Thomas Edison Admires First Photos of a Black Hole

–Vindication of Einstein 100+ Year Old Prediction–

Big or small in size, a black hole is a super massive anomaly in the fabric of space, often likened to worm holes or conduits between space time. Black holes can be as small as just one atom, with the mass of a large mountain; or it could be much larger with the equivalent mass of many suns squeezed into the volume of a large ball. Very strange this black hole stuff! So strange that the gravitational field left over from the collapse of multiple stars [supernovae] is strong enough that not even light can escape its grip….thus it appears black, and hence the name black hole.

Predicted more than 100 years ago by Einstein while formulating his theories on relativity, documented photographic evidence of a black hole has now confirmed its existence. The target for this actual observation using the Event Horizon Telescope was a giant elliptical galaxy known as M-87, about 55 million light years away in the constellation Virgo; a black hole that contains six-and-a-half billion solar masses crammed into a region about the size of a solar system. Check it out!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/first-black-hole-picture-event-horizon-telescope-first-image-black-hole-m-87-scientists-announce-today-2019-04-10/

The globe-spanning network of radio dishes, atomic clocks and computers making up the Event Horizon Telescope also is expected to image Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our own Milky Way galaxy; which is a more “tame”, less massive version of the M-87 black hole. Our galaxy’s anomaly is a 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole filling a volume smaller than Earth’s solar system, located 26,000 light years away in the core of the Milky Way. Its presence can be observed in the motions of nearby stars. Those motions at the core of the galaxy have been studied for years, providing the mass of the hole along with other insights, but no one has actually viewed the black hole itself. It may be photographed soon!

**An artist’s impression of a black hole surrounded by an accretion disk of infalling material and high-energy jets extending from its poles. NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER**

Editor’s Deep Dive

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-k4.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/first-black-hole-picture-event-horizon-telescope-first-image-black-hole-m-87-scientists-announce-today-2019-04-10/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/02/black-holes-first-ever-photo-should-unveiled-next-week/3343250002/

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/711723383/watch-earth-gets-its-first-look-at-a-black-hole

Thomas Edison was interested in space too, trying to measure the temperature of the sun during a solar eclipse. He also understood the radio emission of stars. Check it out at a previous blog published on this website: edisonmuckers.org/radio-astronomy.

Thomas Edison said, “If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves …”

Left: Intel-Edison module now available world-wide for developers. Right: The “Tommy” award given by the Edison Innovation Foundation.

Thomas Edison Marvels at Giant Wind Machines

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Something big is coming….soon….a wind turbine of truly gigantic proportions.

As the world looks to the oceans for the location of wind farms, it becomes obvious the costs for such farms will be expensive, given the difficulty of offshore installations. It behooves designers to install large wind machines to reduce the total number of machines, and thus all the balance of plant costs associated with linking a large number of machines together. This is the key idea behind GE’s new very large wind turbine, the Haliade-X class of turbines.

**[Image Source:** **www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/turbines/haliade-x-offshore-turbine**]

Heretofore, large wind turbines were considered to be approximately 5-9 MW in size. However, the Haliade-X class of machines is a hefty 12 MW in size; which means its blades must be quite long to harvest large amounts of energy from the steady winds one encounters several miles offshore. Check out this large wind turbine here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybh7NwZv7c8).

Each new turbine when fully operational can generate 45% more energy than contemporary machines, supplying about 16,000 homes with electricity. Its capacity factor is also greater than contemporary machines, which means it can harvest more wind and usefully convert it to electricity. This makes offshore wind farms more compact and cheaper.

Here are the impressive physical particulars:

Each blade is longer than a football field, with a total rotor diameter of 722 feet [220 m]. Keep in mind that while city blocks vary in length around the U.S., a length of 600-800 feet is not unusual in older established towns and cities. The blades of the Haliade-X is almost at the upper end of this range. Imagine your block rotating in the air! Just to put this in perspective, modern day aircraft carriers are typically 1,000 feet in length.

The area swept out by the rotor blades is equivalent to 7 football fields…truly gigantic. Those football fields all together occupy 9.2 acres. Again….the useful comparison to an aircraft carrier, whose flight deck is on the order of 4.5 acres—so the total rotor swept area of a Haliade-X wind turbine is twice the area of a modern aircraft carrier!

The total height of the turbine assembly to water line is 853 feet, or 3 times the total height of the famous Flatiron Building in lower New York City; and approaching the height of the Chrysler Building and the Eiffel Tower.

***[Image Source:*** ***www.windpoweroffshore.com/article/1458364/ge-unveils-12mw-offshore-turbine-updated***]

To facilitate the capture of large amounts of wind (and solar) energy will require large surface areas, for which there is no getting around this. Efforts like that of GE’s new Haliade-X wind machine is a serious engineering response to this challenge. Probably in the next two years, look for the installation of this new turbine.

Thomas Edison said … “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had more years left.”

Thomas Edison Admires Maria Montessori

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Maria Montessori, born in 1870, was the first woman in Italy to receive a medical degree. She initially worked in the fields of psychiatry, education and anthropology, eventually concentrating on education in 1907. She was truly a liberated woman, who supposedly even entertained the thought of becoming an engineer.

