Ted Leinhart
speaker
251 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 3 Aug
Ted Leinhart’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
contains one of the most costly and well-equipped scientific libraries in the world the collection of writings on patent laws and patents for instance is absolutely exhaustive it gives in a glance an idea of the breadth of thought and sympathy of this man who grew up with scarcely a common school education nor will one find this self-taught and self-made scientist only a gigantic specialist
he will respond to any topic of real interest and value will talk intelligently and quote appositely but while it is significant to note that mr edison's sympathies have not been dwarfed by his early limitations yet it is the character of specialist after all in which he enchains our attention a more profound impression of him comes when he stands in his roomy
but topsy-turvy laboratory with its two well-hung and well-locked doors or when he is directing the assistants and skillful workmen who follow his behest with something nearly akin to reverence the inventor told me that in the huge system of electrical manufactories with which he is associated no very large proportion of the best helpers come from the colleges so many of which now have special courses in the new profession
the college training has the danger of spoiling them for the necessary rough manual labor for a long time we used to apply a test here when a new man came in he was told that one of his duties would be to sweep the floor in the morning this of course only to try him but if he bridled up and resented it as an insult we knew that he could never be of much use as an electrician
the weapons of magic two centuries ago edison would have had a poor chance to escape the stake if the good citizens of salem had taken an awed peep at the uncanny materials of his stock-room and these multitudinous drawers and shelves lurk unearthly relics of birds beasts plants and crawling things
the skins of snakes and fishes the pelts of an extraordinary number of fur-bearing animals some of them exceedingly rare the hide and teeth of sharks and hippopotami rhinoceros horns the fibers of strange exotic plants all manner of textile substances and precious stones from the uttermost parts of the earth are there waiting to bridge over their destined gap in some important machine
many of the great inventions have awaited a laborious trial of this infinite variety of material before they became practical that said mr edison pointing to a globe enclosing the filament of the incandescent light never would work right no matter how hard we tried till the fibre of a particular kind of bamboo was put in
the marvelously delicate quivering elastic thread which we have all seen the phonograph too was only perfected after finding the value of the hard sapphire stone for several of its parts the reproducing ball the recording knife and others storing up a symphony concert a later development of the musical phonograph is the last device which mr edison has perfected it is now on the point of being introduced to the world
the cylinders of this instrument can record the most elaborate musical instrumentation we sat down before it with the inventor and listened for half an hour to various selections from popular composers it is hard to believe but the machine has been so delicately constructed that the very quality of tone in most instruments was preserved this effect is of special value which mr edison has spent much work in attaining
one feels tempted to pinch oneself to break the dream when the violin's long-drawn notes with their sympathy and pathos the cello's marvellous tone the firm clear reed sounds of the flute and the cornet's blare are ground out of this insignificant bundle of bolts and bars the whole of which one might almost get into a peck measure
it is a sight to be remembered the picture of mr edison quietly listening with rapt enjoyment till the last strains of cavaliera rusticana had died away only moving to put on a new tune or once in a while with a slight touch to try if increased pressure on some lever would improve the quality of the tone
he promises in time to have this phonograph reproducing all the harmonics of its musical record as well as the first tones a single invention saves fifteen million dollars perhaps it will give a better idea of what mr edison's work means to the world
than any generalization or enumeration to simply state that the duplex and quadruplex systems of telegraphy begun by him in eighteen sixty nine and finished after six years of work have saved in america alone the enormous sum of fifteen million dollars by the duplex system two currents of different degrees of strength were sent over the wire in the same direction thus doubling its efficiency
while the quadruplex arrangement became possible when it was discovered that these two currents could be sent in opposite directions at the same time thus enabling one wire to transmit four simultaneous messages not satisfied with this mr edison is confident of attaining sextuplex and octuplex systems
instruments of marvelous delicacy measuring a millionth degree fahrenheit through the mysterious qualities of a carbon button mr edison has been able to construct a little machine called the tazimeter which in different forms measures degrees of heat of moisture and in the odoroscope and microphone of odors and sound so small that it is difficult for the human mind to grasp the situation
the tazimeter will show a sensible deflection at the one millionth of a degree of fahrenheit the heat from the human body standing eight feet away will be accurately registered a lighted cigar held at the same distance will give a large deflection as will the heat of a common gas jet one hundred feet away
when it is arranged to be sensitive to moisture this astonishing instrument was deflected eleven degrees by a drop of water held on the finger five inches away the microphone multiplies the intensity of sound by the hundred thousand making the passage of the tiniest insect sound like a mighty deafening roar the greatest triumphs are yet to come electrical science is in its infancy
those who are greatest in the march of mechanical progress confidently predict that future discoveries will be as incredible to us as the present science would be to our forebears of two centuries back one single further secret won from nature will open a practically limitless field for electrical introduction
and will probably be more decided in its quantitative results as the technicians say than any invention the world has seen it is the direct production of electricity from oxygen and coal carbon at present we burn coal to obtain steam which is transmuted into mechanical energy and thence into electricity
before the energy of the coal reaches the dynamo six-sevenths of its power are lost even under the very best conditions and afterwards one-tenth of the remainder find a way to dispense with a steam-engine in this making of electricity and we have multiplied several times the available mechanical energy of the world thousands of the brightest and most earnest engineers and chemists are now striving
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