EDISON’S METHOD IN INVENTING
If one were allowed only two words with which to describe Edison it is doubtful whether a close examination of the entire dictionary would disclose any others more suitable than “experimenter-inventor.” These would express the overruling characteristics of his eventful career.
His life as child, boy, and man has revealed the born investigator with original reasoning powers, unlimited imagination, and daring method. It is not surprising, therefore, that a man of this kind should exhibit a ceaseless, absorbing desire for knowledge, willing to spend his last cent in experimentation to satisfy the cravings of an inquiring mind.
There is nothing of the slap-dash style in Edison’s experiments. While he “tries everything,” it is not merely the mixing of a little of this, some of that, and a few drops of the other, in the hope that something will come of it. On the contrary, his instructions are always clear-cut and direct, and must be followed out systematically, exactly, and minutely, no matter where they lead nor how long the experiment may take.
Unthinking persons have had a notion that some of Edison’s successes have been due to mere dumb fool luck—to fortunate “happenings.” Nothing could be farther from the truth, for, on the contrary, it is owing almost entirely to his comprehensive knowledge, the breadth of his conception, the daring originality of his methods, and minuteness and extent of experiment, combined with patient, unceasing perseverance, that new arts have been created and additions made to others already in existence.
One of the first things Edison does in beginning a new line of investigation is to master the literature of the subject. He wants to know what has been done before. Not that he considers this as final, for he often obtains vastly different results by repeating in his own way the experiments of others.
“Edison can travel along a well-used road and still find virgin soil,” remarked one of his experimenters recently, who had been trying to make a certain compound, but with poor success. Edison tried it in the same way, but made a change in one of the operations and succeeded.
Another of the experimental staff says: “Edison is never hindered by theory, but resorts to actual experiment for proof. For instance, when he conceived the idea of pouring a complete concrete house it was universally held that it would be impossible because the pieces of stone in the mixture would not rise to the level of the pouring-point, but would gravitate to a lower plane in the soft cement. This, however, did not hinder him from making a series of experiments which resulted in an invention that proved conclusively the contrary.”
Having conceived some new idea and read everything obtainable relating to the subject in general, Edison’s fertility of resource and originality come into play. He will write in one of the laboratory note-books a memorandum of the experiments to be tried, and, if necessary, will illustrate by sketches.
This book is then given to one of the large staff of experimenters. Here strenuousness and a prompt carrying on of the work are required. The results of each experiment must be recorded in the notebook, and daily or more frequent reports are expected. Edison does not forget what is going on, but in his daily tours through the laboratory keeps in touch with the work of all the experimenters. His memory is so keen and retentive that he is as fully aware of the progress and details of each of the numerous experiments constantly going on as if he had made them all himself.
The use of laboratory note-books was begun early in the Menlo Park days and has continued ever since. They are plain blank-books, each about eight and a half by six inches, containing about two hundred pages. At the present time there are more than one thousand of these books in the series. On their pages are noted Edison’s ideas, sketches, and memoranda, together with records of countless thousands of experiments made by him or under his direction during more than thirty years.
These two hundred thousand or more pages cover investigations into every department of science, showing the operations of a master mind seeking to surprise Nature into a betrayal of her secrets by asking her the same question in a hundred different ways. The breadth of thought, thoroughness of method, infinite detail, and minuteness of investigation proceeding from the workings of one mind would surpass belief were they not shown by this wonderful collection of note-books.
A remark made by one of the staff, who has been experimenting at the laboratory for over twenty years, is suggestive. He said: “Edison can think of more ways of doing a thing than any man I ever saw or heard of. He tries everything and never lets up, even though failure is apparently staring him in the face. He only stops when he simply can’t go any farther on that particular line. When he decides on any mode of procedure he gives his notes to the experimenter and lets him alone, only stopping in from time to time to look at the operations and receive reports of progress.”
The idea of attributing great successes to “genius” has always been repudiated by Edison, as evidenced by his historic remark that “genius is one per cent, inspiration and ninety-nine per cent, perspiration.” Again, in a conversation many years ago between Edison, Batchelor, and E. H. Johnson, the latter made allusion to Edison’s genius, when Edison replied:
“Stuff! I tell you genius is hard work, stick-to-it-iveness, and common sense.”
“Yes,” said Johnson, “I admit there is all that to it, but there’s still more. Batch and I have those qualifications, but, although we knew quite a lot about telephones, and worked hard, we couldn’t invent a brand-new non-infringing telephone receiver as you did when Gouraud cabled for one. Then, how about the subdivision of the electric light?”
“Electric current,” corrected Edison.
“True,” continued Johnson; “you were the one to make that very distinction. The scientific world had been working hard on subdivision for years, using what appeared to be common sense. Results, worse than nil. Then you come along, and about the first thing you do, after looking the ground over, is to start off in the opposite direction, which subsequently proves to be the only possible way to reach the goal. It seems to me that this is pretty close to the dictionary definition of genius.”
It is said that Edison replied rather incoherently and changed the topic of conversation.
This innate modesty, however, does not prevent Edison from recognizing and classifying his own methods of investigation. In a conversation with two old associates a number of years ago he remarked: “It has been said of me that my methods are empirical. That is true only so far as chemistry is concerned. Did you ever realize that practically all industrial chemistry is colloidal in its nature? Hard rubber, celluloid, glass, soap, paper, and lots of others, all have to deal with amorphous substances, as to which comparatively little has been really settled. My methods are similar to those followed by Luther Burbank. He plants an acre, and when this is in bloom he inspects it. He has a sharp eye, and can pick out of thousands a single plant that has promise of what he wants. From this he gets the seed, and uses his skill and knowledge in producing from it a number of new plants which, on development, furnish the means of propagating an improved variety in large quantity. So, when I am after a chemical result that I have in mind I may make hundreds or thousands of experiments out of which there may be one that promises results in the right direction. This I follow up to its legitimate conclusion, discarding the others, and usually get what I am after. There is no doubt about this being empirical; but when it comes to problems of a mechanical nature, I want to tell you that all I’ve ever tackled and solved have been done by hard, logical thinking.” The intense earnestness and emphasis with which this was said were very impressive to the auditors.
If, in following out his ideas, an experiment does not show the results that Edison wants, it is not regarded as a failure, but as something learned. This attitude is illustrated by his reply to Mr. Mallory, who expressed regret that the first nine thousand and odd experiments on the storage battery had been without results. Edison replied, with a smile: “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I have found several thousand things that won’t work.”
Edison’s patient, plodding methods do not always appear on the note-books. For instance, a suggestion in one of them refers to a stringy, putty-like mass being made of a mixture of lampblack and tar. Some years afterward one of the laboratory assistants was told to make some and roll it into filaments. After a time he brought the mass to Edison and said:
“There’s something wrong about this, for it crumbles even after manipulating it with my fingers.”
“How long did you knead it?” asked Edison.
“Oh, more than an hour,” was the reply.
“Well, keep on for a few hours more and it will come out all right,” was the rejoinder. And this proved to be correct.
With the experimenter or employee who exercises thought Edison has unbounded patience, but to the careless, stupid, or lazy person he is a terror for the short time they remain around him. Once, when asked why he had parted with a certain man, he said: “Oh, he was so slow that it would take him half an hour to get out of the field of a microscope.”
Edison’s practical way of testing a man’s fitness for special work is no joke, according to Mr. J. H. Vail, formerly one of the Menlo Park staff. “I wanted a job,” he said, “and was ambitious to take charge of the dynamo-room. Mr. Edison led me to a heap of junk in a corner and said: ‘Put that together and let me know when it is running.’ I didn’t know what it was, but received a liberal education in finding out. It proved to be a dynamo, which I finally succeeded in assembling and running. I got the job.”
A somewhat similar experience is related by Mr. John F. Ott, who, in 1869, applied for work. This is the conversation that took place, led by Edison’s question:
“What do you want?”
“Work.”
“Can you make this machine work?” (exhibiting it and explaining its details).
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, you needn’t pay me if I don’t.”
And thus Mr. Ott went to work and accomplished the results desired. Two weeks afterward Edison put him in charge of the shop. From that day to this, Mr. Ott has remained a member of Mr. Edison’s staff.
Examples without number could be given of Edison’s inexhaustible fund of ideas, but one must suffice by way of example. In the progress of the ore-concentrating work one of the engineers submitted three sketches of a machine for some special work. They were not satisfactory. He remarked that it was too bad there was no other way to do the work. Edison said, “Do you mean to say that these drawings represent the only way to do this work?” The reply was, “I certainly do.” Edison said nothing, but two days afterward brought in his own sketches showing forty-eight other ways of accomplishing the result, and laid them on the engineer’s desk without a word. One of these ideas, with slight changes, was afterward adopted.
This chapter could be continued to great length, but must now be closed in the hope that in the foregoing pages the reader may have caught an adequate glance of Mr. Edison at work.
XXIV
EDISON’S LABORATORY AT ORANGE
If Longfellow’s youth “Who through an Alpine village passed” had been Edison, the word upon his banner would probably not have been “Excelsior” but “Experiment.” This seems to be the watchword of his life, and is well illustrated by a remark made to Mr. Mason, the superintendent of the cement works: “You must experiment all the time; if you don’t the other fellow will, and then he will get ahead of you.”
