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Thomas Edison - Test
Contributed by: Newell
  • 1. What year was Thomas Edison born?
A) 1856
B) 1847
C) 1879
D) 1901
  • 2. In which city was Thomas Edison born?
A) New York City, New York
B) Boston, Massachusetts
C) Atlanta, Georgia
D) Milan, Ohio
  • 3. Which invention is Thomas Edison most famous for?
A) Telephone
B) Microwave oven
C) Airplane
D) Light bulb
  • 4. Which famous inventor was a rival of Thomas Edison?
A) Henry Ford
B) Nikola Tesla
C) Alexander Graham Bell
D) The Wright Brothers
  • 5. What was the first public demonstration of Thomas Edison's light bulb?
A) November 11, 1922
B) December 31, 1879
C) January 1, 1900
D) August 8, 1854
  • 6. Which company did Thomas Edison found in 1892?
A) Tesla Motors
B) General Electric
C) Ford Motor Company
D) IBM
  • 7. What was Thomas Edison's favorite color?
A) Red
B) Green
C) Yellow
D) Blue
  • 8. What was the nickname given to Thomas Edison by the press?
A) The Electric Genius
B) The Master Inventor
C) The Wizard of Menlo Park
D) The Light Bulb King
  • 9. Which famous President did Thomas Edison meet multiple times?
A) Grover Cleveland
B) George Washington
C) Abraham Lincoln
D) Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • 10. What was the name of Thomas Edison's second wife?
A) Mary Johnson
B) Mina Miller
C) Emily Wilson
D) Sarah Adams
  • 11. How many children did Thomas Edison have?
A) 6
B) 8
C) 2
D) 4
  • 12. What was the name of the newspaper founded by Edison?
A) Edison Daily
B) Port Huron News
C) Grand Trunk Herald
D) Menlo Park Gazette
  • 13. At what age did Edison save a child from a runaway train?
A) 15
B) 12
C) 18
D) 13
  • 14. Where did Edison work as a night telegrapher?
A) Milan, Ohio
B) Stratford Junction, Ontario
C) Menlo Park, New Jersey
D) Port Huron, Michigan
  • 15. What did Edison sell to turn a profit at age 13?
A) Electrical equipment
B) Newspapers, candy, and vegetables
C) Patents
D) Phonographs
  • 16. Who taught Edison reading, writing, and arithmetic?
A) His father
B) His mother
C) A mentor
D) A school teacher
  • 17. What was the original coverage focus of the Grand Trunk Herald?
A) Financial news
B) International news
C) Local news
D) National news
  • 18. How many issues did the Grand Trunk Herald run?
A) Twenty-four
B) Fifty
C) Five hundred
D) One hundred
  • 19. How many people subscribed to the Grand Trunk Herald?
A) Twenty-four
B) One thousand
C) Five hundred
D) One hundred
  • 20. What did Edison use his fortune for?
A) Traveling the world
B) Investing in stocks
C) Retiring early
D) Furthering his passion for invention
  • 21. How many US patents did Edison hold?
A) 2,000
B) 1,500
C) 1,093
D) 500
  • 22. Who was Edison's great-grandfather?
A) Thomas Edison Jr.
B) John Edeson
C) Samuel Ogden Edison Jr.
D) Samuel Edison Sr.
  • 23. Where did Edison's great-grandfather flee to in 1784?
A) New Jersey
B) Michigan
C) Ohio
D) Nova Scotia
  • 24. What military unit did Edison's grandfather serve with?
A) Canadian Army
B) Grand Trunk Railway
C) 1st Middlesex Militia
D) Ohio Militia
  • 25. What inspired Edison's thinking throughout his life?
A) Works by Benjamin Franklin
B) Works by Alexander Graham Bell
C) Works by Nikola Tesla
D) Works by Thomas Paine
  • 26. What did Edison do after resigning as a night telegrapher?
A) Started a business in Vienna
B) Became a school teacher
C) Conducted chemical experiments
D) Worked as a news butcher
  • 27. Which company employed Thomas Edison when he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire?
