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What do great inventors all have in common? They are intensely driven individuals that will not stop until they have
achieved the goal set forth. They are not deterred by failure, no matter how many times they have failed, nor how many
experts and people tell them their ideas are foolish and can’t be achieved. Failure to them, is accepted much the same as
regular people accept being stopped at a red light while driving, they just deal with it along the way, accepting failure,
no matter how many times it presents itself, as part of the game, never allowing it to leave a negative impact.
Thomas Alva Edison, was born in Ohio on 2-11-1847. In school Edison was classified as "confused & not
teachable" by his teachers. He was totally deaf in his left ear and impaired in his other ear. Edison experimented many
thousands of times before he invented an acceptable incandescent lamp in 1879, and perfected it in 1880. Edison once
said, "I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work.
When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work." And, "discontent is the first
necessity of progress."
His key to beating all others out in the perfect light bulb was the vacuum glass bulb to keep the filament from burning
out and a specialized carbon filament that outlasted all other bulbs of that time.
Edison died on 10-20-31 at age 84.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 at the age of 29. He beat out other inventors of the
day that were working on the invention because Bell was able to perfect the invention making his far superior and won out.
Bell worked on his theory that speech could be reproduced by means of an electrically charged wire. His first success came
while he was testing his instruments in new quarters in Boston. Thomas A. Watson, Bell's assistant, had struck a clock
spring at one end of a wire and Bell heard the sound in another room. For forty weeks he worked on his instruments, and on
March 10, 1876, Watson, who was working in another room, was startled to hear Bell's voice say: "Mr. Watson, come here. I
want you."
Bell once said, "Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain
to find something that you have never seen before. Follow it up, explore all around it, and before you know it, you will
have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought."
Wilbur and Orville Wright, the Wright Bothers, made their first sustained controlled flight in a powered
aircraft on 12-17-1903. They had been experimenting since 1896. In 1900 & 1901 their first flight attempts failed. In 1902
they built a wind tunnel to conduct specialized experiments. In 1903 they devised their own lighter gasoline engine, because
they felt that the engines of the day were too heavy.
The brothers tried experiment after experiment to perfect the airplane; in 1905 they had the first practical model of
the plane to produce.
Others had worked on the plane, but the Wright Brothers would not quit and worked endlessly till their model flew. "We
were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual
interests; to investigate whatever aroused curiosity." - Orville Wright
Henry Ford, created the first inexpensive mass-produced automobile, the famous Model T and began using
assembly line manufacturing. He began working as a machinist, then an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company.
Thomas Edison and he were close friends. In 1896 introduced the Quadricycle, a four-wheeled cart with a gasoline engine.
In 1903 the Ford Motor Company was founded, and in 1908 Ford introduced the Model T. By 1924 10 million Model T cars had
been sold.
Ford once said, “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently
Around 1930, Ford asked his engineers to create a V-8 engine that could be mass produced. A year later the frustrated
engineers told Ford that it was impossible. Ford said, “I want it and I’ll have it!” The engineers, at Ford’s urging forged
on, and on March, 31, 1932 Henry Ford introduced his new V-8 engine to the public. The experts said it couldn’t be done,
that it was impossible to invent a V-8 engine cast in one piece. Ford was able to mass produce his engine and prove everyone
wrong.
Robert Fulton, was born in Lancaster PA. in 1765. He was a painter who is credited with painting Benjamin Franklin’s
portrait. To invent a workable steamboat, Fulton used a special English steam engine. His ship, The Clermont, made it’s
debut on August 17, 1807, steaming up river from New York to Albany. Fulton’s boat was mocked as: “Fulton’s Folly.”
Fulton later said, “As I had the occasion daily to pass to and from the shipyard where my boat was in progress, I often
loitered near the groups of strangers and heard various remarks as to the object of the new vehicle. The language was
uniformly that of scorn, sneer or ridicule. The loud laugh often rose at my expense; the dry jest; the wise calculations
of losses or expenditures; the dull repetition of “Fulton’s Folly.” Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope,
a warm wish cross my path.”
Milo C. Jones, owned a small farm in Wisconsin. He had barely made enough off the farm for his family and him to survive.
And then he was struck with a debilitating paralysis and confined to bed. Instead of giving up on life as an invalid, Jones
used his time and mind to come up with a game plan for success. He gathered his family together and explained how, with
their help and bodies; they would plant every tillable acre of their farm and raise little pigs. And while they were young
they would slaughter the tender pigs and make special breakfast sausages named: "Jones Little Pig Sausages" and sell them
in every store across the country, and "they’ll sell like hotcakes," he said, and they did.
King Camp Gillette, was born on 1-5-1855 and died on 7-9-1932. While working as a traveling bottle stop
salesman he got an idea to invent a new safety razor that would be disposable and inexpensive, because the present day
razors needed continuous sharpening and were worn out too quickly.
He found it very difficult to invent a blade as thin as paper yet tough enough to cut through tough whiskers. Critics were quick to knock him and his idea.
In 1903 Gillette began production of the Gillette Safety Razor and Blade, he only sold 51 razors and 168 blades in the
first year. The following year 90,884 razors and 123,648 blades were sold. In 1915 450,000 razors and 70 million blades were
sold.
Gillette once said, "I didn’t know enough to quit. I was a dreamer who believed in the gold at the foot of the rainbow.
I dared to go where wise ones feared to tread."
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