Can anyone tell me about the lifes and times of Thomas Alva Edison?
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Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices which greatly influenced life in the 20th century. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, and can therefore be credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. Some of the inventions credited to him were not completely original, but alterations of earlier patents (most famously the light bulb), or were actually the work of his numerous employees. Nevertheless, Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
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Ben Franklin discovered electricity when he was visiting Mars. They have electrical storms something fierce up there, if memory serves me correctly.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/lj/victorian_britainlj/index.shtml
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"Thomas Edison tried and failed nearly 2000 times to develop the carbonized cotton thread filiment for the incandescent light bulb.  When asked about it, he said, 'I didn't fail. I found out 2000 ways how not to make a light bulb.'  But he only needed to find one way to make it work."\n\nFrom National Treasure
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The Invention of the Light Bulb: Davy, Swan and Edison\n\nThe first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. This is called an electric arc. \nMuch later, in 1860, the English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was determined to devise a practical, long-lasting electric light. He found that a carbon paper filament worked well, but burned up quickly. In 1878, he demonstrated his new electric lamps in Newcastle, England. \n\nIn 1877, the American Charles Francis Brush manufactured some carbon arcs to light a public square in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. These arcs were used on a few streets, in a few large office buildings, and even some stores. Electric lights were only used by a few people. \n\nThe inventor Thomas Alva Edison (in the USA) experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for 40 hours. Edison eventually produced a bulb that could glow for over 1500 hours.
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Look at this:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_allan_poe
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla\n\nI'm not sure which device of his you are refering to, but wikipedia's page on him is surprisingly comprehensive, and there is a list of his devices on the right-hand side with links/diagrams\n\nHope that helps!
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There are several good articles relating to this genius. One such article can be found at \nwww.rense.com/health/rife.htm
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overall i'd say e=mc2-einstein of course. his theory is 100 years+ old & has yet tobe proven because science hasn't caught up yet in the modern era & the internet & computers & science universally. immediately the profound effects of what thomas edison has done by far contributed the most. have you ever lost power for more than two days. i never have until last year. let me tell you it was rather bleak. water got bad. food got bad. no fresh air & no a/c.thomas edison is #1. not to say the alexander graham bells, the polio vaccine, the x-ray inventor who died from the process of discovery, & much more have all been significant factors to our well being and yes the nuclear people are included for better & for worse.
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Thomas Edison - invented the light bulb in 1879.
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You may want to look into some of the things Nikola Tesla experimented with.  It will likely have you asking different questions.
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try this link\nhttp://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/106.html
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Thomas A. Edison's forebears lived in New Jersey until their loyalty to the British crown during the American Revolution drove them to Nova Scotia, Canada. From there, later generations relocated to Ontario and fought the Americans in the War of 1812. Edison's mother, Nancy Elliott, was originally from New York until her family moved to Vienna, Canada, where she met Sam Edison, Jr., whom she later married. When Sam became involved in an unsuccessful insurrection in Ontario in the 1830s, he was forced to flee to the United States and in 1839 they made their home in Milan, Ohio.\n\nThomas Alva Edison was born to Sam and Nancy on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. Known as "Al" in his youth, Edison was the youngest of seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Edison tended to be in poor health when young.\n\nTo seek a better fortune, Sam Edison moved the family to Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854, where he worked in the lumber business.\n\nEdison was a poor student. When a schoolmaster called Edison "addled," his furious mother took him out of the school and proceeded to teach him at home. Edison said many years later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me, and I felt I had some one to live for, some one I must not disappoint."(1) At an early age, he showed a fascination for mechanical things and for chemical experiments.\n\nIn 1859, Edison took a job selling newspapers and candy on the Grand Trunk Railroad to Detroit. In the baggage car, he set up a laboratory for his chemistry experiments and a printing press, where he started the Grand Trunk Herald, the first newspaper published on a train. An accidental fire forced him to stop his experiments on board.\n\nAround the age of twelve, Edison lost almost all his hearing. There are several theories as to what caused his hearing loss. Some attribute it to the aftereffects of scarlet fever which he had as a child. Others blame it on a conductor boxing his ears after Edison caused a fire in the baggage car, an incident which Edison claimed never happened. Edison himself blamed it on an incident in which he was grabbed by his ears and lifted to a train. He did not let his disability discourage him, however, and often treated it as an asset, since it made it easier for him to concentrate on his experiments and research. Undoubtedly, though, his deafness made him more solitary and shy in dealings with others.
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Go to your school and your local library. He's a pretty important person, so they should definitely have good books on him. Also, you can go to Wikipedia and check out the bibliography and other sources given on that site. Some of the books listed there are fairly recent, so you should be able to get them easily.
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This is a cool biography maker:  \nhttp://www.bham.wednet.edu/bio/biomak2.htm
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For Einstein, go to www.wikipedia.org, and type in his name. You'll get all you need to know & more...
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Nikola Tesla (on all counts) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla