Thomas A. Edison: A Streak of Luck (Da Capo series in science) [Paperback]

Robert Conot (Author)

Book Description

Series: Da Capo series in science | Publication Date: June 1979

Conot has captured the details of Edison's much publicized and celebrated scientific endeavors as well as the unpopular personal and business life. This is a well-written chronological story presenting a very `real' Edison beyond the typical school book lessons. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. interested in a more complete picture of Edison's life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Pr (June 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306802619
• ISBN-13: 978-0306802614
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #554,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally the truth about Thomas Edison., January 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Thomas A. Edison: A Streak of Luck (Da Capo series in science) (Paperback)

This book reveals the Thomas Edison you didn't learn about in elementary school. It is insightful and intelligently written. Edison claimed that invention was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. This book makes it look more like 1 percent inspiration, 10 percent perspiration, 20 percent public relations, and 69 percent luck. If you are satisfied with Edison the myth, don't read this book. If you seek the truth (perhaps in too much detail) this is for you. To my mind, the real Edison is far more interesting than the one Mrs. Goldberg taught me about in fifth grade.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At last, the details!, December 12, 2009

By 

Wrickton (NYC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas A. Edison: A Streak of Luck (Da Capo series in science) (Paperback)

It almost seems as if the other reviewers here didn't really read the book.

Forget about comparing the "real" Edison with the legend. Who cares? Buy this book for the glorious technical detail with which the technology and the age are described.

For what will delight you most about this book is the presence of the technical details of many of his inventions, and the experiments and dead ends leading up to them. And like any really good biography, you get a real feel for the era: The beginning of the electric age, when you could still understand electricity as like water in a hose, and tinker great things together with wheels and sparks.

And really, he was a tinkerer with an amazing memory and ability to draw connections between experiments conducted in largely unrelated fields. For example, Edison was trying to make a microphone by placing a needle in a dish of water and observing the changing resistance as the water's surface acted as a diaphragm and moved in response to sound. Not so good.

Meanwhile, while working on a trans-atlantic underwater telegraph cable using carbon as the conductor (Wondering why carbon? No problem, the author explains it!), he noted that the specification that worked on the surface didn't work in deep water.

In his genius, not only did he figure out that compression of the carbon changed its resistance, somehow, he connected this with his work on the microphone. The next thing you know, he's placing a carbon button under a stiff diaphragm and taking the resistance as an analog of the air pressure in the sound wave as experienced by the stiff diaphragm. Until just a few years ago, you could still find a carbon button microphone in the hand piece of every telephone.

Did you know the original idea for electric light was based on having lots and lots of dim bulbs in the room flickering on and off? All designs overheated and the research was aimed at getting the light to switch off before failure, and then back on again. Imagine it; reading by Christmas tree. Outrageous, right? Then put yourself back in time and think of the alternative: gas or candle flame.

Did you know Edison had radiation sickness? Did you know he lost most of his fortune and destroyed acres and acres of farmland trying to extract iron from ore by pulverizing it and sending the dust through an electromagnet? Did you know he made his money back by inventing the alkaline battery?

All this and more. About the lawyers and businessmen and specifics of the deals he made. About the people who worked for him. About his family and how he courted his wives and dealt with his kids (and how they coped with him).

And would you ever have thought he'd actually died of

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!, December 31, 2002

By 

T Lam (Hampton, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas A. Edison: A Streak of Luck (Da Capo series in science) (Paperback)

Conot has captured the details of Edison's much publicized and celebrated scientific endeavors as well as the unpopular personal and business life. This is a well-written chronological story presenting a very `real' Edison beyond the typical school book lessons. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in a more complete picture of Edison's life.