Thomas Alva Edison (11.11 1847-18.X 1931) — American inventor, member of the National Academy of Sciences (1927). Born in Milan. From the age of 12 he worked as a newsboy, then (1863) as a telegraph operator. In 1868 he took up inventing, set up (1870) a laboratory in Newark, then in 1876 in Menlo Park, and from 1887 in West Orange headed the inventors' centre he had organised.
He improved Bell's telephone and the incandescent lamp, invented the phonograph in 1877 and himself improved it in 1889, developed a lighting system, and designed the screw socket and base, the fuse, the electricity meter, the rotary switch, the recorder, the megaphone and others. He introduced into practice the parallel connection of lamps, built electric generators of what was then exceptional power and put into operation in 1881 the first thermal power station with a branched network for the supply of electricity. He invented the railway brake, alkaline iron-nickel accumulators and an apparatus for recording telephone conversations, and improved the cinematographic camera. He was the first to observe (1883) the phenomenon of thermionic emission (the Edison effect), and much else besides. He patented more than 1000 inventions.
Foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1930).