The Papers of Thomas A. Edison

The second volume of The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, which covers the inventor's life from the end of June 1873 to the end of March 1876, reveals a remarkable diversity of activities and interests. During his late twenties Thomas Edison pursued his pathbreaking work in telegraph technology, formed a business alliance with the notorious financier Jay Gould, and became embroiled in a bitter legal battle over commercial rights to his quadruplex telegraph. Praise for previous volumes of The Papers of Thomas A. Edison:"The essence of the volume is Edison's technical notebooks, a window onto the inventor's workshop. His lucidity comes through everywhere . . . His writing and drawing come together as a single, vigorous thought process."—Russell McCormmach, New York Times."A mine of material . . . Scrupulously edited . . . No one could ask for more . . . A choplicking feast for Edison biographers—well into the next century, and perhaps beyond."—Fred Howard, Washington Post."A triumph of the bookmaker's art, with splendidly arranged illustrations, essential background information, and cautionary reminders of the common sources on which Edison's imagination drew."—David Joravsky, New York Review of Books."In the pages of this volume Edison the man, his work, and his times come alive . . . A delight to browse through or to read carefully."—Thomas J. Misa, Science

Science Notes - The Sixth Annual Thomas Edison / Max McGraw Scholarship Program

The Thomas Alva Edison Foundation and the Max McGraw Foundation are co-sponsoring a scholarship program open to all high school students with an interest in science and engineering

Thomas Edison/Max McGraw Scholarship

The Thomas Alva Edison Foundation and the Max McGraw Foundation are once again co-sponsoring a scholar hip program which this year will be open to all high school students with an interest in science and engineering

Chapter 1: Historical Underpinnings of Public Administration

In the late 19th century, a scientific feud of epic proportions commenced between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison over electrical systems. Patents, bragging rights, and legacies were all on the line as the intellectual battle raged between Tesla’s alternating-current (AC) versus Edison’s direct-current (DC) electrical systems. Even today, any diehard science geek holds an opinion on whether Tesla or Edison was the real Father of Invention. In much the same way, the field of public administration has a complicated and conflicted genealogy

The Papers of Thomas A. Edison

With his move from Menlo Park, New Jersey, to New York City at the end of March 1881, Edison shifted his focus from research and development to the commercialization of his electric lighting system. This volume of The Papers of Thomas A. Edison chronicles Edison's central role in the enormous effort to manufacture, market, and install electric lighting systems in the United States and abroad. Standard studies of this period emphasize the inauguration of the commercial electric utility industry at the Pearl Street central station. Edison and his associates, however, audaciously operated on a global scale, not just focusing on the major cities of North America and Europe but reaching simultaneously from Appleton, Wisconsin, to Australia, through the Indian subcontinent and East Asia, to Central and South America.Praise for The Papers of Thomas A. Edison:"A mine of material . . . Scrupulously edited . . . No one could ask for more . . . A choplicking feast for future Edison biographers—well into the next century, and perhaps beyond."—Washington Post“What is most extraordinary about the collection isn't necessarily what it reveals about Edison's inventions . . . It's the insight into the process.”—Associated Press"Those interested in America's technological culture can eagerly look forward to the appearance of each volume of the Edison Papers."—Technology and Culture"His lucidity comes through everywhere . . . His writing and drawing come together as a single, vigorous thought process."—New York Times"A triumph of the bookmaker's art, with splendidly arranged illustrations, essential background information, and cautionary reminders of the common sources on which Edison's imagination drew."—New York Review of Books"In the pages of this volume Edison the man, his work, and his times come alive . . . A delight to browse through or to read carefully."—Science"Beyond its status as the resource for Edison studies, providing a near inexhaustible supply of scholarly fodder, this series . . . will surely become a model for such projects in the future . . . The sheer diversity of material offered here refreshingly transcends any exclusive restriction to Edisonia."—British Journal for the History of Scienc

Your Help Needed

The Thomas Alva Edison Foundation is undertaking a project to produce, on videotape, a number of outstanding science lectures that can be made available on a loan or purchase basis to junior and senior high school science teachers across the nation

The eroticism of artificial flesh in Villiers de L'Isle Adam's L'Eve Future

Villiers de L'Isle Adam's 'L'Eve Future' published in 1886 features a fictional version of the inventor Thomas Edison who constructs a complex, custom-made android for Englishman Lord Ewald as a substitute for his unsatisfactory lover. Hadaly, the android, has a number of literary and cultural precursors and successors. Her most commonly accepted ancestor is Olympia in E. T. A. Hoffmann's 'The Sandman' (1816) and among her fascinating descendants are Oskar Kokoschka's 'Silent Woman'; Model Borghild, a sex doll designed by German technicians during World War II;‘Caracas' in Tommaso Landolfi's short story ‘Gogol's Wife' (1954); a variety of gynoids and golems from the realms of science fiction, including Ira Levin's 'Stepford Wives' (1972); and, most recently, that silicon masterpiece - the Real Doll. All, arguably, have their genesis in the classical myth of Pygmalion. This essay considers the tension between animation and stasis in relation to this myth, and explores the necrophiliac aesthetic implicit in Villiers's novel

Scholarly communication: The quest for Pasteur's Quadrant

The scholarly communication system is sustained by its functions of a) registration, b) certification or legitimization, c) dissemination and awareness d) archiving or curation and e) reward. These functions have remained stable during the development of scholarly communication but the means through which they are achieved have not. It has been a long journey from the days when scientists communicated primarily through correspondence. The impact of modern-day technological changes is significant and has destabilized the scholarly communication system to some extent because many more options have become available to communicate scholarly information with. Pasteur's Quadrant was articulated by Donald E Stokes in his book Pasteur's Quadrant Basic Science and Technological Innovation. It is the idea that basic science (as practiced by Niels Bohr) and applied science (as exemplified by Thomas Edison) can be brought together to create a synergy that will produce results of significant benefit, as Louis Pasteur did. Given the theory (fundamental understanding) we have of scholarly communication and given how modern-day technological advances can be applied, a case can be made that use-inspired basic research (Pasteur's Quadrant) should be the focus for current research in scholarly communication. In doing so the different types of digital scholarly resources and their characteristics must be investigated to determine how the fundamentals of scholarly communication are being supported. How libraries could advocate for and contribute to the improvement of scholarly communication is also noted. These resources could include: e-journals, repositories, reviews, annotated content, data, pre -print and working papers servers, blogs, discussion forums, professional and academic hubs

Spirited Away

At first sight the fields of magic and science do not have much of an overlap. This notion however is completely untrue for the fairly long period between 1860 and 1930. A surprisingly high number of scientists and inventors of this time were fascinated by spiritualism and believed in the existence of paranormal forces. Marie Curie for example regarded mediumistic séances as "scientific experiments" and thought it possible to discover in spiritualism the source of an unknown energy that would reveal the secret of radioactivity. Thomas Ava Edison for his part announced an extension to his phonograph in 1921 that would extract thoughts and feelings from dead bodies in order to store and play them back. He claimed that this was possible due the existence of "life units" - tiny energy particles that are the scientifically proved equivalent to the human soul Away from ideological judgment these examples illuminate an interesting crossover between the utopian vision of a boundless technology that helps to reveal even more mysteries of the immaterial world and an anti-modernist thought-space that is filled and nourished by ghost stories, an animistic world outlook and a dazzling array of esoteric philosophies. In this context the praxis of the commercial magical show plays a very interesting and intermediate roll that connects and correlates these two assumed opposite spheres