legacy of thomas alva edison

Heard on Talk of the Nation

March 9, 2007 - IRA FLATOW, host:

This is TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow.

Consider all the e-mail messages, text messages, the videos, the phone calls, everything, all the information that goes around on the Internet, on the Web, around the world. How much information do you think there is there? Give me a number in gigabytes. Well, there was one study out today that's carried by the Associated Press that puts that number at 161 billion gigabytes. How much is that? Well, three millions times information in all the books ever written. It's hard to imagine that number - a number that big, and it's hard to imagine that just over a hundred years ago the closest thing we had to an instant message was a telegraph. And before that, if you wanted to send someone a message, you carried it by an actual physical messenger. Sometimes you killed the messenger, but that's a different story.

The times have changed, and much of that change can be traced back, at least in this modern era that we have, to one prolific inventor, a man - perhaps the first celebrity inventor - Thomas Edison. My guest right now has written a book about Edison and how his inventions shaped the world we live in. Randall Stross is a professor of business at San Jose State University. He also writes the Digital Domain column for the New York Times. He's written several books and this one, his latest, is called "The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World." And he joins us from KQED in San Francisco. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Stross.

Dr. RANDALL STROSS (Author, "The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World"): Hi.

FLATOW: How are you?

Dr. STROSS: I'm well.

FLATOW: Would he have been able to fathom the digital revolution we're in now, do you think?

Dr. STROSS: Well, most certainly. He was someone who devoted a good portion of his inventing career to communication. He worked on improving the telephone. It was invented in 1876. Edison set to work on improving the transmitter, the microphone, and the very next year he invents the phonograph. It turned out to be three really big years: 1876 for the telephone, '77 for the phonograph, and then in '78 he announces of the invention of the incandescent light bulb.

FLATOW: Did he consider the light bulb the pinnacle of his invention, of all his inventions?

Dr. STROSS: Oh, he's still a young man.

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. STROSS: All of this happened when he was in his early 30s, and he has this very eventful five-year period, beginning with the phonograph and then ending with the successful inauguration of electrical service to the lower portion of Manhattan. So he promised a light; he had not yet really perfected it. It took a few more years. He does all this in five years, and then he has to spend the next 50 years of his long life trying to make the magic come back again.

FLATOW: Hmm, so it's a case of - another case of - that inventors are very creative in their early years and have trouble later on.

Dr. STROSS: That was the case. He tried many other things. Some of them turned out to be quite successful. He was among a group of several inventive minds that put their creativity to work trying to make early motion picture cameras.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

Dr. STROSS: But he also followed some dead ends, and those we don't remember. We remember his successes, and this is one of the virtues of being the most famous inventor celebrity.

FLATOW: Well...

Dr. STROSS: He is not remembered for the failures.

FLATOW: Well, one of his great failures, from what I read, is that he refused to accept alternating current as the way to go.

Dr. STROSS: That was one of the big battles he fought, and he was on the losing side. He backed direct current, and he held onto direct current far too long, to the detriment of his company.

FLATOW: We'll get into that a little bit more, because I want to ask you first - lots of books have been written about Thomas Edison; what new did you learn about the man in your research and in your writing?

Dr. STROSS: Previous biographies have tended to focus on the earliest inventions and not encompass the entire life. What I ended up doing was looking very intensively at how he became very famous very early, in the course of announcing the phonograph and announcing the electric light, and then I follow his career that follows, that is really a quest to make the magic come back again, and he tries again and again.

And what the public asks of him is that he be available. We have a need to have someone like a Thomas Edison, and he was more than happy to comply, but he was also imprisoned by this celebrity. He never had privacy. Once he became famous, he became our property, and so he and his family paid a high cost for his prominence. He became at times the most famous name in the world, as surveys revealed.

FLATOW: It's hard to imagine to today, where science is not held up in such high esteem, that the most famous person in the world, and people that - and kids wanted to grow up to be was an inventor.

Dr. STROSS: It didn't happen before, and I suppose you could say it'd be hard for it to happy today. Do we have anyone comparable who could make the claim of being as well known for his inventions? That would be hard to imagine. He was at the right place at the right time. He was building his career at a time when a number of new technologies are coming within grasp.

And in a way you could say, going back to the phonograph, he was the first inventor to create consumer electronics before there was electronics.

FLATOW: Would you - and he created such a paradigm - I'm trying to think of someone around today who's created a paradigm shift, an inventor. The closest I could come up with, it would be something like the iPod, you know, creating a paradigm shift of how we think of music and recording and taking it with us versus being strapped down. Is there - would you look at Steve Jobs and say, well, maybe there is some sort of comparison between he and Thomas Edison?

Dr. STROSS: Certainly, and the - one of the similarities is both are working in a field that offers entertainment in a very personal way to a mass market. Jobs does not have any patents to his name personally, and Edison had for many years, until very recently, the record number of patents, U.S. patents. One thing that I think ties the iPod to the original phonograph is that in both cases you've got something that is physically small. And because of its smallness it has a miraculous seeming capability. The original phonograph was a small device, and this created a lot of wonder, because before the phonograph - and this original phonograph was really very simple. It was a cylinder that had a crank on one end, a sheet of tin foil was wrapped around it, a stylus attached to something that served as a kind of microphone rested on top of it, and that was all it was.