A) Western Union
B) Bell Telephone Company
C) Cable & Wireless
D) American Telegraph Company
  • 28. Where did Thomas Edison live with Ezra Gilliland?
A) New York City
B) Detroit
C) Cincinnati
D) Boston
  • 29. Who allowed Edison to live and work in the basement of his home in Elizabeth, New Jersey?
A) Charles Batchelor
B) Ezra Gilliland
C) Franklin Leonard Pope
D) Samuel Laws
  • 30. What did Edison and Franklin Leonard Pope found in October 1869?
A) A telegraph school
B) Their own electrical engineering company
C) A stock brokerage firm
D) A chemistry research lab
  • 31. Who collaborated with Edison at the factory on improvements to the telegraph?
A) Samuel Laws
B) Franklin Leonard Pope
C) Charles Batchelor
D) Ezra Gilliland
  • 32. How much did Edison receive in 1874 for inventing the first telegraph that could simultaneously transmit four messages through a single wire?
A) $50,000
B) $30,000
C) $10,000
D) $100,000
  • 33. What did Edison invest in with the money received for his telegraph invention?
A) A battery manufacturing business
B) A printing press company
C) A telegraph company in New York
D) The Port Huron street railway
  • 34. In which year was the Menlo Park laboratory established?
A) 1876
B) 1880
C) 1887
D) 1877
  • 35. Where was the Menlo Park laboratory located?
A) California
B) New Jersey
C) New York
D) Massachusetts
  • 36. What invention did Edison's Menlo Park laboratory initially fund?
A) Quadruplex telegraph
B) Carbon microphone
C) Phonograph
D) Light bulb
  • 37. Who was credited with discovering the semiconductor effect before Edison's work was acknowledged?
A) Alexander Graham Bell
B) Emile Berliner
C) David Edward Hughes
D) Thomas Edison
  • 38. What did Edison believe was the worst part of Bell's telephone?
A) The microphone
B) The receiver
C) The transmitter
D) The wiring
  • 39. What publication did Edison fund in 1880?
A) Nature
B) Science
C) Popular Science
D) Scientific American
  • 40. Who took over the journal 'Science' after Edison gave it up?
A) Thomas Edison
B) David Edward Hughes
C) Emile Berliner
D) Alexander Graham Bell
  • 41. What was the size of Edison's Menlo Park laboratory after a decade?
A) Half a city block
B) One city block
C) Five city blocks
D) Two city blocks
  • 42. What did Edison test to find the best materials for the carbon microphone?
A) 150 materials
B) 100 materials
C) 50 materials
D) 200 materials
  • 43. What did Edison use as the semiconductor in his carbon microphone?
A) Copper
B) Specially coated rubber
C) Wood
D) Glass
  • 44. What was the first invention by Thomas Edison that gained him wider notice?
A) Electric light bulb
B) Tasimeter
C) Phonograph
D) Electric train
  • 45. In what year did Edison first publicly demonstrate the phonograph?
A) 1877
B) 1880
C) 1878
D) 1879
  • 46. What material was used for the first phonograph recordings by Edison?
A) Tinfoil
B) Cotton
C) Paper
D) Wax
  • 47. Who described Edison as 'the most ingenious inventor in this country... or in any other'?
A) J. P. Morgan
B) Joseph Henry
C) Alexander Graham Bell
D) Hermann von Helmholtz
  • 48. What was Edison's initial idea for a commercial product using the phonograph?
A) Talking dolls
B) Public address systems
C) Portable radios
D) Home entertainment systems
  • 49. In what year did Edison's phonograph company produce a cheap model for entertainment?
A) 1887
B) 1899
C) 1915
D) 1900
  • 50. What was the price of Edison's phonograph in 1900?
A) $5
B) $10
C) $20
D) $15
  • 51. What device did Edison invent to measure infrared radiation?
A) Phonograph
B) Tasimeter
C) Electric light
D) Voltaic pile
  • 52. What was Edison's goal with his system of electrical illumination?
A) Deploy in a large-scale commercial utility
B) Street lighting
C) Portable lighting
D) Personal home lighting
  • 53. Which material did Edison eventually settle on for the filament of his incandescent lamp?
