Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1890-02-14
now AN INVENTOR LvrENrs.


A Glimpse of Edison and isis Methods.
We take the following from George Par
sons Lothrop's chapter of Talks with Edi-
SON in the February Harper's:
Edison has often been spoken of as dis
coverer and in one sense he may appear
10 have discovered things by reaching out
into the realm Of what TO other persons
was the unknown. But he himself dis
likes the term as applied to himself Dis
covery is not invention, he once said to
me, "and dislike to see the two words
confounded A discovery is more or less
in the nature of an accident. man
walks along the road, say from the labora
tory here to Orange station, intending to
catch the train. On the way his foot kicks
against something and looking down to
see what he has hit, he sees gold bracelet
imbedded in the dust He has discovered
that, certainly not invented it. He did not
set out to find bracelet yet the value of
it is just as great to him at the moment as
if, after long years of study, he had in
vented a machine for making gold brace
let's out of common road metal.
Goodyear discorered the way to make
hard rubber He was at work experiment
ing with India rubber, and quite by chance
he hit upon a process which hardened it
the last result in the world that he wished
or expected to attain Bells telephone was
a discovery, too not an invention. He was
engaged with the possibilities of sending
sound waves over a telegraph wire, and
filed an invention by which this could be
done. Then. by accident, it was discov
cred that articulate speech could be sent
over the wire and there was the telephone
But Bell did not set out to make an instru-
ment by which talk could be transmitted,
aud therefore | say he discovered instead
Of inyenting the telephone. In a dscov
cry there must be an element of the acci
dental, and an important one too: while
an invention is purely deductive An alb
stract idea or a natural law, | maintain,
may be n,rented' for, in my opinion, New
ton invented but did not discover the the
org Of gravitation He had been at
work on the problem for years, and had no
doubt invented theory after theory to
which he found it impossible to fit his facts
Then he constructed the theory to which
all facts corresponded, and thus invented
it 10y deductive reasoning. OF course the
old story of the apple dropping from tree,
and Newtons jumping up with a species of
Eureka, | reject absolutely.
1T is too much the fashion to attribute
all inventions to accident and a great deal
of nonsense is talked on that score.
In my own case but few, and those the
least important, of my inventions owed any
thing to accident Most of them have been
hammered out after long and patient la
Dor, and are the result of countless expert
ments, all directed toward attaining some
well-defned object. All mechanical i'm
provements may safely be said to be inven-
a,s,l Tbs
chine was an invention. So were the
steam engine and the typewriter Speak
ing of this latter, did ever tell you that
made the first twelve type-writers, at my
old factory in Railroad avenue, Newark
This was in 1869 or 1870; and myself had
worked at a machine of similar character,
but never found time to develop it fully
Not long ago | asked Mr. Edison which Of
his inventions had caused him the greatest
amount of study, and required the most
elaborate experiments.
He replied promptly, The electric light
For, although | was never myself discour
aged or inclined to be hopeless of success,
| cannot say the same for all of my asso-
ciates. And yet, through all those years
of experimenting and research, l never
once made discovery. All my work was
deductive, and the results / achieved were
those of invention pure and simple. |
would construct a theory and work on its
lines until | found it was untenable. Then
it would be discarded at once and another
theory evolved This was the only possible
way for me to work out the problem, for
the conditions under which the iucandes-
cent electric light exists are peculiar and
unsatisfactory for close investigation. just
consider this we have an almost infnitesi
NAL flament heated to degree which it is
difficult for US to comprehend, and it is in
a vacuum, under conditions of which we
are wholly ignorant. You cannot use your
eyes TO help you in the investigation, and
you really know nothing of what is going
on in that tiny bulb | speak without ex
aggeration when | say that | have con
structed three thousand different theories in
connection with the electric light each one
of them reasonable and apparently likely to
be true. Yet only in two cases did my ex-
periments prove the truth of my theory
/ My chief difficulty, as perhaps you know,
/ was in constructing the carbon filament, the
! incandescence of which is the source of the
/ light. Every quarter of the globe was ran
| sacked by my agents, and all sorts of the
! queerest of materials were used, until final
! ly the shred of bamboo now utilized by us
was settled upon. Even now. ~ Mr.. Edison
continued, Il am still at work nearly every
| day on the lamp, and quite lately have de-
vised a method of supplying sufficient cur
rent to fifteen lamps with one horse power.
Formerly ten lamps per horsepower was
the extreme limit"
1t will be seen from these memoranda
that in addition TO his native endowment
of a genius for science and mechanics,
| Edison brings to bear vast patience in local
deduction careful calculation, unlimited
experiment, a ceaseless industry, and per-
sistence which refuses to be discouraged.
Moreover, his mind is open to every sugges-
ton or idea, no matter how fanciful it may
seem to others. He never let's 20 of an idea
until he has tested all its possibilities The
moment he has invented one thing, he ap-
parently casts about to see what else it may
| lead to- And he carries all these things
about in his mind, considering, studying,
and trying them for years, until those that
are practicable are developed, one after an
other, from the first hasty sketch in his
novel" note book into the completed crea-
ton.
In boyhood he was diligeut and omniv.
orous reader, and to some extent he keep;
up this habit. He has not confined himself
however, TO scientific works; and often
when some book entirely literary in char
acter is mentioned he will surprise the lis
tener by speaking Of it with evident famil
iarty. As for the scientific works, he has
collected large library of them, and does
not affect disdain for their accumulations Of
knowledge yet, somehow, " he says, 81
don't seem TO find what want in books
once asked him, also, how he made his
calculations. The answer was 81 don't
know exactly but | can't do them on pa
per, have to be moving around" That
he does them efficiently, however, is shown
by the results, have also in mind St this
moment the incident of a well known ply
sicist Of my acquaintance, a man of high
scientific rank and rare mathematical at
tainments, who had done an immense
amount of figuring on some point which he
mentioned TO Edison, without being able e
reach a satisfactory conclusion. Edison at
once, though having only few minutes
for consideration, gave him the result anC
convinced him of its accuracy, much to hi,
surprise and admiration,
Keeping a diary is not what il is cracked up t,