Edison
Narrator: : In mid-October, 1922, a film crew arrived in the small town of West Orange, New Jersey, to spend some time with the most famous man in the world -- the phenomenally prolific American inventor, Thomas Edison.
旁白： 1922 年 10 月中旬，一个摄制组抵达新泽西州西奥兰治小镇，与世界上最著名的人物——多产的美国发明家托马斯·爱迪生共度时光。
Over the course of a few days, the cameras captured the great man at work: chatting with employees and conducting experiments in his lab, overseeing tests of packing materials in his factories, and catching up on the latest advances in the device for which he was best known.
在几天的时间里，摄像机捕捉到了这位伟人工作时的样子：与员工聊天、在实验室进行实验、监督工厂中包装材料的测试，以及了解他最出名的设备的最新进展。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : The things that Edison invented are so omnipresent in our society.
内森·梅尔沃德 (Nathan Myhrvold)，发明家和企业家：：爱迪生发明的东西在我们的社会中无处不在。
They've touched the lives of millions and millions of people and totally changed them.
它们影响了数百万人的生活，并彻底改变了他们。
We live in a world Edison invented.
我们生活在爱迪生发明的世界里。
Narrator: : Incandescent light, sound recording, motion pictures -- for these and scores of other inventions, Edison had justly earned acclaim as the "Inventor of the Age."
旁白：白炽灯、录音、电影——凭借这些以及其他数十项发明，爱迪生当之无愧地赢得了“时代发明家”的赞誉。
Thomas Edison (archival): : This is the replica of the first lamp.
托马斯·爱迪生（档案）：：这是第一盏灯的复制品。
Narrator: : But no mere machine could account for his metamorphosis from inventor to icon.
旁白：：但是，单纯的机器无法解释他从发明家到偶像的转变。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : Well we think we are moving very, very fast today.
历史学家 Nancy Koehn：我们认为今天的进展非常非常快。
Let me tell you, all those folks in Manhattan as Thomas Edison is walking the streets thought their bodies couldn't stand the shock of how fast they were moving.
让我告诉你，当托马斯·爱迪生在曼哈顿街头行走时，所有那些人都认为他们的身体无法承受移动速度的冲击。
Narrator: : Poised at the starting line of America's rush into the modern world, Edison became its standard bearer.
旁白： 爱迪生站在美国冲向现代世界的起跑线上，成为其旗手。
Narrator: : The impact of his native genius made infinitely more powerful by his timing, his canny knack for self-promotion, and his compulsive need to win.
旁白：他天生的天才的影响力因他的时机、他精明的自我推销技巧以及他对胜利的强迫性需求而变得更加强大。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : Edison was very competitive.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：爱迪生非常有竞争力。
The more people who tried to find the answer, the more tempting it was for him to take it on.
尝试寻找答案的人越多，他接受这个答案的诱惑就越大。
He was maniacally focused on maintaining control.
他疯狂地专注于保持控制。
Narrator: : In the end, the intensity of Edison's drive proved both blessing and curse -- costing him the allegiance of a lifelong friend and control of the industry to which he'd given life -- even as it guaranteed him a kind of immortality.
旁白：最终，爱迪生的强烈动力既是福也是祸——让他失去了终生朋友的忠诚和对他所赋予生命的行业的控制——尽管这保证了他某种程度的永生。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : There were other great inventors.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：还有其他伟大的发明家。
Then there was Edison.
然后是爱迪生。
He understood that inventing is not just having an idea, and so he made Edison a name to be reckoned with.
他明白发明不仅仅是有一个想法，因此他让爱迪生成为一个不可忽视的名字。
Narrator: : In the late winter of 1876, the scattered residents of Menlo Park, New Jersey eyed a curious new building, just up the hill from the train station.
旁白： 1876 年冬末，新泽西州门洛帕克的分散居民看到了火车站山上一座奇特的新建筑。
It could easily have been mistaken for a school, or a Quaker meeting house.
它很容易被误认为是学校或贵格会聚会所。
In fact, it was a laboratory -- a 5,000-square-foot facility entirely dedicated to nurturing the ideas of one man, an up-and-coming entrepreneur by the name of Thomas Alva Edison.
事实上，它是一个实验室——一个 5,000 平方英尺的设施，完全致力于培养一个人的想法，他是一位崭露头角的企业家，名叫托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生。
No private laboratory in the country was so well-equipped.
该国没有一家私人实验室的设备如此精良。
From the apothecary jars filled with all manner of chemicals and organic materials, to the scientific instruments and shop tools, Edison had everything he could possibly need to make the natural world bend to his will.
从装满各种化学品和有机材料的药剂罐，到科学仪器和车间工具，爱迪生拥有他可能需要的一切，可以让自然世界屈服于他的意志。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : He had this keen sense that he needed different kinds of resources in order to invent, and so Menlo Park becomes a kind of a blank slate on which to come up with this idea of invention that's uniquely his.
丽莎·吉特曼（Lisa Gitelman），历史学家：：他有一种敏锐的感觉，他需要不同种类的资源才能进行发明，因此门洛帕克变成了一块白板，可以在上面提出他独特的发明想法。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : Most successful inventors throughout history were largely people trying to accomplish a task.
内森·梅尔沃德 (Nathan Myhrvold)，发明家和企业家： 历史上最成功的发明家很大程度上都是试图完成任务的人。
They had a day job, effectively, and invention was a way of furthering that.
实际上，他们有一份日常工作，而发明是促进这一点的一种方式。
Edison decided that invention was his day job.
爱迪生决定将发明作为他的日常工作。
Narrator: : At 29, Edison had the audacious ambition of a man who'd come from nothing -- and who had everything to prove.
旁白： 29 岁时，爱迪生白手起家，拥有大胆的野心，并且需要证明一切。
His was a classic American story: a spectacular rise from humble beginnings that soon would be told and retold and told again.
他的故事是一个经典的美国故事：出身卑微的惊人崛起，很快就会被人们讲述、重述、再讲述。
Born in 1847 and raised in Port Huron, Michigan -- near the edge of a small country then on the verge of becoming great -- Thomas Edison was all pluck and initiative from the start.
托马斯·爱迪生出生于 1847 年，在密歇根州的休伦港长大，这里靠近一个小国家的边缘，当时正处于成为伟大国家的边缘。托马斯·爱迪生从一开始就充满勇气和主动性。
By his own account, he was curious to the point of mischief: he once spent hours sitting on a neighbor's goose eggs in an effort to hatch them, and set fire to a barn "just to see what it would do." Given just three months of formal schooling, he spent the carefree afternoons of boyhood reading his way through the library and obsessively conducting chemistry experiments in the cellar.
据他自己的说法，他的好奇心甚至达到了恶作剧的程度：他曾经花了几个小时坐在邻居的鹅蛋上，试图孵化它们，并放火烧了一个谷仓“只是为了看看会发生什么”。他只接受了三个月的正规教育，童年时无忧无虑的下午就在图书馆里读书，并在地窖里痴迷地进行化学实验。
Money was tight, so to finance his dabbling, he went to work at the age of 12, taking a job as a newsboy on the train that ran daily between Port Huron and Detroit.
由于资金紧张，为了资助他的涉猎，他在 12 岁时开始工作，在每天往返于休伦港和底特律之间的火车上担任报童。
Along the way, in the stations up and down the line, he became fascinated with the telegraph, which was beginning to knit the growing nation together as the rails were -- only with lengths of copper wire.
一路上，在沿线的车站里，他对电报着迷，电报开始像铁轨一样将这个不断发展的国家编织在一起——只是用一段段铜线。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : Is there a more leading edge thing going on in his world than telegraphy, moving real information at the speed of light, with very sophisticated technologies to make it happen.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔 (John Staudenmaier)：在他的世界里，还有比电报更前沿的事情吗？以光速传输真实信息，并利用非常复杂的技术来实现这一点。
He was amazed by it.