Her Montessori method of education stressed the development of a child’s own initiative and natural abilities–especially through practical play, and a hands-on, self-paced approach to learning; aimed at inspiring creativity and imagination, along with independent thinking [OMG….sounds like today’s STEM!]. This educational paradigm, after a tenuous start and the tumult of World War I, eventually spread over the globe.

Dr. Montessori made her first visit to the United States for a brief lecture tour in 1912. She was given an enthusiastic welcome, including a reception at the White House. She gave her first lecture at Carnegie Hall to overflowing crowds, and stayed at the home of Thomas Edison, who admired her work. In addition, other admirers were Alexander Graham Bell, Helen Keller, Henry Ford, Woodrow Wilson and Mahatma Gandhi. Today, estimates vary widely, but as many as 8,000 Montessori schools flourish in the United States.

**Montessori with her beloved children (above and below)**

**(**https://montessori-ami.org/resource-library/facts/timeline-maria-montessoris-life**)**

Edison was quoted as saying … ”I like the Montessori method. It teaches through play. It makes learning a pleasure. It follows the natural instincts of the human being … The present system casts the brain into a mold. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning.” This meshes well with Edison’s many career pronouncements about changing the current form of American education to make it more practical. It is worthwhile to note that early markets that Edison envisioned for his phonograph and motion pictures were school classrooms.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Co-founders of Google, have said that Montessori education allowed them to think for themselves. They credit Montessori with allowing them to question what was going on around them and to discover the answers for themselves. Former Montessori students, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, and Will Wright, inventor of “The Sims” video game series, also credit Montessori for allowing them to ask questions, discover, and learn on their own terms.

Thomas Edison said, “The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world.”

9 Things you Didn’t Know About Thomas Edison

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By: Nicole Peregrina (Guest Blogger)

You probably already know that Thomas Edison was the world’s greatest inventor. However, he was quite the character too! In fact, his daughter, Madeleine, said that the books written about her father weren’t satisfactory because they made you think “he was sort of a robot and never stopped working.” Below are some things about old Tom that make him a little more human, and a lot more relatable!

1. He loved to play checkers.

While the downstairs living room in Edison’s Glenmont Estate was used mostly for formal entertaining, the one of the second floor was where the interesting things happened. He enjoyed playing board games with his children in this room, particularly checkers. He is among many other notable historical figures that played this game of strategy such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Edgar Allen Poe.

2. He preferred the country over the city.

When Edison moved from Menlo Park, the story goes that he gave his wife, Mina, the choice of whether to live in a NYC townhouse or a country home. She chose the country, much to Edison’s liking. He was once quoted in the NY Herald saying, “Oh, I don’t like the city. There is too much jar and excitement there for me. I love the country and quietness. I never go into the city if I can help it.”

3. He had a fear of public speaking too!

Edison had multiple business, was close friends with the celebrities from all over the world, and was interviewed countless times for newspaper articles. However, when it came to public speaking he was just like the rest of us when he said, “Please do not expect a speech from me, as public speaking is entirely out of my line.” He chalked this fear up to his “tendency toward stage fright” and “extreme deafness.”

4. He was homeschooled.

Although Edison received an honorary Doctorate from Princeton University, he never attended college nor high school. When Edison was asked about his education by Harper’s Bazaar, he responded, “School? I’ve never been to school a day in my life! D’you think I would have amounted to anything if I’d gone to school?” For most of his young life, Thomas Edison was homeschooled by his mother, Nancy Elliott. In fact, he credits him becoming an inventor to her and the “good effects of her training [he could] never lose.”

5. He secretly loved sweets!

Edison was as technical with his meals as he was with his inventing. He believed that eating should not be a pleasure and that every recipe should be based on scientific experiment. However, he admitted to his weakness for cookies in a diary entry 1885, “I do believe I have a big bump for cookies. The first entry made by the recording angel on my behalf was for stealing my mother’s cookies.” He also said that pastries, particularly apple pie, rejuvenated him!

6. He wasn’t a very good driver.

Have you ever noticed that many of the photos of Edison riding in a vehicle show someone else driving? There’s a reason for that. He rationalized this away by claiming he used the riding time to think. However, legend has it that when one time Edison was forced to takeover driving for his son who had gotten a bug in his eye, they ended up in a ditch that a horse and buggy had to pull them out of.

7. He always had an excuse to leave formal dinner parties.

According to Edison’s daughter, Madeleine, he liked being around children but hated formal entertaining. He preferred to use his time for inventing! Before most of his wife’s dinner parties, he always conveniently didn’t feel well. Madeleine said, ““He would feign indigestion and skip dinner … being the only man to get indigestion before dinner!”

8. He co-wrote a sci-fi book.

He is much more well-known for his 1,096 patents and well versed in chemistry, however, he did have a hand in writing a science fiction novel too (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thomas-edisons-forgotten-sci-fi-novel-180967672/)! Although he didn’t finish the novel before he died, George Lanthrop went on to complete their collaboration called In the Deep of Time, which featured Edison’s ideas of the future!

9. He was quite the romantic!

When it came to his wife, Mina, Edison had a soft spot. He taught her Morse Code just so that they could talk privately when they were around her family. Eventually, he would propose to her in Morse Code too! Can you say -.– . … (YES!)?

Edison’s Deep Dive:

http://www.usacheckers.com/originofcheckers.php

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thomas-edisons-forgotten-sci-fi-novel-180967672/

Anecdotes About Edison