BRIGHT SPARKS
LIGHTS... CAMERA... EDISON. MARION McMULLEN LOOKS AT THE INVENTORS WHO SHAPED OUR WORLD
“I NEVER did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun,” claimed prolific American inventor Thomas Edison.
He patented the first motion picture projection camera 130 years ago this month, but the invention went on to land him in hot water with the Vatican when his Edison Studios company recorded the world’s first screen kiss with actors May Irwin and John Rice.
The footage, called simply The Kiss, lasted a mere 20 seconds and was a re-enactment of the final scene of a stage musical called The Widow Jones. The smooch was tame by modern standards, but it was considered utterly scandalous and created a storm of controversy at the time with the Vatican calling for it to be banned.
Luckily Edison’s other inventions did not provoke the same strong reaction and among his lifetime he came up with the idea for the lightbulb, the phonograph – the forerunner of the record player – and alkaline batteries.
He even holds the record for taking out US patents during his lifetime – more than 1,000 – and was always keen to come up with something new.
Not all of his ideas proved successful, but, as Edison explained, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.
Edison is just one of the pioneering inventors and scientists who have changed society. Self-taught scientist Michael Faraday has been hailed as the “father of electricity” and 190 years ago this month demonstrated the production of electricity from magnetism with the first transformer. The demonstration on August 29, 1831, certainly proved electrifying for everyone involved.
The British scientist began his career as a chemist before turning his mind to electromagnetism and once said: “Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature.”
The blacksmith’s son grew up in poverty in a London slum and was working as an apprentice to a bookseller and bookbinder by the time he was 14. He was later granted a house at Hampton Court by Prince Albert in recognition of his scientific work, but he is said to have turned down the offer of a knighthood. Albert Einstein even kept a photograph of the scientist on the wall of his study and Faraday himself once summed up the secret of his own success in three words – Work. Finish. Publish.
Scotsman Hubert Cecil Booth was also cleaning up 120 years ago when he patented the first powered vacuum cleaner. The engineer built his first machine in 1901 and named his design Puffing Billy. It was powered by an engine so big it had to be pulled around by horses and parked outside the house to be cleaned.
A similar machine was made for Osborne House, a training college for naval officers on the Isle of Wight. The machine was parked outside and the hoses were fed through the windows. It was originally powered by an oil engine but an electric motor was added later.
Booth went on to found the British Vacuum Cleaner Company in 1903, and his flagship product was a somewhat smaller electric device that arrived in a bright red van and was operated by experts in company uniforms.
It was soon embraced by fashionable households and even the British royal family who were keen to try the new cleaning system.
Machines that blew dust away rather than sucking it up were in use before Booth’s invention. He first tested the idea of a vacuum cleaner that sucked instead by placing a handkerchief on a chair, putting his mouth to it, and then sucking the dust through the cloth and marvelling at how much it collected.
In New Zealand, Ernest Rutherford was born 150 years ago on August 30, 1871. The pioneer of subatomic physics was one of 12 children and won the Noble Prize for chemistry in 1908 and split the atom in 1917 – not be confused with the process of nuclear fission discovered later in the 1930s.
Many of his experiments were carried out at the University of Manchester and the importance of his work was also recognised in 1931 when he was made a peer and became Lord Rutherford of Nelson.
He has become known as the “Father of Nuclear Physics” and even helped invent the Geiger counter to measure radiation levels.
Rutherford once claimed “all science is either physics or stamp collecting” and also pointed out: “If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” His ashes are now enshrined in Westminster Abbey near the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton.
As for Edison, he famously said “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”. He was an advocate of hard work and graft to get the best results.
He spent his life coming up with new ideas, but was in no doubt of his proudest achievement – never inventing a weapon that could kill.