他对此感到惊讶。
He was that kind of kid.
他就是这样的孩子。
Narrator: : Edison's fascination sparked a quest for mastery.
旁白：：爱迪生的痴迷激发了他对掌握的追求。
He taught himself Morse Code and practiced sending and receiving telegraph messages for up to 18 hours a day, before finally landing his first job as an operator in 1862, when he was just 15.
他自学了摩尔斯电码，每天练习发送和接收电报长达 18 个小时，最终于 1862 年找到了第一份接线员工作，当时他年仅 15 岁。
By then, he'd become aware that he was losing his hearing, the racket of the world growing increasingly dim.
那时，他意识到自己正在失去听力，世界的喧嚣变得越来越暗淡。
But with telegraphy, he found that deafness gave him an edge.
但在电报方面，他发现耳聋给了他一个优势。
"When in a telegraph office," he later recalled, "I could hear only the instrument directly on the table at which I sat, and unlike the other operators I was not bothered by…
“当在电报局时，”他后来回忆道，“我只能听到我坐在桌子上的乐器声，与其他接线员不同，我不会被……打扰。
other instruments."
其他乐器。”
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : This condition made him feel like he could think more and he could concentrate more.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：这种情况让他觉得自己可以思考更多，也可以更集中注意力。
He became very introspective.
他变得非常内省。
He often felt like he was alone even when there were other people around.
即使周围有其他人，他也常常感到自己孤身一人。
Narrator: : For five years, Edison worked as a press operator, deciphering the dots and dashes of the news reports as they came in over the wires.
旁白：：五年来，爱迪生一直担任新闻操作员，破译通过电线传来的新闻报道的点点滴滴。
But the task, once mastered, ceased to inspire him.
但这项任务一旦完成，他就不再有动力了。
Given his druthers, he took the night shift, which gave him plenty of free time to read and experiment.
在他的劝告下，他上了夜班，这给了他充足的空闲时间来阅读和实验。
Before long, he was tinkering with the telegraphic equipment.
不久之后，他就开始摆弄电报设备了。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : Edison didn't have a lot of formal schooling.
保罗·以色列，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：爱迪生没有接受过很多正规教育。
Most of his technical education came from the practice of telegraphy.
他的大部分技术教育来自于电报实践。
The telegraph offices were schools of electricity.
电报局是电力学校。
The nature of electricity itself was something he studied and learned how to think about how that system operated, how he might improve it.
他研究了电力本身的本质，并学会了如何思考该系统如何运作，以及如何改进它。
Edison slowly began to think of himself as an inventor.
爱迪生慢慢地开始认为自己是一位发明家。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : Edison starts, at the core, the mother lode of the technological transformation in America.
南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn），历史学家：：爱迪生从根本上开启了美国技术变革的母脉。
That's very, very important to the way that his mind and his confidence and his place at that machine kind of come together to launch the rest of his journey.
这对于他的思想、他的信心以及他在机器上的位置结合起来启动他剩下的旅程的方式非常非常重要。
Narrator: : In early 1869, Edison resigned his post as a telegraph operator, and, at the age of 22, moved to New York with a few borrowed dollars in the pocket of his threadbare suit to pursue his career as an inventor.
旁白： 1869年初，爱迪生辞去了电报员的职务，22岁时，他穿着破旧的西装，口袋里揣着几块借来的美元，搬到了纽约，追求自己的发明家生涯。
He spent the next several years bouncing from one short-lived partnership to another, mainly developing and manufacturing small lots of telegraphic devices on contract.
在接下来的几年里，他从一个短暂的合作伙伴关系转向另一个合作伙伴关系，主要根据合同开发和制造小批量的电报设备。
"Sleep," Edison later recalled, "was a scarce article" in those days.
爱迪生后来回忆说，“睡眠”在当时“是一件稀缺的东西”。
But he was meticulous and tenacious -- and no technical challenge could cow him.
但他一丝不苟且顽强——没有任何技术挑战可以吓倒他。
Charged with perfecting others' crude machines, his agile mind spun out a seemingly infinite array of variations -- automatic telegraphs and printing telegraphs and so-called multiplex telegraphs, which were capable of sending more than one message at the same time on the same wire.
他负责完善别人的简陋机器，他敏捷的头脑创造出了一系列看似无限的变化——自动电报机、印刷电报机和所谓的多路电报机，它们能够在同一条电线上同时发送多条消息。
The booming industry rewarded him with confidence -- and also with cash.
蓬勃发展的行业给了他信心，也给了他现金。
As one associate put it: "If you should tell me you could make babies by machinery, I shouldn't doubt it." By the mid-1870s, Edison had a growing stack of successful telegraphic patents to his name and enough capital to finance his dream laboratory in Menlo Park.
正如一位同事所说：“如果你告诉我你可以用机器制造婴儿，我不会怀疑。”到 1870 年代中期，爱迪生名下拥有越来越多成功的电报专利，并拥有足够的资金来资助他在门洛帕克的梦想实验室。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : Edison took a real risk in going to Menlo Park.
保罗·伊斯雷尔 (Paul Israel)，托马斯·爱迪生论文 (Thomas Edison Papers)：：爱迪生去门洛帕克确实冒了很大的风险。
You had to be pretty bold to build this new thing -- invention laboratory.
你必须非常大胆才能建立这个新事物——发明实验室。
And you were going to become a professional inventor who was constantly cranking out new technology.
你将成为一名专业发明家，不断开发出新技术。
But it was because he had this vision of how to become a great inventor.
但这是因为他有如何成为一名伟大发明家的愿景。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : This was astoundingly revolutionary, you know, "I want to invent.
历史学家南希·科恩 (Nancy Koehn)：：这是惊人的革命性，你知道，“我想发明。
I'm going to be about invention," right.
我将讨论发明，”对。
And, "I don't really want to be bothered lots of times with very much else."
而且，“我真的不想多次被其他事情打扰。”
Narrator: : It was May of 1876 -- and Edison was anxious to get down to work.
旁白： ： 那是 1876 年 5 月，爱迪生急于开始工作。
His staff was already in place: a small group of experimental assistants and skilled machinists, many of whom he'd worked with for years.
他的工作人员已经就位：一小群实验助理和熟练的机械师，其中许多人与他共事多年。
All that remained was to move in his family: his wife Mary, whom he'd met in the spring of 1871 and married several months later; and their children, Marion and Thomas Alva, Jr. -- or, as their Morse-loving father had dubbed them, "Dot" and "Dash." Edison installed them in a spacious house just down the hill from the laboratory -- and that, excepting Sundays, was more or less the last they would see of him.
剩下的就是搬家：他的妻子玛丽，他在 1871 年春天认识，几个月后结婚；他的妻子玛丽，他在 1871 年春天认识，几个月后结婚；以及他们的孩子马里昂和小托马斯·阿尔瓦——或者，正如他们热爱莫尔斯电码的父亲给他们起的绰号“点”和“达什”。爱迪生把他们安置在实验室山下的一所宽敞的房子里——除了周日之外，这或多或少是他们最后一次见到他。
From the very beginning, Menlo Park thrummed like a hive.
从一开始，门洛帕克就像蜂巢一样嗡嗡作响。
In the long, open rooms of the laboratory, as many as a dozen men were at work at once -- conducting experiments, cutting patterns, banging together crude machines.
在实验室狭长的开放式房间里，多达十几个人正在同时工作——进行实验、切割图案、将简陋的机器组装在一起。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : Edison loved the chase.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：爱迪生喜欢追逐。
He wanted to break open very interesting and challenging problems with a lot of promise in them.
他想解决非常有趣且具有挑战性的问题，并带来很多希望。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : The drive had something to do with technical inquiry.