A) Bamboo
B) Hemp
C) Cardboard
D) Cotton
  • 54. What voltage standard did Edison's high-resistance filament lead to in the United States?
A) 110V
B) 50V
C) 220V
D) 240V
  • 55. Who was the president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company impressed by Edison's demonstration?
A) J. P. Morgan
B) Henry Villard
C) Spencer Trask
D) George Westinghouse
  • 56. What was the first commercial application of Edison's incandescent light bulb?
A) Edison Electric Light Company
B) Manhattan streetlights
C) Columbia train
D) London streetlights
  • 57. On what date did Edison turn on the electrical lighting system for Manhattan?
A) September 4, 1882
B) November 4, 1879
C) January 27, 1880
D) May 1880
  • 58. Which company formed a joint venture with Edison in Britain to manufacture and market the incandescent electric lamp?
A) Ediswan
B) Westinghouse
C) National Electric Lamp Association
D) General Electric
  • 59. What was Edison's patent for that is considered the first US patent for an electronic device?
A) Electric light
B) Phonograph
C) Tasimeter
D) Voltage-regulating
  • 60. Who was hired by Edison in 1878 and later became the general manager?
A) John Ott
B) Francis Robbins Upton
C) Fred Ott
D) Jesse Lippincott
  • 61. Which company owned rights to Sawyer's patent and took a market share from Edison by 1889?
A) General Electric
B) Westinghouse
C) National Electric Lamp Association
D) Ediswan
  • 62. What system did Edison invent to reduce the copper requirement for electricity distribution?
A) Four-prong wire system
B) Two-prong wire system
C) Three-prong wire system
D) Single-prong wire system
  • 63. Where did Edison open a second office to expand influence in New York?
A) Holborn Viaduct
B) Pearl Street
C) Lynn, Massachusetts
D) 65th Avenue
  • 64. What was the power output of the first steam-generating power station Edison switched on in London?
A) 93 kW
B) 110 volts
C) 120 volts
D) 600 kW
  • 65. What voltage did Pearl Street Station's electrical power distribution system provide?
A) 120 volts AC
B) 220 volts DC
C) 220 volts AC
D) 110 volts direct current (DC)
  • 66. How many customers did Pearl Street Station's system have initially?
A) 1200 customers
B) 600 customers
C) 1000 customers
D) 508 customers
  • 67. What was one reason for Edison's anti-AC stance?
A) Edison fully understood AC and its benefits.
B) Edison could not grasp the more abstract theories behind AC.
C) Edison thought AC was safer than DC.
D) Edison believed AC was more efficient.
  • 68. How many AC-based power stations had Westinghouse built by the end of 1887?
A) 100 AC-based power stations
B) 68 AC-based power stations
C) 50 AC-based power stations
D) 121 DC-based stations
  • 69. In what year did Edison lose majority control in the merger that formed Edison General Electric?
A) 1895
B) 1890
C) 1892
D) 1889
  • 70. What project did Edison move on to after deciding to retire from the lighting business?
A) Gas lighting project
B) AC power transmission project
C) Iron ore refining project
D) Telegraph project
  • 71. Who controlled the new company, General Electric, after the merger?
A) Edison General Electric board
B) J. P. Morgan
C) Henry Villard
D) Thomson-Houston board
  • 72. What percentage of the US electrical business did General Electric control after the merger?
A) Three-quarters
B) One-quarter
C) One-third
D) Half
  • 73. In which decade did Thomas Edison become interested in mining?
A) Early 1880s
B) Late 1870s
C) Early 1900s
D) Early 1890s
  • 74. What was the primary reason high-grade iron ore was scarce on the east coast?
A) Environmental regulations
B) Lack of mining technology
C) High costs due to shipping from the Midwest
D) Political restrictions
  • 75. Where did Edison purchase a mine after his initial venture?
A) Sudbury, Ontario
B) Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania
C) Ogdensburg, New Jersey
D) Cleveland, Ohio
  • 76. What was a novelty of Edison's centralized mining operation in Ogdensburg?
