Thomas Edison 托马斯·爱迪生

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Born in 1847 in Ohio, Thomas Edison attended school for only three months. After his teacher claimed that he could not learn, Edison's mother decided to teach him at home. There he was allowed to explore the subjects that most interested him. By age ten, Edison had built a science laboratory in the basement of his family's home and had become an avid experimenter.

1847年托马斯·爱迪生出生于俄亥俄州。他仅仅上了三个月的学。在爱迪生的老师声称他有学习障碍之后，他的母亲决定在家教他。在家里，爱边生可以随心所欲地探索最使他感兴趣的事物。十岁那年，爱迪生在家里的地下室建了一间科学实验室。从此，爱迪生就成了一位孜孜不倦的实验者。

Edison got his first job at age twelve on the railway selling candy and newspapers. Three years later, he suffered an ear injury from a train accident and lost much of his hearing. He could have had an operation, but he refused He insisted that being deaf helped him concentrate on his experiments.

十二岁时，爱迪生找到了他的第一份工作一一一在火车上卖糖果和报纸。三年后，一场火车事故导致他耳朵受伤，几乎完全失聪。他本可以接受手术治疗，但他拒绝了，因为他坚信听觉的丧失可以让他更专心地做实验。

Thomas Edison's first invention was the automatic telegraph repeater. He was already an expert on the telegraph before he came up with a gadget that sent telegraph signals between unmanned stations. Thanks to Edison, people were then able to send several telegraph messages simultaneously.

电报自动转发器是托马斯·爱迪生的第一个发明。他发明的这种装直，用于在元人看营的两站之间传输电报信号，在此项发明前，爱边生就已经是位电报专家了。幸亏有爱迪生，我们才能在同一时间传送好几封电报讯息。

Next came the electric vote recorder. It made voting quicker and more accurate, yet no one wanted to buy it Edison then moved on to tackle the stock market ticker, the machine that gave information about stock market prices Edison improved it, and sold the rights for US$40,OOO.

接下来的电子记票器让统计票数的速度更快、更准确，但却没有人妥买。之后，爱迪生转而进行股票行情收录器的研究，他把收录器作了改进并将该项专利以四万美元卖出。

In his late twenties, Edison built an "invention factory" where he and his business partners could dedicate all their time to inventing. After improving upon the telephone, Edison created the phonograph, his favorite and most lucrative invention. Although Edison did not actually invent the light bulb, he did create an electric lighting system which led to its widespread use.

近三十岁时，爱迪生盖了一座“发明工厂”，可让他和他的同事专心致力于发明工作。在改进了电话功能后，爱边生又发明了留卢机，这是他喜爱的而且最能赚钱的一项发明。虽然爱迪生实际上并没有发明灯泡，但他的确发明了电灯照明系统，这导致了灯泡的广泛使用。

A tireless achiever, Edison established the first central electric power station in 1882, enabling New York to be the first city in the world to have electric lights. This was the beginning of the modern world in which electricity became a way of life.

1882年，这位孜孜不倦的实践家建成了第一座中央电站，使纽约市成为世界上第一个有电力照明设备的城市，这就是现代世界的开始，电成为人们的一种生活方式。

Thomas Edison died at the age of eighty-four in 1931. Three days later, much of America dimmed its lights in honor of the inventor---man who had more impact on the development of present-day civilization than anyone else in history.

爱边生1931年去世，享年84岁。在他死后三天，美国大部分地区使灯暗下来来纪念这位在历史上对现代文明发展最具影响力的发明家。