丽莎·吉特曼 (Lisa Gitelman)，历史学家：：这种驱动力与技术探究有关。
A kind of ambition to know where to figure out things that nobody had thought of yet.
一种想要知道在哪里找出尚未有人想到的事情的野心。
It wasn't just like answering questions that everybody knew were there and didn't have answers yet, it was like even coming up with the questions and answering them.
这不仅仅是回答每个人都知道但还没有答案的问题，甚至就像提出问题并回答它们。
Narrator: : Though telegraphic equipment was still his primary focus, the plan at Menlo Park, as Edison put it to a friend, was to bring out "a minor invention every 10 days and a big thing every month or so."
旁白： 虽然电报设备仍然是他的主要关注点，但门洛帕克的计划，正如爱迪生对一位朋友所说的那样，是“每 10 天推出一项小发明，每月左右推出一项大发明”。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : And nobody had the kind resources that Edison had.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：没有人拥有爱迪生所拥有的资源。
He could say, "You work on this kind of carbon, and you work on this kind of carbon, and you work on this kind of carbon."
他可以说，“你研究这种碳，你研究这种碳，你研究这种碳。”
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : He would keep track of how many hours he spent in a row on something and try to beat his last record.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：他会记录自己在某件事上连续花费了多少时间，并试图打破他的上一个记录。
He was very into living above the store, if you will, and he really implicitly thought that everybody else should be like that.
如果你愿意的话，他非常喜欢住在商店楼上，而且他真的含蓄地认为其他人都应该像那样。
Narrator: : "We work all night experimenting and sleep till noon in the day," Edison's chief experimental assistant, Charles Batchelor, told his brother.
旁白：“我们整晚都在做实验，睡到中午，”爱迪生的首席实验助理查尔斯·巴彻勒告诉他的兄弟。
"Edison is...indefatigable...."
“爱迪生是……不知疲倦的……”
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : It was a rowdy group of guys.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：：这是一群吵闹的家伙。
It was kind of like a frat house, but they had the added thing of saying, "we're on the leading edge of progress, right here."
这有点像兄弟会，但他们还说，“我们正处于进步的前沿，就在这里。”
Narrator: : It was an age of marvels, as any of the nearly nine million visitors to the Centennial Exposition could attest.
旁白：：这是一个充满奇迹的时代，参观百年博览会的近 900 万参观者都可以证明这一点。
Opened on May 10th, 1876 on a sprawling 236-acre tract in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, the exposition marked America's dramatic debut as the world's leading industrial power.
博览会于 1876 年 5 月 10 日在费城费尔蒙特公园占地 236 英亩的土地上开幕，标志着美国作为世界领先工业强国的戏剧性首次亮相。
Here was a steam engine so massive that it could run hundreds of machines simultaneously; an elevator that enabled a man to make an eight-story climb while standing still; and a battery-operated pen that produced multiple copies of a document at one time.
这是一台巨大的蒸汽机，可以同时运行数百台机器；一部使人能够在静止状态下爬上八层楼的电梯；以及一支电池供电的笔，可以一次生成多份文档副本。
"The American invents as the Greek sculpted and the Italian painted," the Times of London reported, "it is genius." But of all the wonders in evidence that spring of 1876, none was more astonishing than Alexander Graham Bell's telephone -- a revolutionary device that converted sound waves into an electrical signal, and promised to replace the telegrapher's dots and dashes with the sound of the human voice.
《伦敦泰晤士报》报道说：“美国人的发明就像希腊人的雕刻和意大利人的绘画一样，这是天才。”但在 1876 年春天出现的所有奇迹中，最令人惊讶的莫过于亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔 (Alexander Graham Bell) 的电话——这是一种革命性的设备，可将声波转换为电信号，并有望用人声取代电报员的点划线。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : When Bell unveils his invention, Western Union turns to Edison and says, "this is important, we'd like you to look into this."
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：当贝尔公布他的发明时，西联汇款公司转向爱迪生说：“这很重要，我们希望您研究一下。”
Narrator: : For Edison, there were few more powerful catalysts than competition.
旁白：：对于爱迪生来说，没有什么比竞争更强大的催化剂了。
"I don't care too much for a fortune," he once said, "as I do for getting ahead of the other fellows." Bell -- college educated and bankrolled by his future father-in-law -- was the ideal adversary.
“我不太在意财富，”他曾经说过，“就像我在意领先于其他人一样。”贝尔受过大学教育，并由他未来的岳父资助，是理想的对手。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : Thomas Edison had no real deep abiding collegial respect for Alexander Graham Bell.
传记作者尼尔·鲍德温：托马斯·爱迪生对亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔并没有真正深切的同事尊重。
Alexander Graham Bell existed as someone to be competed with and overcome and transcended and bettered.
亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔作为一个需要与之竞争、克服、超越和改进的人而存在。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : Edison saw competition as sort of a crucial spur to the inventive enterprise.
保罗·以色列 (Paul Israel)，托马斯·爱迪生论文 (Thomas Edison Papers)：爱迪生将竞争视为创新事业的重要推动力。
He said an inventor needs an enemy.
他说发明家需要敌人。
You know, he thought he was the best inventive brain around.
你知道，他认为自己是世界上最有创造力的大脑。
And also he had his laboratory which could outdo anybody else.
而且他还有自己的实验室，可以胜过任何人。
Narrator: : It would take Edison and his team mere months to design a device that trumped Bell's -- a so-called "carbon button transmitter" that carried sound over much longer distances and turned the telephone into a commercially viable device.
旁白：爱迪生和他的团队只花了几个月的时间就设计出了一种超越贝尔的设备——一种所谓的“碳按钮发射器”，它可以将声音传送到更远的距离，并将电话变成一种商业上可行的设备。
In the process, Edison stumbled upon the invention that would change his life forever.
在这个过程中，爱迪生偶然发现了一项将永远改变他生活的发明。
It was the summer of 1877, and the Menlo Park team was testing various materials for their acoustic properties.
那是 1877 年夏天，门洛帕克团队正在测试各种材料的声学特性。
Edison, though unable to hear the birds outside, was nevertheless obsessed with sound -- its transmission constantly cycling through what one colleague described as his "kaleidoscopic mind."
爱迪生虽然听不到外面的鸟叫声，但仍然对声音着迷——声音的传播不断地在他的一位同事所说的“万花筒般的头脑”中循环。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : The kaleidoscope refracts the light in many different ways, but you're always within the same framework.
传记作者尼尔·鲍德温：万花筒以多种不同的方式折射光线，但你总是在同一个框架内。
That's exactly how his imagination worked.
这正是他的想象力发挥作用的方式。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : You can see these sort of patterns.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），托马斯·爱迪生论文（Thomas Edison Papers）：：你可以看到这些模式。
It wasn't just thinking about different ways of doing one thing, it was also about thinking about how one technology might contribute to his design of another technology.
这不仅仅是考虑做一件事的不同方法，还考虑一种技术如何为他设计另一种技术做出贡献。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Edison had worked on a telegraph technology that made marks on a paper.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：爱迪生研究了一种在纸上做记号的电报技术。
So Edison was trying to figure out a way to do that for the telephone.
因此爱迪生试图找到一种方法来为电话做到这一点。
How can I record this thing?
我怎样才能记录这个东西？
He had the basic idea of the vibrating diaphragm from the telephone and he thought, "oh I'll put a needle in the middle of that and then I will take a strip of paper and I will pull that under this needle.
他从电话中得到了振动膜片的基本概念，他想，“哦，我会在中间放一根针，然后我会拿一张纸条，把它拉到针下。
And as you speak it will make impressions in this paper.
当你说话时，它会给本文留下深刻的印象。
And then you can pull it back through later and listen to it."
然后你可以稍后再把它拉回来听。”
Narrator: : Initial experiments quickly gave rise to sketches for a crude machine Edison called a phonograph -- from the ancient Greek, meaning "writer of sound." The device was then refined in fits and starts, with Edison turning out drawings and his machinist John Kreusi creating models to test.
