38. The Man of a Thousand Ideas




Short Stories of Science and Invention A Collection of Radio Talks by Charles F. Kettering INDEX		*38.* *The Man of a Thousand Ideas* Because of the variety and number of Edison's inventions, we are apt to get the impression that these things came to him easily - that they were just flashes of genius. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is one story about Edison that illustrates not only this point but brings out his ability to use a fact whether it was good or bad. Edison was hard at work experimenting on an important invention. In spite of numerous attempts he could not get the result he wanted. All his efforts failed. A sympathetic friend said to him, "It's too bad to do all of that work for nothing." "But it's not for nothing." said Edison. "We have got a lot of good results. Look now, we know 700 things that won't work." A further illustration of this tenacity of purpose is demonstrated by his search for the best filament material for his incandescent lamp. For eighteen to twenty hours a day he experimented with all sorts of materials - from human hair to plant fiber from the South Seas - until one day he found that carbonized bamboo fiber gave the best results. Most people would have stopped there but not Edison - he had to find the best type of fiber. As one writer said, "He ransacked the earth from the Malay Peninsula to the jungles of the Amazon. He tried 6,000 varieties and it cost him over one hundred thousand dollars until he found the ideal type in the South American jungle."