For some years after closing the little laboratory in his mother’s cellar Edison made a laboratory of any nook or corner and experimented as long as he had a dollar in his pocket. The first place he began to do larger things was in Newark, where he established his first shops.
While life there was very strenuous, he tells of some amusing experiences: “Some of my assistants in those days were very green in the business. One day I got a new man and told him to conduct a certain experiment. He got a quart of ether and started to boil it over a naked flame. Of course it caught fire. The flame was about four feet in diameter and eleven feet high. The fire department came and put a stream through the window. That let all the fumes and chemicals out and overcame the firemen.
“Another time we experimented with a tubful of soapy water and put hydrogen into it to make large bubbles. One of the boys, who was washing bottles in the place, had read in some book that hydrogen was explosive, so he proceeded to blow the tub up. There was about four inches of soap in the bottom of the tub, which was fourteen inches high, and he filled it with soap-bubbles up to the rim. Then he took a bamboo fish-pole, put a piece of lighted paper at the end and touched it off. It blew every window out of the place.”
We have seen that Edison moved to Menlo Park, where he had a very complete laboratory, in which he brought out a large number of important inventions. After a time, however, this establishment was outgrown and lost many of its possibilities, and he began to plan a still greater one which should be the most complete of its kind in the world.
The Orange laboratory, as was originally planned, consisted of a main building two hundred and fifty feet long and three stories in height, together with four other structures, each one hundred by twenty-five feet and only one story in height. All these were substantially built of brick. The main building was divided into five chief divisions—the library, office, machine-shops, experimental and chemical rooms, and stock-rooms. The small buildings were to be used for various purposes.
A high picket fence, with a gate, surrounded these buildings. A keeper was stationed at the gate with instructions to admit no strangers without a pass. On one occasion a new gateman was placed in charge, and, not knowing Edison, refused to admit him until he could get some one to come out and identify him.
The library is a spacious room about forty by thirty-five feet. Around the sides of the room run two tiers of gallery. The main floor and the galleries are divided into alcoves, in which, on the main floor, are many thousands of books. In the galleries are still more books and periodicals of all kinds, also cabinets and shelves containing mineralogical and geological specimens and thousands of samples of ores and minerals from all parts of the world. In a corner of one of the galleries may be seen a large number of magazines relating to electricity, chemistry, engineering, mechanics, building, cement, building materials, drugs, water and gas power, automobiles, railroads, aeronautics, philosophy, hygiene, physics, telegraphy, mining, metallurgy, metals, music, and other subjects; also theatrical weeklies, as well as the proceedings and transactions of various learned and technical societies. All of these form part of Mr. Edison’s current reading. At one end of the main floor of the library, which is handsomely and comfortably furnished, is Mr. Edison’s desk, at which he may usually be seen for a while in the early morning hours or at noon looking over his mail.
The centre of the library is left open for the reception of visitors, and one corner is partitioned off to provide a private office for Mr. Edison’s son, Charles, who is the President and active manager of the various Edison industries. Directly opposite to the entrance-door is a beautiful marble statue representing the supremacy of electric light over gas. This statue was purchased by Mr. Edison at the Paris Exposition in 1889.
A glance at the book-shelves affords a revelation of the subjects in which Edison is interested, for the titles of the volumes include astronomy, botany, chemistry, dynamics, electricity, engineering, forestry, geology, geography, mechanics, mining, medicine, metallurgy, magnetism, philosophy, psychology, physics, steam, steam-engines, telegraphy, telephony, and many others. These are not all of Edison’s books by any means, for he has another big library in his house on the hill.
Turning to pass out of the library, one’s attention is arrested by a cot standing in one of the alcoves near the door. Sometimes during long working hours Mr. Edison will throw himself down for a nap. He has the ability to go to sleep instantly, and, being deaf, noises do not disturb his slumber. The instant he awakes he is in full possession of his faculties and goes “back to the job” without a moment’s hesitation.
Immediately outside the library is the famous stock-room, about which much has been written. Edison planned to have in this stock-room some quantity, great or small, of every known substance not easily perishable, together with the most complete assortment of chemicals and drugs that experience and knowledge could suggest. His theory was, and is, that he does not know in advance what he may want at any moment, and he planned to have anything that could be thought of ready at hand.
Thus, the stock-room is not only a museum, but a sample-room of nature, as well as a supply department. At first glance the collection is bewildering, but when classified is more easily comprehended.
