Thomas Edison

The "Wizard of Menlo Park" was a titan of sweat and systematic failure, believing that genius was merely the residue of ten thousand discarded ideas. He created the first industrial research laboratory, turning invention into a factory process that churned out phonographs, lightbulbs, and motion picture cameras. He was a man who slept in four-hour bursts and viewed the darkness of the night as a personal enemy to be defeated by the vacuum-sealed glow of his filaments. He remains the ultimate pragmatist of the spirit, the one who realized that a brilliant idea is worthless unless it can be manufactured, marketed, and sold to every home on earth.