian still interested in the old man who was once nominated for the Nobel Prize but is now labelled as a delusional idealist, and political subversive. Virginia claims that she wants to do a story on Nicola, but he soon interviews her, finding out very quickly that she is far more intelligent than her station as a lower rung interviewer for the NY Times. Virginia has a brilliant scientific mind that just needs someone to recognize it, and to let her participate in the "mans' world" of scientific innovation. Finally seeing someone to whom he can pass on his Torch of scientific wisdom and the vitality-infused Spiritual Core from which it comes, Nicola (as his health deteriorates) relates his life story and most valued inventions to Virginia. She tries to convince him that being a success in the world as it is requires one to 'give the world what it wants, not what it needs', but such is the mandate of selfish capitalists such as Edison according to the still idealistic, humanity-serving Tesla. They argue, and then connect even deeper than before, Tesla offering to take Virginia on as his only apprentice, and willing to entrust her the lab book with his most valued (and guarded) ideas in it. He is willing to do this even though he figures out that she was not sent by Milosovich, as she originally claimed. But Virginia teaches Nicola something as well. The old man finally realizes regarding his inventions that the world accepting his ideas is up to 'a Higher Wisdom' and his Calling, and job, is to just keep coming up with new ideas. It eases his tortured soul and gets his creative soul working again. He sends Virginia out the door with his most trusted lab books, convinced that she will build upon his discoveries with her own. But, Virginia is confronted after she leaves by Thomas Edison, Nicola's arch rival who is still bent on discrediting Tesla as well as stealing from him. Virginia is to get a lab or her own and funding, and lots of money from Edison as part of the deal...but, she delays handing over the book to Edison. She keeps Tesla's most valued and guarded discoveries to herself as she walks away from both scientists, now having to figure out who SHE really is and needs to become.
Keywords: tv-mini-series
Plot
We enter the world of a century ago, a world lit by gaslight. It is Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1877. Thomas Edison and his team are completing work on a new invention - the phonograph. Edison is a renowned inventor and is hailed as "The Wizard of Menlo Park." He declares that he will invent a practical electric light, a light that will be safer and cleaner than gaslight. He receives financial assistance from the financier J.P. Morgan for the undertaking. There are those who do not want Edison to succeed, but he toils on and on. He knows that the secret of electric light is incandescence - heating a filament with electricity until it glows. But what material should be used for the filament? His men try everything - but in each case, the filament shoots up in flames. The trials go on for months, yet Edison does not give up hope. The Warwick Institute tells the press that the electric light is an impossible dream and calls Edison a scoundrel. Edison declares that on New Year's Eve - only a few months hence, he will light up the area with 2,000 electric lights. The search for the elusive filament goes on and on. Ironically, each time Edison's light bulb fails, he must return to gas light in order to see. His men are ready to give up. "We have tried 1000 different types of filament." Edison says that the trick is to get up the courage to try 1001. At last they achieve success. The successful filament proves to be ordinary cotton thread, coated with carbon. On New Year's Eve Edison ushers in the year 1880 with a spectacular display of electric lights. His men and his supporters cheer.
Keywords: american-history, character-name-in-title, independent-film, thomas-alva-edison
Plot
Separated identical twins ride an Orient Express unaware of each other: a feminist anarchist and a hedonistic courtesan, living under the powder-keg Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Separate families adopted the impoverished orphans. At the dawn of the 20th Century the double-blind experiment hits crescendo for Dora & Lili, born the evening Edison unveiled his incandescent bulb. In 1900, technology was accelerating, could women's rights and national self-determination keep pace?
Keywords: anarchy, bomb, electricity, train, turn-of-the-century
Imagine you could ride a thought
Like a train, at a station that you just caught
Now imagine that the head you're in
Belongs to Thomas Albert Edison
He's thinking about a light
And not just a light that will burn for an hour
But a light that can last for months and months
And illuminate our home with just a trickle of power
And now he's not thinking only of one
He's thinking of millions, nobillions for everyone
So no matter where on Earth you go
London, Rio, Tokyo,
You can lean back in your easy chair
Flick a switch, and the light bulb's there
And now this train has jumped the tracks
He's thinking of a way to have sound play back
With a spool and a wire and an aluminum foil
He's wrapping the sound like a string around the coil
And now what was that? A bird that sings
The sounds are flying off this thing
A dog, a cat, a baby's laugh,
Captured and played by his phonograph
In fact, the reason that you're hearing me here
Is because Edison had an incredible idea
Now off he goes with another invention
His mind is so full of dreams and intentions
Sounds and pictures, thoughts and hopes
Light bulbs, phonographs, scopes
Well now it's time to apply the brakes
A thousand patterns it's too much to take
But when you get an idea, let's make a deal