旁白：：最初的实验很快就产生了爱迪生称为留声机的粗糙机器的草图——源自古希腊语，意思是“声音作家”。然后，爱迪生绘制图纸，机械师约翰·克鲁西创建模型进行测试，对设备进行了断断续续的改进。
Finally, they settled on a design in which a sheet of foil was mounted on a hand-cranked cylinder.
最后，他们确定了一种设计，将一片箔片安装在手摇气缸上。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : They're working on a thing.
约翰·施陶登迈尔（John Staudenmaier），历史学家：：他们正在研究一件事。
They were fooling around, "this is damn interesting, let's see if we can do something with it.
他们开玩笑说：“这太有趣了，让我们看看我们是否可以用它做点什么。
I don't know whether anybody will ever use it but let's see what we can do."
我不知道是否有人会使用它，但让我们看看我们能做什么。”
Narrator: : When the machine was finished, the men in the shop gathered round, breathless as Edison recited into the diaphragm the classic nursery rhyme, Mary Had a Little Lamb.
旁白：机器完工后，店里的人们气喘吁吁地围拢过来，听爱迪生对着隔膜背诵经典童谣《玛丽有一只小羔羊》。
Archival audio: : Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.
档案音频：：玛丽有一只小羊羔，它的羊毛洁白如雪。
Narrator: : Then, he moved the needle to the beginning to see if the rhyme would play back.
旁白：：然后，他把针移到开头，看看韵律是否会回放。
Archival audio: : Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.
档案音频：：玛丽有一只小羊羔，它的羊毛洁白如雪。
And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.
无论玛丽走到哪里，羔羊都一定会去。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Nobody had ever recorded anything before.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：以前没有人记录过任何东西。
And it just changes the way you think about the world, if you can play something back again.
如果你能再次播放一些东西，它只会改变你思考世界的方式。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : There was a miracle to it that I think goes beyond most of the things that we would currently experience.
内森·梅尔沃德 (Nathan Myhrvold)，发明家和企业家：：我认为这是一个奇迹，超越了我们目前所经历的大多数事情。
Sound was the most ephemeral thing we had, and Edison took it from being ephemeral, to being concrete and something that would exist for the ages.
声音是我们拥有的最短暂的东西，爱迪生将它从短暂的转变为具体的、永恒存在的东西。
Narrator: : "I was never so taken aback in all my life," Edison said.
旁白：“我一生中从未如此惊讶过，”爱迪生说。
"I always was afraid of anything that worked the first time."
“我总是害怕任何第一次就有效的东西。”
Thomas Edison (archival audio): : I introduce the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery.
托马斯·爱迪生（档案音频）：：我介绍了我所经历过的最美妙的事情，并衷心祝贺您的这一奇妙发现。
Narrator: : The nation's leading technical weekly, Scientific American , was the first to publicize the phonograph, following Edison's demonstration of the device in the journal's New York offices on December 7th, 1877.
旁白：：继爱迪生于 1877 年 12 月 7 日在该杂志的纽约办公室演示该设备之后，美国领先的技术周刊《科学美国人》率先宣传了留声机。
"Here is a piece of metal," the paper's editor wrote in wonder, "that talks in such a way that there can be no doubt but that the inflections are those of the human voice."
“这是一块金属，”该报的编辑惊奇地写道，“它的说话方式毫无疑问是人类声音的语调。”
Leonard DeGraaf, National Park Service: : All the new technologies are talked about, written about in Scientific American .
伦纳德·德格拉夫 (Leonard DeGraaf)，国家公园管理局：：所有新技术都在《科学美国人》中被讨论和撰写。
And everybody who is important in these fields, whether you're an inventor, an engineer or patent attorney, you're going to read Scientific American .
这些领域的每个重要人物，无论您是发明家、工程师还是专利律师，您都会阅读《科学美国人》。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Those physicists and scientists who were working on sound, and everybody who was following that and knew how complex sound was, here comes a joker with a little metal diaphragm, with a needle in the middle of it, and he records the human voice.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：那些致力于声音研究的物理学家和科学家，以及所有关注声音并知道声音有多么复杂的人，这里出现了一个带有小金属隔膜的小丑，中间有一根针，他记录了人类的声音。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : Alexander Graham Bell and the people who had been working on sound you know would like smack themselves in the forehead, once they saw how simple it was.
Lisa Gitelman，历史学家：亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔（Alexander Graham Bell）和那些一直致力于声音研究的人，一旦看到声音如此简单，他们会恨不得拍自己的额头。
Narrator: : "It is a most astonishing thing to me," Bell confessed to his father-in-law, "that I could possibly have let this invention slip through my fingers.
旁白：“对我来说，这是一件最令人惊讶的事情，”贝尔向他的岳父承认，“我可能让这项发明从我的指缝中溜走。
The brief notice in Scientific American set off a stampede.
《科学美国人》的简短公告引发了一场踩踏事件。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : Reporters beat a path to Menlo Park to hear this astounding thing.
保罗·伊斯雷尔 (Paul Israel)，托马斯·爱迪生论文 (Thomas Edison Papers)：：记者们千里迢迢来到门洛帕克，聆听这令人震惊的事情。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : The phonograph made Edison world famous really kind of suddenly.
丽莎·吉特曼 (Lisa Gitelman)，历史学家： 留声机让爱迪生突然闻名于世。
He did demonstrations and the phonograph just blew people's minds.
他做了演示，留声机让人们大吃一惊。
But more, I think, Edison made sure that he was a colorful character.
但我认为，更重要的是，爱迪生确保他是一个丰富多彩的人物。
He was an inveterate self-promoter.
他是一个根深蒂固的自我推销者。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : He was never there to welcome you.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：他从来没有在那里欢迎你。
He would come in from elsewhere, like, with his lab coat, and he always wrapped a kerchief around his neck and he always had like smudges on his face, or like, you know, perspiration, or be mopping his brow or something.
他会从其他地方进来，比如穿着实验服，脖子上总是围着一块头巾，脸上总是有污迹，或者，你知道，汗水，或者擦额头什么的。
Narrator: : Chairs were quickly offered, slices of pie handed round, cigars thrown on the table and everyone invited to help themselves.
旁白：：很快就有人提供了椅子，分发了几片馅饼，把雪茄扔到了桌子上，每个人都被邀请自助。
Edison meanwhile kept up a steady stream of jovial patter -- cracking jokes and touting the myriad wonders that soon would emerge from Menlo Park.
与此同时，爱迪生保持着源源不断的快活语气——讲笑话，吹捧门洛帕克很快就会出现的无数奇迹。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : He had immense self-confidence, he had a sense of humor, and he would pull things out of the air that people weren't thinking about when he asked a question and he'd answer it in a way that, "wow, I never thought of that!"
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔（John Staudenmaier）：他有极大的自信，有幽默感，当他提出问题时，他会凭空说出人们没有想到的事情，并以“哇，我从来没有想到过这一点！”的方式回答。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : There was something about this guy that seems to have fit their vision of what the great American inventor oughta be like: Self-taught, good storyteller, you know, he's both down-to-the-earth, and also at the same time, the genius, right.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），《托马斯·爱迪生外传》：：这个家伙似乎符合他们心目中伟大的美国发明家应有的样子：自学成才，善于讲故事，你知道，他既脚踏实地，又同时是天才，对吧。
He combines those elements so nicely.
他很好地结合了这些元素。
Narrator: : Over the next several months, as sales agents fanned out across the country with demonstration models of the device, the phonograph's inventor became a full-fledged press sensation.
旁白： 在接下来的几个月里，随着销售代理带着该设备的演示模型遍布全国各地，留声机的发明者成为了新闻界的轰动人物。
One of Edison's associates judged it a "mania.