The classification is natural, as, for instance, objects pertaining to various animals, birds, and fishes, such as skins, hides, hair, fur, feathers, wool, quills, down, bristles, teeth, bones, hoofs, horns, tusks, shells; natural products such as woods, barks, roots, leaves, nuts, seeds, gums, grains, flowers, meals, bran; also minerals in great assortment; mineral and vegetable oils, clay, mica, ozokerite, etc. In the line of textiles, cotton and silk threads in great variety, with woven goods of all kinds, from cheese-cloth to silk plush. As for paper, there is everything in white and color, from thinnest tissue up to the heaviest asbestos, even a few newspapers being always on hand. Twines of all sizes, inks, wax, cork, tar, rosin, pitch, asphalt, plumbago, glass in sheets and tubes, and a host of miscellaneous articles are revealed on looking around the shelves, as well as an interminable collection of chemicals including acids, alkalies, salts, reagents, every conceivable essential oil, and all the thinkable extracts. It may be remarked that this collection includes the eighteen hundred or more fluorescent salts made by Edison during his experiments for the best material for a fluoroscope in the early X-ray period. All known metals in form of sheet, rod, and tube, and of great variety in thickness, are here found also, together with a most complete assortment of tools and accessories for machine-shop and laboratory work.
The list above given is not by any means complete. In detail it would stretch out to a rather large catalogue. It is not by any means an idle collection, for a stock clerk is kept busy all the day answering demands upon him.
Beyond the stock-room is a good-sized machine-shop, well equipped, in which the heavier class of models and mechanical devices are made. Attached to these are the engine-room and boiler-room. Above, on the second floor, is another machine-shop, in which is carried on work of greater precision and fineness in the construction of tools and experimental models.
There are many experimental rooms on the second and third floors of the laboratory building. In these the various experimenters are at work carrying out the ideas of Mr. Edison on the great variety of subjects to which he is constantly devoting his attention. One cannot go far in the upper floors without being aware that efforts are being made to improve the phonograph, for the sounds of vocal and instrumental music can be heard from all sides.
On the third floor the visitor may see a number of glass-fronted cabinets containing a multitude of experimental incandescent lamps, and an immense variety of models of phonographs, motors, telegraph and telephone apparatus, and a host of other inventions, upon which Mr. Edison’s energies have at one time or other been bent. Here are also many boxes of historical instruments and models. In fact, this hallway, with its variety of contents, may well be considered a scientific attic.
In the early days of the Orange laboratory some of the upper rooms contained cots for the benefit of the night-workers. In spite of the strenuous nights and days the spirit of fun was frequently in evidence. One instance will serve as an illustration.
One morning about two-thirty the late Charles Batchelor said he was tired and would go to bed. Leaving Edison and the others busily working, he went out and returned quietly in slippered feet, with his night-gown on, the handle of a feather-duster down his back with the feathers waving over his head, and his face marked. With unearthly howls and shrieks, a l’Indien, he pranced about the room, incidentally giving Edison a scare that made him jump up from his work. He saw the joke quickly, however, and joined in the general merriment caused by this prank.
A description of the laboratory building would be incomplete without mention of room Number 12. This is one of Edison’s favorite rooms, where he may frequently be found seated at a plain table in the center of the room deeply intent on one of his numerous problems. It is a plain little room, but seems to exercise a nameless fascination for him.
Passing out of the building, we come to the four smaller buildings, which are known as Numbers One, Two, Three, and Four. The building Number One is called the galvanometer room. Edison originally planned that this should be used for the most delicate and minute electrical measurements. He went to great expense in fitting it up and in providing a large number of costly instruments, but the coming of the trolley near by a few years afterward rendered the room utterly useless for this purpose. It is now used as an experimental room, chiefly for motion-picture experiments.
Building Number Two is quite an important one. As the visitor arrives at the door he is quite conscious that it is a chemical-room. Here a corps of chemists is constantly kept busy in carrying out the various experiments Mr. Edison has given them to perform. This room is also one of his special haunts. He may be seen here very frequently experimenting in person, or seated at a plain little table figuring out some new combination that he has in mind.
A chemical store-room and a pattern-maker’s shop occupy building Number Three, while Number Four, which was formerly used for ore concentrating experiments, is now used as a general stock-room.
We have only attempted to afford the reader a passing glance of this interesting laboratory, which for many years has been the headquarters of Edison and the central source of inspiration for the great industries he has established at Orange. Around it are grouped a number of immense concrete buildings in which the manufacture of phonographs, motion-pictures, and storage batteries is carried on, giving employment to as many as four thousand people during busy times.
Needless to say, the laboratory has many visitors. Celebrities of all kinds and distinguished foreigners are numerous, coming from all parts of the world to see the great inventor and the scene of his activities.
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