"During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem... I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament... Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Chronologically ordered theme pages to be converted to alphabetical orderingEngineering by discipline
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Thomas Edison (1890) on his years of research in developing the electric light bulb, as quoted in "Talks with Edison" by George Parsons Lathrop in Harpers magazine, Vol. 80 (February 1890), p. 425.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Electrical engineering
24 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Electrical engineering →
Related Quotes
"The design of this memoir is to deduce strictly from a few principles, obtained chiefly by experiment, the rationale …"
"ALL THIS IS A DREAM. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent …"
"We shall see that the mathematical treatment of the subject [of electricity] has been greatly developed by writers wh…"
"Telegraph engineering or electrical engineering is a new profession. More than this, it is one which is not yet overc…"
"It has been suggested that because the able mechanical engineers who have taken up the subject of construction are ma…"
"A point of great importance would be first to know: what is the capacity of the earth? And what charge does it contai…"
"In my work I now have the comfortable feeling that I am so to speak on my own ground and territory and almost certain…"
"It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, d…"
"Scientific theories need reconstruction every now and then. If they didn't need reconstruction they would be facts, n…"
"Electrical engineering is becoming greatly in demand in colliery districts, and we have pleasure in noting the establ…"