爱迪生的一位同事将其评价为“狂热”。
School girls write compositions on Edison.
女学生写关于爱迪生的作文。
The funny papers publish squibs on Edison.
这些有趣的报纸发表了对爱迪生的批评。
The daily papers write up his life.
每天的报纸都记载着他的生活。
When shall we get a rest[?]"
我们什么时候休息[？]”
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : Edison's public image, it's a mixture of things.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：爱迪生的公众形象是多种因素的混合体。
He is on the one hand a transcendent brain with a transcendent ability to discipline and focus.
一方面，他是一个超凡的大脑，具有超凡的纪律和专注能力。
And then he takes naps on the floor and rumples up his suit.
然后他在地板上打了个盹，弄皱了他的西装。
He doesn't put on airs.
他不摆架子。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : Edison is clearly a home-grown American, self-taught, Horatio Alger sort of fellow, an everyman.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格（Ernest Freeberg）：：爱迪生显然是一个土生土长的美国人，自学成才，就像霍雷肖·阿尔杰（Horatio Alger）那样，是一个普通人。
That was part of his appeal.
这是他呼吁的一部分。
Not a scientific genius, but somebody who was succeeding because he had a native spark of intelligence and a lot of hard work.
他不是一个科学天才，但他之所以成功，是因为他有天生的智慧火花和大量的努力。
He's a great American story.
他是一个伟大的美国故事。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : You know it's not like he had a team of spin doctors making this whole story work a certain way.
南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn），历史学家：：你知道，他并没有一个舆论专家团队让整个故事以某种方式运作。
But a lot of pieces fell the right way in terms of his accessibility and his appeal to the American public at a time of you know great, often frightening, formidable change.
但在他的平易近人性和对美国公众的吸引力方面，很多作品都以正确的方式出现，当时你知道伟大的、常常令人恐惧的、令人畏惧的变化。
Narrator: : Finally, on April Fool's Day, 1878, reporter William Croffut credited Edison with having made lunch "out of the dirt taken from the cellar," using a "machine that [would] feed the human race." The spoof was lost on a good many readers.
旁白：最后，在 1878 年愚人节，记者威廉·克罗夫特称赞爱迪生“用地窖里的泥土”使用“可以养活人类的机器”制作了午餐。这篇恶搞作品让很多读者失去了兴趣。
Already, the public had come to regard Edison as equal parts visionary and magician -- or as Croffut famously dubbed him, "The Wizard of Menlo Park."
公众已经开始将爱迪生视为具有远见卓识和魔术师的人，或者正如克罗夫特所称的“门洛帕克的巫师”。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : An invention is an idea, it's an idea that is useful.
Nathan Myhrvold，发明家和企业家：：发明是一个想法，是一个有用的想法。
Somebody thinks of something and gives us a new device, a new approach, a new technique.
有人想到了一些东西，并为我们提供了一种新设备、一种新方法、一种新技术。
And that new idea suddenly changes the world.
这个新想法突然改变了世界。
Narrator: : They were published in Scientific American each and every week throughout the late 19th century -- lists of new inventions and announcements of patents recently awarded.
旁白：：在 19 世纪末期，《科学美国人》每周都会发表这些内容——新发明清单和最近授予的专利公告。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : Americans as a whole were thinking of themselves as a nation of inventors.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格：：作为一个整体，美国人认为自己是一个发明家的国家。
Some joke that a young American man would feel guilty going to his grave without having won a patent of his very own.
有人开玩笑说，一个年轻的美国男子如果没有获得自己的专利，到坟墓时都会感到内疚。
This was something that everybody aspired to do.
这是每个人都渴望做的事情。
Narrator: : To W.B.
旁白： : 致 W.B.
Austin of New York, for his Chimney Ventilator; to Joseph B.
纽约的奥斯汀，因其烟囱通风机而闻名；约瑟夫·B.
Underwood of North Carolina, for a newfangled Coffee Roaster; to John Senn of Illinois for his improved Remedy for Hog Cholera.
北卡罗来纳州的安德伍德 (Underwood)，推出新型咖啡烘焙机；表彰伊利诺伊州的约翰·森改进猪霍乱疗法。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : The newspapers, you see the editorials about how it was the patent office now that represented American greatness, not the capital.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），《托马斯·爱迪生论文》（Thomas Edison Papers）：：报纸上，你会看到社论，说现在代表美国伟大的是专利局，而不是首都。
And I think that beautifully captures the way in which America thought about itself, this growing industrial power on the verge of transforming the world.
我认为这完美地体现了美国对自己的看法，这个日益增长的工业强国正处于改变世界的边缘。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : Americans often felt a little inferior to Europeans.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格（Ernest Freeberg）：美国人常常感觉自己比欧洲人稍逊一筹。
They didn't have the great universities, they didn't have the great arts and literature tradition.
他们没有伟大的大学，没有伟大的艺术和文学传统。
But in the late 19th century, Americans said "this is what we do, we are inventors."
但在19世纪末，美国人说“这就是我们所做的，我们是发明家”。
Narrator: : In the spring of 1878, Edison made a splash in the U.
旁白： 1878年春天，爱迪生在美国引起了轰动。
S.
S。
capital where he gave back-to-back demonstrations of the phonograph for members of Congress and President Rutherford B.
在首都，他连续向国会议员和卢瑟福·B·布什总统演示留声机。
Hayes, and sat for a portrait by celebrated photographer Mathew Brady.
海耶斯，并坐下来拍摄著名摄影师马修·布雷迪 (Mathew Brady) 的肖像照。
By then, news of Edison's miraculous device had spread around the world.
那时，爱迪生的神奇装置的消息已经传遍了全世界。
Hordes of the curious were daily descending on Menlo Park.
每天都有成群的好奇者涌入门洛帕克。
And Edison, hailed in the press as "Inventor of the Age," already was beginning to chafe at his celebrity.
被媒体誉为“时代发明家”的爱迪生已经开始对自己的名声感到恼火。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : He is deluged with letters from strangers who want things from him.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：他收到了大量来自陌生人的来信，他们想要从他那里得到东西。
He creates this category in his mind of the begging letter.
他在脑海中创造了乞讨信这一类别。
It might be money, it can be other things.
可能是钱，也可能是其他东西。
So he found himself writing several dozen letters a day.
因此，他发现自己每天要写几十封信。
He's also discovering when one reporter writes a long, flattering profile of him, there are going to be 10 others who want to write profiles of him, and he is spending more and more time every day doing the same, "Mary had a little lamb" demonstrations and not getting any work done.
他还发现，当一名记者为他写一篇长长的、讨人喜欢的简介时，就会有另外 10 个人想为他写一篇简介，而他每天花越来越多的时间做同样的事情，“玛丽有一只小羊羔”演示，却没有完成任何工作。
Narrator: : "The reporters who come down here have already unstrung my nerves [so much]," Edison groused to a friend, "that I think of taking to the woods."
旁白：“来到这里的记者已经让我的神经放松了很多，”爱迪生向一位朋友抱怨道，“我想到了去树林里。”
Finally, in July, he did just that, heading west to Wyoming with a party of scientists to study an eclipse.
最后，在七月，他做到了，与一群科学家一起向西前往怀俄明州研究日食。
Mary Edison, now pregnant for the third time, was left behind at home.
玛丽·爱迪生第三次怀孕，被留在家里。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Mary was a working class girl.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：玛丽是一个工人阶级的女孩。
She was 16 when he met her.
他遇见她时她16岁。
He was 24 years old and living for the next contract, the next invention, whatever it might be.
他当时 24 岁，正在为下一份合同、下一项发明而活，无论它是什么。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : He was on the ascendancy and she almost immediately, found out what it was like to be married to somebody who wasn't there.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：他正处于上升期，而她几乎立刻就发现了与一个不在场的人结婚是什么感觉。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : His idea of a good time was always a night in the laboratory.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：他心目中的美好时光总是在实验室度过一个夜晚。
Then the fame came, and that could not have been easy for her.