And when it was unveiled in the offices of Scientific American, the editors were so amazed that this little thing could produce a sound that was recognizable that they literally stopped the presses.

They had an issue that was in production. They stopped it. They had to insert a description of what they'd witnessed in their offices.

Here's one more connection between Edison and Steve Jobs. When Jobs unveiled the Macintosh in 1984, he put the machine in front of a large audience. He put it on a table, and it was covered. He lifts the bag and he has the Macintosh literally introduce itself, and it caused a sensation. Edison had done something very similar when he went to unveil the phonograph at Scientific American. He put it on the table, and he had prerecorded an introduction. So he turns the crank, and it introduces itself. It says, hi, I'm a phonograph, how are you, just as the Macintosh said, hi, I'm Macintosh.

FLATOW: Let's listen to a little bit. We have a re-recording of his famous first words that Edison spoke into a phonograph, and Edison actually re-recorded them at the 50th anniversary celebrating that invention.

(Soundbite of recording)

Mr. THOMAS EDISON (Inventor): The first words I spoke in the original phonograph, a little piece of practical poetry. Mary had a little lamb. It's fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.

FLATOW: Why did he pick that to be his original recording? Have any idea?

Dr. STROSS: No one in his lab ever explained that. It was used again and again and again. And like a classic rock band, he was condemned to play the same song...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. STROSS: ...over and over and over. You have to feel sorry for him.

FLATOW: Uh-huh, and did it - was it immediate success, the phonograph?

Dr. STROSS: It was not only an immediate success, it was successful before there really was a working phonograph.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. STROSS: It was the idea of the phonograph...

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. STROSS: ...that excited the world. It would be another 10 years before there was a phonograph that people could buy that was made available.

FLATOW: You know, and I'm thinking, you know, around the same time the typewriter was invented, and no one bought that. Here you had the phonograph. It was an audio device. And the typewriter, a written device, and no one was doing that.

Dr. STROSS: The phonograph, in Edison's mind, was destined to revolutionize the office. He conceived of it as most importantly as a dictation device. And it was going to be others, consumers, who would embrace it as a device for playing recorded music, and Edison actually fought that use. He thought that was an undignified...

FLATOW: Huh.

Dr. STROSS: ...application of - commercial application. Music was just a novelty, but the market eventually had to convince him that music actually was a really good way of using this invention.

FLATOW: You know, there's sort of a similar sensibility about that, because when Bell invented the telephone, people said you're going to speak into something? There's no money to be made in making phone calls. It should be a business device. We wanted you to build a business device, not a speaking device. Didn't think the consumer was important. It was the business side that was important.

Dr. STROSS: That is going to have to be discovered itself. Not only the inventions have to come, but the discovery of a market that consumers create that was not in place in the 1870s.

FLATOW: Well, we're going to take a short break and come back and talk lots more about Thomas Edison. We'll also pick Randall Stross's brain about the future of where communications may be going. He's written a lot about Edison in his book "The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World." But he's also writing the Digital Domain column for the New York Times, so we'll get into - we'll get to the digital domain. Our number 1-800-989-8255, 1-800-989-TALK if you'd like to talk about Edison or the digital domain and compare the two and where we might be headed in the next paradigm shift.

Stay with us. We'll be right back after this short break.

(Soundbite of music)

FLATOW: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking with Randall Stross who writes the Digital Domain column for the New York Times. His new book is "The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World. Our number: 1-800-989-8255. Let's go to Ann in Syracuse, New York. Hi, Ann.

ANN (Caller): Hi.

FLATOW: Hi, there.

ANN: I wanted to ask Mr. Stross to say a few kind words about my great grandfather, John Kruesi, who was Edison's right-hand man and built that first light bulb and also the phonograph.

Dr. STROSS: I'm delighted to hear of the family connection. John Kruesi was a most valued member of the technical staff, and it was he who literally built the first phonograph. Edison drew up the plans...

ANN: Right.

Dr. STROSS: ...and he handed them to Kruesi, and Kruesi came back with the machine.

FLATOW: Ann, did he tell you about that much?

ANN: Well, I didn't know him. He died as a young man, and he was my great grandfather.

FLATOW: Uh-huh.

ANN: But the family lore is very strong. Probably lots of other progeny are out there listening and cheering. He was an orphan. He grew up in Switzerland and came to this country as a young man and went to work for Edison and just applied himself. He could build, I guess, just about anything Edison could think of.

FLATOW: Well, thank you ,that's a great story to relate. Thanks for relating it to us.

ANN: Sure, my pleasure.

FLATOW: Thanks for sharing. 1-800-989-8255...

Dr. STROSS: May I add...

FLATOW: Yes, go ahead.