A) Steam-powered conveyor belts
B) Electrically powered seventy ton rollers
C) Manual labor force
D) Solar-powered machinery
  • 77. Why were customers not accepting iron with significant phosphorus content?
A) It ruined the Bessemer process
B) It was too heavy
C) It was too expensive
D) It was too brittle
  • 78. What health issue was beginning to affect Edison in the late 1890s?
A) Arthritis
B) Heart disease
C) Diabetes
D) Tuberculosis
  • 79. In which year did Edison visit an industrial exhibition in Sudbury, Ontario?
A) 1901
B) 1895
C) 1905
D) 1910
  • 80. Who discovered X-rays before Thomas Edison learned about them?
A) Clarence Dally
B) Lord Kelvin
C) Wilhelm Röntgen
D) Henry Ford
  • 81. What did Edison use to improve X-ray images in his experiments?
A) Lye electrolyte
B) Calcium tungstate screens
C) Nickel-iron electrodes
D) Lead acid batteries
  • 82. What did Edison's assistant Clarence Dally suffer from due to X-ray exposure?
A) Battery-related injuries
B) Electrical burns
C) Mediastinal cancer
D) Lead poisoning
  • 83. What type of battery did Edison focus on for electric cars?
A) Nickel-cadmium battery
B) Calcium tungstate battery
C) Lead acid battery
D) Alkaline battery
  • 84. What combination did Edison's lab eventually settle on for the rechargeable battery?
A) Calcium tungstate combination
B) Nickel-iron combination
C) Lye-nickel combination
D) Lead-acid combination
  • 85. Who did Edison likely know was working on a similar battery design?
A) Waldemar Jungner
B) Clarence Dally
C) Charles Dally
D) Lord Kelvin
  • 86. What did Edison do when worried about losing the patent fight?
A) Petitioned President Theodore Roosevelt
B) Stopped working on the battery
C) Sued Waldemar Jungner
D) Sought funding from Henry Ford
  • 87. How many employees did the Edison Storage Battery Company have by 1904?
A) 600
B) 1000
C) 300
D) 450
  • 88. When did Edison first meet Henry Ford?
A) 1908
B) 1896
C) 1910
D) 1901
  • 89. What year did Edison demonstrate a mature nickel-iron battery?
A) 1904
B) 1912
C) 1908
D) 1910
  • 90. What was the electrolyte used in Edison's mature nickel-iron battery?
A) Sulfuric acid
B) Water
C) Lead oxide
D) Lye
  • 91. Who began working on the motion picture camera with Thomas Edison in 1888?
A) Leon Gaumont
B) William Kennedy Laurie Dickson
C) Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki
D) Edwin S. Porter
  • 92. What was the name of the motion picture camera patented by Edison in 1897?
A) Kinetoscope
B) Kinetograph
C) Kinetophonograph
D) Vitascope
  • 93. When were the first successful tests of Edison's prototype film camera publicly seen?
A) January 15, 1895
B) 1903
C) April 1896
D) May 20, 1891
  • 94. Where were Edison's kinetoscopes first installed for public viewing?
A) Penny arcades
B) Edison's film studio
C) Belgian fairs
D) Coney Island
  • 95. Who founded Edison's Kinétoscope Français in Brussels?
A) Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki
B) Leon Gaumont
C) Edwin S. Porter
D) Thomas Armat
  • 96. Which invention was falsely advertised as an Edison invention to boost sales?
A) Kinetophonograph
B) Kinetoscope
C) Vitascope
D) Kinetograph
  • 97. What was the title of Edison's film that showed the electrocution of an elephant?
A) Electrocuting an Elephant
B) Fred Ott's Sneeze
C) The Kiss
D) The Great Train Robbery
  • 98. Who did Edison fire in 1914?
A) William Kennedy Laurie Dickson
B) Leon Gaumont
C) Edwin S. Porter
D) Thomas Armat
  • 99. In which year did Thomas Edison head the Naval Consulting Board?
A) 1916
B) 1914
C) 1917
D) 1915
  • 100. What was one of Edison's attempts during World War I?
A) Designing new naval ships
B) Creating new naval uniforms
C) Developing new aircraft
D) Improving submarine detection
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