然后名声就来了，这对她来说并不容易。
She just didn't have the background.
她只是没有背景。
Narrator: : Visitors to Menlo Park noted that Mrs. Edison was conspicuous, mainly in her absence.
旁白： 门洛帕克的游客注意到爱迪生夫人很引人注目，尤其是在她不在的时候。
Often, she was ill, plagued by mysterious headaches, panic attacks, fatigue.
她经常生病，被神秘的头痛、惊恐发作和疲劳所困扰。
During the time that Edison was away, Mary's nervousness grew so acute as to require the care of a doctor.
在爱迪生不在的这段时间里，玛丽变得非常紧张，需要医生的照顾。
And though Edison was advised by his secretary to hurry back, he nevertheless took more than three weeks to get home.
尽管秘书建议爱迪生赶紧回去，但他还是花了三周多的时间才回到家。
Then, as usual, he headed straight for the lab.
然后，他就和往常一样，直奔实验室。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : He is all about his work, his vision, it's what made him tick.
南希·科恩 (Nancy Koehn)，历史学家：：他专注于他的工作、他的愿景，这就是他的动力。
You know, there's the dream.
你知道，那里有梦想。
And you get up in the morning thinking about it, and you go through the day obsessing about it.
你早上起床就想着它，你一整天都沉迷于它。
And you have people that support you in that, but those people, they don't exist on the same plane as the dream.
有人在这方面支持你，但这些人与梦想并不存在于同一平面上。
Narrator: : Back at his workbench, Edison considered the phonograph, which had drawn the interest of investors who hoped to market the machine for business use.
旁白： 回到他的工作台，爱迪生考虑留声机，它引起了投资者的兴趣，他们希望将这台机器推向商业用途。
For that, Edison would have to devise a more durable recording surface than tinfoil -- and just now, the prospect did not much interest him.
为此，爱迪生必须设计一种比锡纸更耐用的录音表面——而现在，他对这种前景并没有太大兴趣。
What dominated his thoughts in that late summer of 1878 was something that had been knocking around in his mind for awhile: an invention suggested by three quick sketches he'd made in his notebook and labeled "Electric Light."
1878 年夏末，主导他思想的是一些在他脑海中盘旋了一段时间的东西：他在笔记本上画的三幅草图暗示了一项发明，并标记为“电灯”。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : You can go back 3,000 years and you have artificial lighting devices.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔 (John Staudenmaier)：：你可以追溯到 3000 年前，那时就有人工照明设备。
So what does that tell you?
那么这告诉你什么呢？
For a very long time people wanted to have a way to see in the very dim light of night.
很长一段时间以来，人们都希望有一种方法可以在夜色中看到东西。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Gaslights had been in homes for some times.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：煤气灯在家里出现已有一段时间了。
They had certain drawbacks.
它们有一定的缺点。
The obvious one is it's an open flame.
显而易见的是，这是一团明火。
The not so obvious one is that they're filthy.
不太明显的是它们很脏。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : Gas seemed the cutting edge, but it was a terrible technology.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格（Ernest Freeberg）：：天然气似乎是最前沿的技术，但它是一项糟糕的技术。
It sucked the oxygen out of the air, overheated rooms, spewed a sort of acidic vapor, all sorts of accidental leaks caused asphyxiation.
它从空气中吸走氧气，使房间过热，喷出一种酸性蒸气，各种意外泄漏导致窒息。
It was a terrible problem.
这是一个可怕的问题。
So people put up with an enormous amount of inconvenience to have this light.
因此人们忍受了巨大的不便才拥有了这种灯。
But Edison and others recognized that if they could create a light that was safer, that was cleaner, that they could tap into an enormous market.
但爱迪生和其他人认识到，如果他们能够创造出一种更安全、更清洁的灯，他们就能进入一个巨大的市场。
Narrator: : On September 14th, 1878, while talking with one of the reporters who now regularly hung around Menlo Park, Edison lifted the curtain on his next big thing.
旁白：1878 年 9 月 14 日，在与一位经常在门洛帕克闲逛的记者交谈时，爱迪生揭开了他的下一件大事的帷幕。
In a matter of a "few days," he told the astonished scribe from the New York Sun , he would do what no one had ever been able to do: devise a way to bring electric light indoors .
他对《纽约太阳报》惊讶的抄写员说，在“几天”之内，他将完成无人能做到的事情：设计一种将电灯带入室内的方法。
For fully 70 years, it had been understood that light could be produced by electricity, but the only commercial technology that so far had been developed was arc lighting -- a method that forced a current to jump between two carbon rods, and produced a light so blinding it could only be used outdoors or else in very large public spaces.
整整 70 年来，人们都知道可以用电来产生光，但迄今为止开发的唯一商业技术是弧光照明——一种迫使电流在两根碳棒之间跳跃的方法，产生的光非常刺眼，只能在室外或非常大的公共空间使用。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : The problem with arc light was that it was so bright that people could not bear to be around it, even if they set it up in city parks, people would sometimes use umbrellas to shield themselves from the intensity of the light.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格（Ernest Freeberg）：：弧光灯的问题在于它太亮了，人们无法忍受它周围的环境，即使将其设置在城市公园里，人们有时也会使用雨伞来遮挡强光。
Narrator: : The alternative was the incandescent bulb -- a technology that first had been patented in 1841, six years before Edison was born, and still, nearly four decades later, had yet to be made viable.
旁白：：替代方案是白炽灯泡，该技术于 1841 年首次获得专利，即爱迪生出生前六年，但近四十年后，该技术尚未变得可行。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : It's not hard to invent a light bulb that lasts for just 15 seconds.
历史学家 Ernest Freeberg：：发明仅持续 15 秒的灯泡并不难。
The problem is to get it to last for many, many hours.
问题是让它持续很多很多小时。
The trick was to find something that would incandesce and not burn up.
诀窍是找到一种可以白炽但不会燃烧的东西。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : This was a hot challenge.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：：这是一个严峻的挑战。
All kinds of people wanted in.
各种各样的人都想进来。
Both sides of the Atlantic there were a lot of people working on this.
大西洋两岸都有很多人致力于此工作。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : I think as Edison began to look at what people had done, he realized, "you know what, I can figure out how to do this."
保罗·以色列，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：我认为当爱迪生开始研究人们所做的事情时，他意识到，“你知道吗，我可以弄清楚如何做到这一点。”
Narrator: : Although he'd done no more than a couple days' worth of preliminary experiments, Edison was sure he'd cracked the problem.
旁白：：虽然爱迪生只做了不超过几天的初步实验，但他确信他已经解决了这个问题。
"I have it now!" he crowed to the Sun reporter.
“我现在有了！”他向《太阳报》记者欢呼。
"[Scientists] have all been working in the same groove, and when it is known how I have accomplished my object, everyone will wonder why they never thought of it, it is so simple."
“[科学家]一直在以同样的方式工作，当知道我是如何实现我的目标时，每个人都会想知道为什么他们从未想到过，它是如此简单。”
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : Lots and lots of people around the world were working on electric light.
历史学家 Lisa Gitelman：世界各地有很多人都在研究电灯。
People announcing to the press, "Eureka!
人们向媒体宣布：“尤里卡！
I have it," but you know the press was kind of focused on Edison.
我有它，”但你知道媒体有点关注爱迪生。
Narrator: : Edison kept on grabbing headlines over the next month -- claiming to have conceived of not merely a long-lasting incandescent bulb, but also an entire electrical power system, which would be both cheaper and safer than gas.
