Abstract
I didn’t have much faith that [my first tinfoil Phonograph] would work, expecting that I might possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted “Mary had a little lamb”, etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved that there were great drawbacks found generally before they could be got commercial; but here was something there was no doubt of.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Edison quoted in Dyer and Martin, Edison, His Life and Inventions. 208.
- 2.
Ibid., 2: 612.
- 3.
Bill Gates. “How to Keep America Competitive.” The Washington Post, 25 February 2007 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301697.html.
- 4.
Edison. Phonograph or Speaking Machine.
- 5.
Ibid.
- 6.
Peter Kroes and Anthonie Meijers, “The Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts - Presentation of a New Research Programme,” Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 6, no. 2 (2002).
- 7.
Mitcham also questions some other of the “dual nature” model of artefacts in Carl Mitcham, “Do Artifacts Have Dual Natures? Two Points of Commentary on the Delft Project,” ibid.
- 8.
Thomas A Edison. Preserving Fruit. US Patent 248,431, filed 14 December 1880, and issued 18 October, 1881.
- 9.
TAEB 3:969.
- 10.
TAEB 4:1426.
- 11.
Edison. Electric Lamp.
- 12.
William Vanderbilt (1821–1885) American Financier. Eldest son of Cornelius Vanderbilt, William took over his father’s financial empire on his death in 1877 and was an early investor in Edison’s electric lighting project which he saw as a threat to the Vanderbilt family’s existing gaslight investments.
- 13.
TAEB 3:767n1.
- 14.
TAEB 4:1194.
- 15.
Basalla, The Evolution of Technology.
- 16.
Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf, 1992).
- 17.
John Ziman, ed. Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
- 18.
Basalla, The Evolution of Technology, 52.
- 19.
quoted in Conot, A Streak of Luck, 284.
- 20.
Bell. Improvement in Telegraphy.
- 21.
quoted in Conot, A Streak of Luck, 469.
- 22.
Ibid., 18.
- 23.
Ezra Gilliland (1846–1903) A telegrapher and inventor like Edison. Gilliland worked with Edison on many early inventions, then later during Edison’s Menlo Park period. Their friendship ended in 1889, as many of Edison’s did, in acrimonious dispute. Gilliland moved to Edison’s rivals Bell telephone and then Gray’s Western Union.
- 24.
Friedel, Israel, and Finn, Edison’s Electric Light: Biography of an Invention, 115.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wills, I. (2019). Innovation Must Fail. In: Thomas Edison: Success and Innovation through Failure. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29940-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29940-8_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29939-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29940-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)