Dr. STROSS: May I add, the Kruesi story is one that I think is helpful to correct the notion that Edison single-handedly built these inventions. Right from the early days, he had a crew of very talented, skillful craftsmen, in some cases university-trained mathematicians who were always there, and he was not very good at sharing the limelight with his very loyal assistants.

FLATOW: Did he employ any scientists in the strict sense of the word?

Dr. STROSS: He did, and he had a very ambivalent relationship to university-trained scientists. He would hire them, he would use them, but he would also upon occasion find ways to humiliate them, mocking their university training, which he viewed as inimical to practical understanding. For example, he gave one of his - this is a very early Ph.D. scientist - an assignment to measure the cubic area of a light bulb, and the assistant spent all night doing complex calculations. And in the morning, he presented his findings to Edison, and Edison said, well, here's a simpler way. And of course he went over to a faucet and filled it up and...

FLATOW: Dunked the bulb in.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. STROSS: Right, and everyone was witnessing this...

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. STROSS: ...and it was a way of showing that Edison, who had no formal education, just had a few years of home schooling, could best the Ph.D.

FLATOW: Eureka. But he did have this dark side. This whole episode about the war of the currents with George Westinghouse over alternating current, where he electrocuted all these animals in West Orange, New Jersey, these pets, did he not?

Dr. STROSS: He did, and right up to an elephant eventually would be put to the test using alternating current. It was a rather sad chapter in Edison's career, his using animals to make his point that alternating current was more dangerous than direct current.

When New York State was considering dropping hanging as the means of capital punishment and using electrocution by an electric chair, they consulted Edison. And Edison was more than happy to give them advice where they should get the equipment, and he suggested that they get it from George Westinghouse, who was his arch rival and a backer of alternating current. One of Edison's assistants wrote the legislator, suggesting that instead of using the term to electrocute, they would - they should use instead the term to Westinghouse.

FLATOW: Hmm, just like Guillotine came...

Dr. STROSS: Right.

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. STROSS: Not an honor one wants.

FLATOW: No, and in fact he was involved in advising that first electrocution of an inmate, Kemmler, in New York State, which turned just horribly. It was almost like the movie, what was it, "The Green Light"? It was just a terrible scene, was it not?

Dr. STROSS: It was a ghastly, botched execution. Edison, prior to that, had told the state that it would go smoothly, that it would be instantaneous, that the victim would feel no pain. When it happened, they threw the switch, the poor man convulsed for an extended time, then it seemed as if he had died. The doctor pronounce him dead. They were unstrapping him when he started convulsing some more. And all of the witnesses watched as they restrapped him in, threw the switch again, and subjected him to more shocks. They had no idea how much current would be necessary to effect the execution. And newspaper accounts of this horrible scene said that almost to a person every witness who was there left and had to literally purge themselves of this nightmare by retching.

FLATOW: Yeah. 1-800-989-8255. It was "The Green Mile," the movie, not "The Green Light." Also didn't Westinghouse say they could have done it better with an axe? Let's go to Brian in Page Springs, Arizona. Hi, Brian.

BRIAN (Caller): Hi, how you doing?

FLATOW: Hi there.

BRIAN: Thanks for taking my call.

FLATOW: You're welcome.

BRIAN: I was curious - to a certain extent there - you know, Edison has definitely revolutionized the way the modern world works, but there seems to be people that have been overshadowed in history, such as Tesla. And you know, we hear about all kinds of problems as far as greenhouse emissions and things like that, and I was wondering what you might have to say about the fact that some breakthrough scientists and inventors are overshadowed or overlooked and some are embraced, and Tesla being one of them.

FLATOW: Tesla worked for Edison for a while, did he not?

Dr. STROSS: He did. He's one of actually a surprisingly large group of very talented people who all worked at one time or another for Edison and found that there was no room for their creative energies to find full play with Edison. He was someone who insisted on full control and, as I said, was not very generous in sharing credit. And so Tesla was one of these who would leave and then go on to a very successful career measured by accomplishment, not measured by public recognition.

The public, as you see in Edison's case, was not capable of having multiple inventor heroes, and once the public settled upon Edison, Edison it would be, no matter what other people did who would go on to make arguably much more far-reaching, enduring inventions in some of these fields.

FLATOW: Was that true till the end of his life?

Dr. STROSS: That he would not be generous?

FLATOW: Well, that he would not have to share the limelight with anybody. He was the man.

Dr. STROSS: Oh, it most certainly was the case right to the end. He never prepared a successor. Essentially one of his sons would lead the company after his death, but the company had hit a downward spiral in the last decades of his life, and essentially the laboratory did not outlive the man.

FLATOW: Well, I want to thank you for taking time to talk with us.

Dr. STROSS: Thank you.

FLATOW: Randall Stross is professor of business at San Joe State University. He also writes the Digital Domain column for the New York Times. His new book, "The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World," a terrific read if you're at all interested in the history of technology, certainly the turn of the last century. I've read a lot of Edison books. This is certainly up there with the best of them. Thank you, Randall, for taking time to be with us.