ade a light bulb using carbonized filaments from cotton thread. Carbonized thread is ordinary cotton sewing thread that has been burned to an ash. The light bulb burned for two days. The electric light took the greatest amount of time and required the most complicated experiments of all his experiments. Abbott Pg. 4 One of Edison's engineers, William J. Hammer, made a discovery, which later led to the electron tube. The electron tube led to the electric signal, which led to electronics. Electronics is a branch of science that is related to electricity. Without electronics we might not have radio, TV, CDs, computers, x-ray machines or space travel. The discovery of electrons was patented as the "Edison effect" which is the basis of electronics. In 1887 Edison built a bigger invention factory in West Orange, New Jersey. This Edison Laboratory was 10 times larger than his first lab in Menlo Park. It is now a national monument. This Laboratory Unit had fourteen buildings. Six of these buildings were devoted to the "business of inventing." The main building alone was the size of three football fields. (Denmark pg. 75) It had space for machine shops, glass-blowing operations, electrical testing rooms, chemical stockrooms, electrical power generation, and other functions. At the Edison Laboratory they made new products and improved old products. Over 5,000 people worked there. Edison attempted to personally manage this large staff. The story goes that when a new employee once asked about lab rules, Edison said, "there ain't no rules around here! We're tryin' to accomplish somep'n." Every day Edison toured this huge facility to see what was going on. But he spent most of his time doing paperwork instead of experiments. He did his paperwork in the library. The research library was an office and trophy room. Edison received many, many awards throughout his life. In the center of his office, Edison sat at a desk with three dozen pigeonholes, surro...