旁白：爱迪生在接下来的一个月里不断成为头条新闻——声称他不仅构想出了一种持久耐用的白炽灯泡，而且还构想出了一套完整的电力系统，该系统比天然气更便宜、更安全。
In short order, gas stocks plunged, and financiers began lining up at the Wizard's door -- all because of a germ of an idea.
很快，天然气股暴跌，金融家们开始在巫师门口排队——这一切都是因为一个想法的萌芽。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : So he sort of mobilized his worldwide fame to find financial backers for half-baked notions that he didn't know were gonna work out at all.
丽莎·吉特曼（Lisa Gitelman），历史学家：：因此，他利用了自己的全球声誉，为他根本不知道会成功的不成熟的想法寻找资金支持者。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : When he began to talk about it in the press, people say, "I want in on this." And they come to Edison and say, "we want to give you a bunch of money to solve this problem."
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），《托马斯·爱迪生论文》（Thomas Edison Papers）：：当他开始在媒体上谈论这件事时，人们说：“我想参与其中。”他们来找爱迪生说：“我们想给你一大笔钱来解决这个问题。”
Narrator: : Until patents were filed, Edison declined to provide much detail about his plans.
旁白：：在申请专利之前，爱迪生拒绝提供有关他的计划的更多细节。
But he made a bold promise: in a matter of weeks, he would set lower Manhattan aglow with incandescent light.
但他做出了一个大胆的承诺：在几周内，他将使曼哈顿下城焕发出白炽灯的光芒。
No pronouncement had ever been more spectacularly premature.
没有比这更早的声明了。
Narrator: : At Menlo Park, weeks turned all too quickly to months.
旁白：：在门洛帕克，几周的时间很快就变成了几个月。
As Francis Upton, a new hire in the laboratory, put it in a letter to his father: "The electric light goes on very slowly." It was then the late summer of 1879 -- almost a year after Edison had announced his intention to light New York.
正如实验室新员工弗朗西斯·厄普顿在给他父亲的信中所说：“电灯亮得非常慢。”当时是 1879 年夏末，距离爱迪生宣布要照亮纽约已经过去近一年了。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : Many newspapers reported that they were trying to do something that really could not be done.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格（Ernest Freeberg）：许多报纸报道说他们正在尝试做一些实际上无法完成的事情。
They looked at Edison and said that he really doesn't understand the basic underlying challenges of creating an incandescent light.
他们看着爱迪生，说他真的不明白创造白炽灯的基本挑战。
That it is scientifically impossible and the world was clearly starting to denounce Edison as a stock manipulator, and a fraud, and somebody who got lucky with the phonograph, but was out of his depth at this point, wasn't gonna be able to deliver on the electric light.
这在科学上是不可能的，世界显然开始谴责爱迪生是一个股票操纵者和一个骗子，一个幸运地获得了留声机的人，但在这一点上超出了他的深度，将无法实现电灯。
Narrator: : The criticism irked Edison -- not least, because he and his team at Menlo Park had been working more or less around the clock, and most especially because it unnerved some of his investors, a cabal of wealthy businessmen led by Wall Street banker J.
旁白：这些批评激怒了爱迪生，尤其是因为他和他在门洛帕克的团队或多或少都在全天候工作，尤其是因为这让他的一些投资者感到不安，这些投资者是由华尔街银行家 J. 领导的一群富商。
P.
P。
Morgan.
摩根.
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : They had invested a lot of money.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格：：他们投入了很多钱。
They were beating the doors, wanting to get some evidence that this was actually going to work.
他们正在敲门，想要获得一些证据来证明这确实有效。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : Edison understood he had to keep sweet-talking the Wall Street people that were backing him and who kept saying, "So?"
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：爱迪生明白，他必须不断地对支持他的华尔街人士说甜言蜜语，而那些人一直在问：“所以呢？”
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : There were occasions when he had financiers out to Menlo Park to give them a flattering behind-the-scenes demonstration of what they were working on.
丽莎·吉特曼（Lisa Gitelman），历史学家：有时，他会邀请金融家到门洛帕克，向他们展示他们正在做的事情的幕后花絮。
There was impatience but there was also a lot of expectation.
心里有不耐烦，但也有很多期待。
You know, you might as well have a little bit of money riding on Edison because he was gonna do something.
你知道，你不妨在爱迪生身上赚点钱，因为他要做点什么。
Narrator: : Edison had no doubt that he would succeed; what he needed was time.
旁白：：爱迪生坚信自己会成功；他需要的是时间。
"There is a wide difference between contemplating an invention," he later said, "and putting the manufactured article on the market."
“考虑一项发明和将制成品投放市场之间存在很大差异，”他后来说。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : When he set out to work on electric lighting, he'd realized pretty early that the vision encompassed everything.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：当他开始研究电气照明时，他很早就意识到这一愿景涵盖了一切。
And that this was going to be a slog.
这将是一个艰难的过程。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : We remember famously the light bulb, but of course you've got to screw the light bulb into a socket, the socket has to be wired, the system has to be metered, there has to be a generator.
历史学家丽莎·吉特曼 (Lisa Gitelman)：我们对灯泡记忆犹新，但当然，您必须将灯泡拧入插座，插座必须接线，系统必须计量，必须有发电机。
It's really a massively complex system to put in place to get that light bulb to go off.
这确实是一个非常复杂的系统，需要让灯泡熄灭。
I mean I don't think he, going in, realized how complicated it was.
我的意思是，我认为他进去后并没有意识到事情有多么复杂。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : He has that sense that if you take this energy form and you tame it, and then you distribute it in one central place, think of the network of people that can turn a knob and get light.
南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn），历史学家：他有这样的感觉，如果你采用这种能量形式并驯服它，然后将它分布在一个中心位置，想想可以转动旋钮并获得光的人网络。
This isn't a dreamy and gauzy kind of vision.
这不是一种梦幻般的幻想。
It's a vision of, "this can happen, what do we do next?"
这是一种“这可能发生，我们下一步该做什么？”的愿景。
Narrator: : Already, the project had completely transformed Menlo Park.
旁白： ：该项目已经彻底改变了门洛帕克。
A new, state-of-the-art machine shop had been built, development of the various components of the system had gotten underway, and dozens of men had been added to the payroll -- among them, the new hire Upton, a 26-year-old Princeton-educated physicist whom Edison nicknamed "Culture" for his fancy educational pedigree.
一个新的、最先进的机械车间已经建成，系统各个组件的开发已经开始，数十名员工也被添加到工资单中——其中包括新聘的厄普顿，他是一位 26 岁的普林斯顿大学物理学家，爱迪生因其出色的教育背景而给他起了个“文化”的绰号。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : Upton was a more trained learned man.
内森·梅尔沃德 (Nathan Myhrvold)，发明家和企业家： 厄普顿是一位训练有素、博学多才的人。
Edison was a little bit merciless, kind of teasing him about it.
爱迪生有点无情，有点捉弄他。
And at one point Edison asked him to calculate the volume of a light bulb Upton draws the light bulb and he approximates it as a sphere and a cone and a cylinder and he's calculating away, and while he does this Edison fills the thing full of sand and pours it out and effectively does a empirical measurement.
有一次，爱迪生让他计算一个灯泡的体积，厄普顿画了一个灯泡，他把它近似为一个球体、一个圆锥体和一个圆柱体，他正在计算，当他这样做时，爱迪生在这个东西里装满了沙子，然后把它倒出来，有效地进行了一次经验测量。
You know showing his own sort of natural brilliance.
你知道他表现出了自己的天生才华。
Narrator: : Upton took the ribbing in stride, awed by what he called Edison's "intuitions." In fact, intuition was just the first step.
旁白：厄普顿泰然处之，对他所谓的爱迪生的“直觉”感到敬畏。事实上，直觉只是第一步。
Equally crucial was the inventor's understanding of electrical laws, which had set him on a quest for a very particular sort of bulb.
