February 2008
Intermediate to advanced
192 pages
4h 1m
English
Edison is often both praised and condemned as a trial-and-error inventor, a man who knew how to create not by system and theory but by the blunt dint of main strength and seemingly limitless endurance. This picture has an element of truth, just as there is some truth in the view of Edison as first and foremost a practical journeyman who disdained theory and theoretical knowledge. Yet neither of these views tells the whole truth about the Edison method.
Without doubt, Edison's approach to invention and innovation was hands-on. Characteristically, he began by identifying a problem or a need, then he sketched a means of addressing it. This conceptual phase completed, he would set about overseeing the ...