A TALK WITH EDISON

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 195, 26 November 1910, Page 10

A TALK WITH EDISON

THE FUTURE OF FLYING MACHINES. AMAZING TALES OF HIS INVENTIONS. A fascinating interview with Edison, the great American inventor, appears in Muusey's Magazine (July). It seems to contain much new material. Sixty-four years of age, and still hard at work, Edison has crowded into his life a unique record of public utility and invention. Listen to these tales. Here is the way in which experiments with the telephone led him to the invention of the phonograph: AN HISTORIC EXPERIMENT. Edison, Bell, and Gray had been working on a new kind of telegraph. They were trying to do away with the clicker at each end of the wire by substituing tuning-forks, which would sing soumds that meant letters. They were experimenting with diaphragms stretched over small box-frames. Edison noticed th»t the sound-waves produced by his vocal chords greatly agitated the diaphragm. Possessing for a moment the dachshund spirit, he rigged up little paper figures of men and women. "Quite accidentally, Bell discoverea that he could hear his assistant's voice over the wire. That ended experiments with the new telegraph; and, with the telephone discovered by Bell, it looked, for a time, as if the dancing paper dolls ( would constiute about the only pleasure that Edison would derive from the experience, though he afterwards made the telephone a commercial succest by inventing the first transmitter. INVENTING THE PHONOGRAPH. "However, the dancing of the paper dolls made Edison think. The power 01 the voice to agitate the air had been visualised. What could he do with this power? "In those days," said Edison, "my assistants were working by the piece, and it was my custom, when I sketched out a design for a model, to mark on the sketch the price I was willing to pay making the model. So I sketched out my idea of a talking-machine, marked 'fifteen dollars' on it, and gave it to a man." ' "What's this for?" he asked. "Oh, that's a machine to talk," I replied. "Word that I was working on a talk-ing-machine went quickly around among the hundred employees in the laboratory, and soon the place was buzzing with it. The following day the man brought me the finished model, and pretty nearly everybody in the laboratory came with him to deliver it. It's wonderful how working men become interested in inventions. When I finished the electric light, I discharged fifteen labourers—had no further use for them—but they wouldn't quit; stayed right along, just the same. AN AMAZED CROWD. . "So when they all gathered around me, I said to the man who made the model: 'Bill, get me a little tinfoil now, and we'll make this thing talk.'" "I wrapped the foil around the cylinder, placed the neddle of the diaphragm against it, and shouted into the funnel what were to be the first words ever spoken by a machine: 'Mary had a little lamb; Its fleece was white as snow, And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go .'" "This done, I set the needle back where it started, turned the cylinder with a crank, and the machine repeated what I had said so plainly that everybody could hear it. I never saw such an amazed crowd of men." PHONOGRAPHS V. STENOGRAPHERS. "I tried the best I could," said Edison, to make phonographs supplant stenographers, but I couldn't do it. The stenographers themselves beat me. They would get the machine out of order and declare that it wouldn't work. Business men believed them, and for more than fifteen years the phonograph lay practically dormant. "Ten or twelve years ago we made a record of a song. I don't know how we came to do it—l have forgotten. But the song was reproduced so well that I got an idea. 1 said to myself: 'lf I can't make people use the phonograph in their business, I will see if I cannot make them use it for their pleasure." "So I hired a few singers, and made some song records. I was not long left in suspense. The songs caught on at once. The phonograph, after fifteen years of waiting, had arrived. Now phonographs are sold by the thousand all over the world. The patents have 'expired, and anybody can make them. Of course, every manufacturer has a few patented features of his own, but the principle of the machine is the world's property. And now that the phonograph has made good in a field for which it was not intended, it is working its way into the field for which it was originally designed. Thousands of business men are dictating their letters to talkingmaehines. EDISON INVENTS THE INCANDESCENT LIGHT. "The fact that I know so many things that will not work never helped me more than it did when I was inventing the incandescent electric light. I wanted to turn a current of electricity upon some substance of great resisting power that would not burn. I ran over in my mind the many things that might be used, and determined to try carbon. The carbon must be shaped like thread, so I made up my mind to use thread. I took a piece of Clark's cotton—'O.N.T.' as it used to be called —looped it around in a bulb as it ought to be, burned it to an ash without breaking it, exhausted the air, and turned on the current. Instantly there was light—three or four candle-power. "The minute that light shone, I had proved the feasibility of what I was trying to do —divide the big arc-lights into a greater number of small lights. Brush, of Cleveland, had invented the arc-light, but everybody said a small electric light could not be made. THE PROBLEM OF CARBON. "The next question was how long my small light would burn. My assistants and myself sat down by, the glowing bulb, determined not to leave it until it should glow no more. We sat there all night. Still it was burning. We sal there all day. The light shone on. During the next night we made a pool on how long it would last. It did not go out until the following morning. "Then I knew that, while carbon was the proper material to use as a film, thread was not the best substance of which to make the carbon. I wanted to make a commercially successful electric light. A lamp that would burn only forty hours could never displace gas. "It struck me I could make a better carbon by burning the sort of bamboo that is used for fish-poles. I sent for a pole and tried it. The experiment was even n greater success than I had dared to expect. The lamp burned for more than a week. I sent telegraphic orders to buy all the bamboo fish-poles on the market. Within the week I had four thousand dollars' worth of poles piled up fa ™ rim,* cities throughout thejcoiinfe

