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   Thomas Edison

   Despite Edison's contempt for capital punishment, the war against AC led him to become involved in the development and promotion of the electric chair as a demonstration of AC's greater lethal potential versus the "safer" DC. ... The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World.
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   The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace

   However, his hopes are dashed when he notices his poster of Edison shows his idol sitting in the same type of chair, which indicates Edison has already invented Homer's untipable chair. But Homer also finds out no one else has seen the extra legs on Edison's chair, and thus Edison has never received public credit for inventing it.
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   George Westinghouse

   In 1878 Edison invented an improved incandescent light bulb, and realized the need for an electrical distribution system to provide power for lighting. ... Executioner's Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
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   Edisonian approach

   Edison invented by repeatedly trying devices in more complex environments to progressively approximate their final use conditions. ... Thomas Edison
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   Edison Records

   Thomas A. Edison invented the phonograph, the first device for recording and playing back sound, in 1877.
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   History of erotic depictions

   William Kennedy Dickson, while working for Thomas Edison, invented the first practical celluloid film and worked on making the kinetoscope, a peep show machine showing a continuous loop of the film Dickson invented lit by an Edison light source.
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   Backmasking

   In 1877 Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, a device that allowed sound to be recorded and reproduced on a rotating cylinder with a stylus (or "needle") attached to a diaphragm mounted at the narrow end of a horn.
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   Format war

   In 1877 Thomas Edison invented sound recording technology using a tin cylinder record, and soon thereafter mass-marketed the wax "Edison cylinder".
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   Dictation machine

   Shortly after Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, the first device for recording sound, in 1877, he thought that the main use for the new device would be for recording speech in business settings.
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    Technological and industrial history of the United States

    In 1883, a Serbian immigrant, Nikola Tesla, a protégé of Edison's, invented an electric motor which greatly simplified electric motors and licensed the invention to the Westinghouse Corporation. ... Despite the apparent technical superiority of Tesla's system, Edison's GE began a campaign to disparage the competing AC system by holding animal executions using AC current (which lead to the invention of the electric chair), publicizing accounts of injuries related to AC power, and lobbying state legislatures.

Explore the following pages on Powerset:

• Thomas Edison,
• The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace,
• George Westinghouse,
• Edisonian approach,
• Edison Records,
• History of erotic depictions,
• Backmasking,
• Format war,
• Dictation machine,
• Technological and industrial history of the United States