爱迪生(1847～1931年)
Edison, Thomas Alva
美国发明家，生於俄亥俄州米兰市（Milan）。所受正式教育极少，十岁时在父亲的地下室设实验室，十二岁时在火车上卖报纸和糖果赚钱，在决定致力於发明和企业经营前从事电报发送工作（1862～1868年）。因努力产生的强烈动力，爱迪生终其一生克服了半聋的缺陷。他为西方联合公司（Western Union）研制出一种机器，能够在单线上发出四份电报，最後却以超过100,000美元的价钱卖给西方联合公司的对手古尔德（Jay Gould）。他在新泽西州门洛帕克（Menlo Park）创立世界最早的工业研究实验室。在那里，他发明了碳键传送器（carbon-button transmitter, 1877），至今仍用於电话听筒和麦克风，他还发明了留声机（phonograph, 1877）和白炽灯泡（incandescent lightbulb, 1879）。为了发展这种灯泡，摩根（J. P. Morgan）、范德比尔特集团（Vanderbilts）等金融财团预支给他30,000美元。1882年他监督下曼哈顿世界第一座永久性商业中心发电系统的设立。第一任妻子死後（1884），他在新泽西州西奥兰治（West Orange）建立新的实验室。首件要务是留声机的商业化，在这方面，贝尔在爱迪生早先发明之後已将之改进。在新的实验室中，爱迪生和他的小组也发展出早期的电影摄影机和观赏设备，还发展出硷性蓄电池（alkaline storage battery）。虽然後来的计画不像早期那麽成功，爱迪生仍持续工作，即使已经八十多岁。包括独自发明或合夥完成的物品，他一共获得1,093件专利，其中约四百件是关於电灯和发电机（generator）的。他总是为了需要而发明，想要设计一些新东西来制造。他为现代电器界奠定了技术革命的基础，其成就远超过其他任何人。
English version：
1847～1931年
Edison, Thomas Alva
U.S. inventor. Born in Milan, Ohio, he had very little formal schooling. He set up a laboratory in his father's basement at age 10; at 12 he was earning money selling newspapers and candy on trains. He worked as a telegrapher (1862-68) before deciding to pursue invention and entrepreneurship. Throughout much of his career, he was strongly motivated by efforts to overcome his handicap of partial deafness. For Western Union he developed a machine capable of sending four telegraph messages down one wire, only to sell the invention to Western Union's rival, Jay Gould, for more than $100,000. He created the world's first industrial-research laboratory, in Menlo Park, N.J. There he invented the carbon-button transmitter (1877), still used in telephone speakers and microphones today; the phonograph (1877); and the incandescent lightbulb (1879). To develop the lightbulb, he was advanced $30,000 by such financiers as J. P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts. In 1882 he supervised the installation of the world's first permanent commercial central power system, in lower Manhattan. After the death of his first wife (1884), he built a new laboratory in West Orange, N.J. Its first major endeavor was the commercialization of the phonograph, which Alexander Graham Bell had improved on since Edison's initial invention. At the new laboratory Edison and his team also developed an early movie camera and an instrument for viewing moving pictures; they also developed the alkaline storage battery. Although his later projects were not as successful as his earlier ones, Edison continued to work even in his 80s. Singly or jointly, he held a world-record 1,093 patents, nearly 400 of them for electric light and power. He always invented for necessity, with the object of devising something new that he could manufacture. More than any other, he laid the basis for the technological revolution of the modern electric world.