What is genius? According to Thomas Edison, it is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. By this definition, Edison certainly qualified.
From his early childhood to the end of his long life, Edison was always working on some project. Many of them were inspirations that changed the world we live in. The incandescent electric light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture projector—these are his most famous inventions, but there were many, many more. During the course of his lifetime, Edison received patents for 1,093 inventions.
Edison was more than an inventor, though. In the interest of seeing his inventions become reality, he had to become a businessman as well. After building the first movie camera, for example, he built a studio on the grounds of his West Orange, New Jersey, laboratory and produced the first motion pictures.
Edison was far from the stereotype of the antisocial inventor who avoids society to follow his inner vision. More than any other inventor, he created the modern team approach to research and development of new ideas. You might say it was an unpatented invention.
Where did Edison get his inspirations, and just how much perspiration did it take to see his dreams become reality? Read on, as Kids Discover takes you on a journey with a genius.
