Edison's Method In Inventing - 8

Edison's Method In Inventing - 8

 "This had been going on more than five months, seven days a week, when I was called

down to the laboratory to see him. I found him at a bench about three feet wide and

twelve to fifteen feet long, on which there were hundreds of little test cells that had been

made up by his corps of chemists and experimenters. He was seated at this bench testing,

figuring, and planning. I then learned that he had thus made over nine thousand

experiments in trying to devise this new type of storage battery, but had not produced a

single thing that promised to solve the question. In view of this immense amount of

thought and labor, my sympathy got the better of my judgment, and I said: `Isn't it a

shame that with the tremendous amount of work you have done you haven't been able to

get any results?' Edison turned on me like a flash, and with a smile replied: `Results!

Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won't work.'

"At that time he sent me out West on a special mission. On my return, a few weeks later,

his experiments had run up to over ten thousand, but he had discovered the missing link

in the combination sought for. Of course, we all remember how the battery was

completed and put on the market. Then, because he was dissatisfied with it, he stopped

the sales and commenced a new line of investigation, which has recently culminated

successfully. I shouldn't wonder if his experiments on the battery ran up pretty near to

fifty thousand, for they fill more than one hundred and fifty of the note-books, to say

nothing of some thousands of tests in curve sheets."

Although Edison has an absolute disregard for the total outlay of money in investigation,

he is particular to keep down the cost of individual experiments to a minimum, for, as he

observed to one of his assistants: "A good many inventors try to develop things life- size,

and thus spend all their money, instead of first experimenting more freely on a small

scale." To Edison life is not only a grand opportunity to find out things by experiment,

but, when found, to improve them by further experiment. One night, after receiving a

satisfactory report of progress from Mr. Mason, superintendent of the cement plant, he

said: "The only way to keep ahead of the procession is to experiment. If you don't, the

other fellow will. When there's no experimenting there's no progress. Stop experimenting

and you go backward. If anything goes wrong, experiment until you get to the very

bottom of the trouble."

It is easy to realize, therefore, that a character so thoroughly permeated with these ideas is

not apt to stop and figure out expense when in hot pursuit of some desired object. When

that object has been attained, however, and it passes from the experimental to the

commercial stage, Edison's monetary views again come into strong play, but they take a

diametrically opposite position, for he then begins immediately to plan the extreme of

economy in the production of the article. A thousand and one instances could be quoted

in illustration; but as they would tend to change the form of this narrative into a history of

economy in manufacture, it will suffice to mention but one, and that a recent occurrence,

which serves to illustrate how closely he keeps in touch with everything, and also how

the inventive faculty and instinct of commercial economy run close together. It was

during Edison's winter stay in Florida, in March, 1909. He had reports sent to him daily

from various places, and studied them carefully, for he would write frequently with

comments, instructions, and suggestions; and in one case, commenting on the oiling

system at the cement plant, he wrote: "Your oil losses are now getting lower, I see."

Then, after suggesting some changes to reduce them still further, he went on to say:

"Here is a chance to save a mill per barrel based on your regular daily output."

This thorough consideration of the smallest detail is essentially characteristic of Edison,

not only in economy of manufacture, but in all his work, no matter of what kind, whether

it be experimenting, investigating, testing, or engineering. To follow him through the

labyrinthine paths of investigation contained in the great array of laboratory note-books is

to become involved in a mass of minutely detailed searches which seek to penetrate the

inmost recesses of nature by an ultimate analysis of an infinite variety of parts. As the

reader will obtain a fuller comprehension of this idea, and of Edison's methods, by

concrete illustration rather than by generalization, the authors have thought it well to

select at random two typical instances of specific investigations out of the thousands that

are scattered through the notebooks. These will be found in the following extracts from

one of the note-books, and consist of Edison's instructions to be carried out in detail by

his experimenters:

"Take, say, 25 lbs. hard Cuban asphalt and separate all the different hydrocarbons, etc., as

far as possible by means of solvents. It will be necessary first to dissolve everything out

by, say, hot turpentine, then successively treat the residue with bisulphide carbon, benzol,

ether, chloroform, naphtha, toluol, alcohol, and other probable solvents. After you can go

no further, distil off all the solvents so the asphalt material has a tar-like consistency. Be

sure all the ash is out of the turpentine portion; now, after distilling the turpentine off, act

on the residue with all the solvents that were used on the residue, using for the first the

solvent which is least likely to dissolve a great part of it. By thus manipulating the

various solvents you will be enabled probably to separate the crude asphalt into several

distinct hydrocarbons. Put each in a bottle after it has been dried, and label the bottle with

the process, etc., so we may be able to duplicate it; also give bottle a number and describe

everything fully in note-book."