The first characteristic that is admirable is that Thomas Edison was very intelligent despite having only three months of formal education (Edison, Thomas Alva). At birth, he had an abnormally large head and was said to be very curious about things, even as a baby (Cousins 3). When he was twelve years old, his schoolteacher told his parents that he wasn't very smart and couldn't learn, so his mother began to home-school him. Years before that, Edison's mother had taught him to read (Thomas Alva Edison Biography).

One of his main sources of learning came from reading. He came to love reading, particularly science books, but he would read anything he could fin

Edison was very creative and inventive and continued throughout his life to think of new inventions and designs. Edison saw many ways to put things and ideas together in novel ways that made devices easier to use or more useful. Ideas didn't just pop into his head, except for the phonograph (Thomas Alva Edison). He was always looking for solutions to problems. A premier example of this involved the light bulb. When Edison saw other inventors and scientists experimenting with light, he became excited and involved in trying to build a kind of electric lamp. Oil and gas lamps of that time were smelly, dirty, and required lots of fuel. Edison figured that the world would one day be lighted by electric lamps that "turned night into day" (Cousins 90). He wanted to be the person who invented that electric lamp. He promised a good, cheap, safe electric light. Edison and his "company" worked long and hard on designing the light bulb. This was his most difficult invention, for it was a challenge to find the "right" filament. He spent several years experimenting and finally designed a light bulb that burned for nearly 100 hours (Cousins 65). In a section of New York City, he put the first electric system in place giving light to businesses and houses powered from a "monster" generator (Cousins 122). The incandescent light bulb is Edison's most famous and the invention that most changed peoples' lives (Thomas Alva Edison).

Edison had a great variety of interests, from the vote recorder, his first invention, to the light bulb to the phonograph. As a child and teenager, he had experimented with many sciences. At the library, his favorite books were about electricity, mechanics, and chemistry (Thomas Alva Edison). Electricity, in particular, fascinated him (Cousins 25). Through new and old knowledge, he was able to work with the light bulb. If not for this knowledge about electricity and physics, he would never have succeeded in realizing how to make the light bulb burn for a substantial period of time. (Thomas Alva Edison)

Through his great inventions, Edison changed the way people live in this world. He brought light to the dark, he brought sound where there was none before, and he brought movies into the world. He led the world into the 20th century in style. His inventions paved the way for many other inventions such as radio, TV, and many other electronics. All of these attributes are what make me admire Edison. I admire his intelligence, his self-taught knowledge and his self-directed experiments. I admire his ability to put together new ideas. I admire his perseverance in improving his inventions. I like that he persisted in creating inve

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Approximate Word count = 1815
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)