Monday, September 17, 2012

Thomas Edison Electricity Towards Ones and Zero's


There was a time when I read about the power of electricity so profoundly discovered and fine tuned at the Edison Laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey.  It was here that Edison was able to develop so many of the inventions that we use today that were carried out full tilt by Bell Laboratories and AT&T.  We are in their homeland.  Edison was known for showing off his invention of electricity in a most barbaric manner when he electrified and killed a large elephant down the shores of New Jersey close to Atlantic City.  It was a demonstration of enormity that showed off his invention of electricity to the astonishment of onlookers.  Gleick's chapter also discuss a demonstration of electric proportion as he mentions how Monks are aligned in a circle while electricity is passed through their bodies to again demonstrate the effectiveness of this new invention.

We have evolved, one would hope and consider, the fact that as we've learned about the evolution of the telegraph and telephone in Gleick's chapters, we are composed of basic ones and zero's numerology that consists at the core of basic math for both of these inventions.  Though I had trouble keeping up with all the arithmetic that is mentioned, I was fascinated on how these great number men were able to find computer basics through numerology.  We've evolved a great deal from electrocuting elephants and monks to a point where a memory chip can carry information to millions first from a telegraph line and then to a voice through the phone.  Both inventions play off of each other well and the telephone evolves from the earlier telegraph but somehow we must take this all back to the days of Edison and his use of electricity to understand what is now called BANDWIDTH, the basic carrier of information all composed out of 1's and 0's.  We are heading towards a more technological day when the telephone and now the internet might just bring us into a world of three dimensional images allowing us to expand our ability to communicate.  I'm not that good at the numbers but 1's and 0's have taken on a whole new dimension thanks to these pioneers of Bell Laboratories and AT&T...."Is that you Mr. Watson, I need you"



2 comments:

  1. I love how much history NJ has; I grew up in NH and never learned much about NJ. It really is quite impressive.

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  2. I would have to agree, keeping up with the numbers was definitely hard. But realizing what came from all the computing and diligent studies of numbers... makes me appreciate the people who took the time out to do so.

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