A WORLD-SEARCH FOR BAMBOO. "But I didn't stop at that. I at once sent men to scour the world for the best kind of bamboo. I sent one man to Ceylon, another to China, another to Japan, two to South America, and one to the West Indies. Each of those men had exact information with regard to the kind of bamboo I wanted, and each carried a microscope with which to examine such samples as might be placed before him. •The man I sent to Japan found the material that was most nearly suited to my needs. He ran across a Japanese who hail something like a hundred and fifty acres set out in bamboo. This Japanese was a very intelligent man, aud the next year he undertook, by cross-breeding, still further to improve the quality of his poles. Within four vear* he produced bamboo that was perfect. "Those Japanese are a wonderful people, and the fruits of skill are great —but wait! " "That Japanese must be a very rich man now, isn't he, after having had your trade all these years?" I asked. As Mr. Edison does' not hear well, it was necessary to repeat the question. When lie did "hear it, he laughed. "Not that I know of," he replied. "We didn't buy from him very long. I invented a cheaper way of producing carbon, and bamboo fish-poles are again used chiefly for fishing purposes." EDISON'S HARDEST BATTLE. The discovery of a satisfactory material for films did not, however, complete the invention of tke electric light. The light was in existence, but no way had yet been devised to use it. There was no such thing as a meter to measure the current, and none of the equipment that is to-day a matter of course. All this Edison had to devise and introduce. "The invention of the light," he said, "was really the smallest part of the task. Altogether it took me two years to put the light on the market. We worked night and day. Everybody worked. My laboratory was then at Menlo Park, and all' of use slept in it. There were a hundred of use, many of whom were common labourers. Everyone was called after he had slept four hours. Everyone worked a twenty-hour day. Even the common labourers did. Complain? Not much! They were as much interested in the light as I was. We were a jolly crowd. 1 had an organ brought to the laboratory, and we listened to music as we worked. Oh, those were great days; "Yet for some reason, I wouldn't want to live them over again. Never, before or since, was I compelled to put up such a fight. The gas companies, all over the country, were determined that I should not succeed. They had a tremenous investment that they believed would be ruined unless I failed. Even now, 1 should not like to tell of some of the things they did. GAS FIGHTS ELECTRICITY. "One of their hired liars over-steppea himself a little, and was really responsible for the increased efficiency of my light. He ridiculed me in a particularly offensive way, and pooh-poohed the ideai that a small incandescent lamp could ever be more than a toy. I read what he said at a time when I thought I had made the light as good as I could. What he said made me so angry that I tackled the job agin. I said I woula make that light so good that none could dispute its merits. I did, too. I improved the light after I thought I haa finished it. That fellow, by prodding me on, performed a real service for mankind." Mr. Edison had some very interesting things to say of the future of the flyingmachine. "I am suspicious of the type of flying-machine that is now in use. Flying-machines have developed too rapidly—too easily. I believe the flyingmachine is destined to revolutionise our methods of communication and transportation. I believe that within ten years it will be carrying mails and a< few passengers —but not in its present form. Now it is a machine for sport. Flight is seventy-five per cent, a matter of machine and twenty-five per cent, matter of man. The man ought not to figure so much. The machine should be so efficient, so easily controlled, that any man of ordinary intelligence could quickly learn to operate it. THE FUTURE FLYING MACHINE. "I believe the present machines are built on the wrong principle. They can't lift themselves. It is necessary to propel them along the ground until the resistance of the air against their planes causes them to rise. I believe a flying machine can be built, and will be built within ten years, that will lift itseh and go off to its destination in all kinds of weather at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. It doesn't taken long ,to perfect an invention after it is once started. Look how quickly the perfected automobile came. The Wright Brothers have made a fine start, and are entitled.to all credit for having made it, but the finish is yet to come." With increasing brain power Edison believes that the world will develop infinitely better inventors than those of to-day.