THE HEROES OF THE AGE: (Electricity And Man)

"... Thomas Edison was more responsible than any one else for creating the modern world ....  No one did more to shape the physical/cultural makeup of  present day civilization.... Accordingly, he was the most influential figure of the millennium...."  

     Unfortunately, this experience had some negative affects on the highly impressionable boy. He was  so disillusioned by how Newton's sensational theories were written in classical aristocratic terms -which he felt were unnecessarily confusing to the average person -he overreacted and developed  a hearty dislike for all such "high-tone" language and mathematics....  On the other hand, the simple beauty of Newton's physical laws did not escape him. In fact, they very much helped him sharpen his own free wheeling style of clear thinking, proving all things to himself through his own method of objective examination and experimentation."    Tom's response to the Principia also enhanced his propensity towards gleaning insights from the writings and activities of other great men and women of wisdom,   never forgetting that even they might be entrenched in preconceived dogma and mired down in associated error....

 Oddly, a factor that  shaped Tom's personality in both a negative and a positive way was  his  poor   hearing.... Even though this condition -and the fact that he had only three months of formal schooling - prevented him from taking advantage of the benefits of a secondary education in contemporary mathematics, physics, and engineering, he never let it interfere with  finding ways   of  compensating.... More precisely,  it was this his  highly individualistic  style of acquiring knowledge that eventually  led  him to  question scores  of the prevailing theories on the workings of electricity..... Approaching  this complex field  like a "lone eagle," he  used his kaleidoscopic mind  and his legendary memory, dexterity, and patience to  perform  whatever experiments were  necessary to  come up with his own   related      theories...    "I accept almost nothing dealing with electricity without thoroughly testing it first." he often  declared.

 Returning to the story of  his youth, by age 12, Tom had  already  become an  "adult." He had  not only talked to his parents into letting him go to work selling newspapers, snacks, and candy on the local railroad, he had started an entirely separate business selling fruits and vegetables.....  And at age 14 -during the time of  the famous per-Civil War debates between Lincoln and Douglas -he exploited his access to the associated news releases that were being teletype into the station each day and published them in his own little newspaper.  he quickly enticed over 300  commuters to subscribe to his splendid little paper:  the Weekly Herald....   Interestingly, because this was the first such publication  ever to be type-set, printed, and sold on a train,  an English journal now gave him his first exposure to international notoriety when it related  this story  in 1860. 
Ultimately, Tom  became totally deaf in his left ear, and approximately 80% deaf in his right ear. Poignantly, he once stated that the worst thing about this condition was that he was unable to enjoy the beautiful sounds of singing birds.  Indeed, he loved the creatures so much, he later amassed an aviary containing  over 5,000 of them. One day while he was on the train, the station master's very young son happened to wander onto the tracks in front of an oncoming boxcar. Tom leaped to action.  Luckily - as they tumbled away from its oncoming wheels - they  ended up being only slightly injured.......TO BE CONTINUES...

Have a nice weekend.

God bless you.

Atta's Blog