同样重要的是发明家对电学定律的理解，这促使他寻求一种非常特殊的灯泡。
Over the previous months, a variety of substances with the properties Edison was after had been rigorously tested as filaments, and dozens of bulb prototypes designed.
在过去的几个月里，各种具有爱迪生所追求的特性的物质作为灯丝经过了严格的测试，并设计了数十个灯泡原型。
Still, as Upton put it to his father, "We have not as yet what we want."
尽管如此，正如厄普顿对他父亲所说的那样，“我们还没有得到我们想要的东西。”
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : Edison is famous for saying that he didn't fail, he just found thousands of ways that didn't work.
内森·梅尔沃德 (Nathan Myhrvold)，发明家和企业家： 爱迪生因说他没有失败而闻名，他只是发现了数千种行不通的方法。
And to him that was a progress on the path of getting something that would.
对他来说，这是在获得某种东西的道路上的一个进步。
Narrator: : By the summer of 1879, the Menlo Park team was gaining on its object.
旁白： ： 1879 年夏天，门洛帕克团队正在实现其目标。
First, came the creation of high-vacuum bulb, so superior to any other ever produced that Edison was moved to share his results with the Association for the Advancement of Science.
首先，高真空灯泡的诞生，它比任何其他灯泡都要优越，以至于爱迪生不得不与科学促进会分享他的成果。
Then came a series of promising experiments with carbon filaments.
随后进行了一系列有希望的碳丝实验。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Now, the scientific world has taken notice.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：现在，科学界已经注意到了。
They may not see him as a great scientist, but the smart ones knew enough to respect that he was really good at solving problems.
他们可能不认为他是一位伟大的科学家，但聪明的人知道足够尊重他确实擅长解决问题。
Narrator: : Finally, in the wee hours of October 22nd, 1879, a bulb was fitted with a filament of carbonized cotton thread and -- as had become laboratory custom -- was left to burn.
旁白：：最后，在 1879 年 10 月 22 日凌晨，一个灯泡装上了碳化棉线灯丝，然后按照实验室惯例，将其点燃。
And so it continued to do, hour after hour, for more than 13 and half hours.
就这样，一小时又一小时地持续了超过13个半小时。
Upton, returning to the laboratory at daybreak, was amazed to find the light still on.
黎明时分，厄普顿回到实验室，惊讶地发现灯还亮着。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : All of a sudden the possibility of a successful lamp became apparent to everybody in the laboratory.
保罗·伊斯雷尔 (Paul Israel)，托马斯·爱迪生论文 (Thomas Edison Papers)：：突然之间，实验室里的每个人都意识到了成功制作电灯的可能性。
They realized, "Hey, this is the solution."
他们意识到，“嘿，这就是解决方案。”
Narrator: : "If it can burn that number of hours," Edison said, amid the cheers of his men, "I know I can make it burn a hundred." "There will be a great sensation when the light is made known to the world," Francis Upton reported to his father, "for it does so much more than anyone expects can be done."
旁白：“如果它能燃烧那么多小时，”爱迪生在他的手下的欢呼声中说道，“我知道我可以让它燃烧一百个小时。”弗朗西斯·厄普顿向他的父亲报告说：“当这道光被世人所知时，将会引起巨大的轰动，因为它的作用远远超出了任何人的预期。”
Now, from the New York papers, came word of the public unveiling of Edison's light, to be held at Menlo Park on New Year's Eve, 1879.
现在，纽约报纸传来消息，爱迪生的电灯将于 1879 年新年前夜在门洛帕克公开亮相。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : All of a sudden hundreds of people descend on Menlo Park.
保罗·伊斯雷尔 (Paul Israel)、托马斯·爱迪生论文 (Thomas Edison Papers)：：突然间，数百人涌入门洛帕克。
They have to put special cars on the trains in order to accommodate all the people that want to see this new marvel of Edison's.
他们必须在火车上放置特殊的车厢，以容纳所有想要看到爱迪生的这一新奇迹的人们。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : You could imagine what it must have been like, you're coming out from New York on a train, it's a dark night.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），《托马斯·爱迪生论文》（Thomas Edison Papers）：：你可以想象，当你乘坐火车从纽约出来时，那会是什么样子，那是一个漆黑的夜晚。
Fields kind of snow covered.
田野被雪覆盖了。
You get to Menlo Park, it's kind of up on the hill from the railroad track and you see these lights up there.
你到达门洛帕克，它位于铁轨的山上，你会看到那里有这些灯光。
It must have looked like a fairyland almost to people.
对于人们来说，它一定看起来就像一个仙境。
Coming out in the dark of night to this place that was lit up in a way they'd never seen before.
在漆黑的夜里来到这个地方，这里灯火通明，他们以前从未见过。
Narrator: : Twenty lampposts lighted their walk from the depot, while the laboratory itself was "brilliantly illuminated," one reporter noted, with some 30 bulbs that glowed long into the night.
旁白： 一名记者指出，二十根灯柱照亮了他们从车站出发的路，而实验室本身则“灯火通明”，约有 30 个灯泡一直亮到深夜。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : The light bulb symbolized the ability to push back the night turning night into day, which had been a primordial limitation on humanity was amazing and transformative.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格（Ernest Freeberg）：：灯泡象征着将黑夜推回到白天的能力，这一直是人类的原始限制，令人惊奇且具有变革性。
Narrator: : "[There can be] no particle of doubt in anyone's mind," raved the New York Herald , "that the electric light is a success and a permanent one."
旁白：《纽约先驱报》赞叹道：“任何人心里都毫无疑问，电灯是成功的，而且是永恒的。”
Jill Jonnes, Writer: : Put yourself back into this world where everything, everything to do with light was a flame, and imagine that all of a sudden one day that changes.
吉尔·琼斯（Jill Jonnes），编剧：：把自己带回到这个世界，一切与光有关的一切都是火焰，想象一下突然有一天一切都发生了变化。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : There was a sense in which we were entering a brave new world.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），托马斯·爱迪生论文：：有一种感觉，我们正在进入一个勇敢的新世界。
That's what Edison represented.
这就是爱迪生所代表的。
You know, the world to come.
你知道，未来的世界。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : Any new invention, any really powerful idea is going to provoke awe and wonder, and a certain amount of anxiety.
内森·梅尔沃德 (Nathan Myhrvold)，发明家和企业家：：任何新发明、任何真正强大的想法都会引起敬畏和惊奇，以及一定程度的焦虑。
In the 19th century, technology was making radical changes.
19 世纪，技术正在发生根本性的变化。
Narrator: : By the early 1880s, machines had begun to usher America into the modern world -- warping time in a way that just a generation before would have seemed unimaginable.
旁白： 到了 1880 年代初期，机器开始引领美国进入现代世界——以一种在前一代人看来难以想象的方式扭曲时间。
The journey from New York to San Francisco, which once had taken months, now could be accomplished in a matter of days; and a news story written in Washington D.C. on Tuesday was printed in the Wednesday papers in cities thousands of miles away.
从纽约到旧金山的旅程曾经需要几个月的时间，现在只需几天即可完成；周二在华盛顿特区撰写的新闻报道刊登在千里之外城市的周三报纸上。
In the office and the factory, as well as on the farm, machines made the task at hand quicker, even as electric light promised to prolong the day.
在办公室、工厂以及农场，机器使手头的任务变得更快，就像电灯承诺延长白天一样。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : Ordinary people feel like they are a part of a godlike force that is sweeping up a backward world and turning it into an immensely sophisticated, fast-moving, exciting place.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：普通人感觉自己是一股神圣力量的一部分，这种力量正在席卷一个落后的世界，并将其变成一个极其复杂、快速发展、令人兴奋的地方。
I think at the same time, it is scaring the hell out of those same people.
我认为与此同时，这也把那些人吓坏了。
They don't understand how things work anymore.
他们不再明白事情是如何运作的。
Where is the world going?
世界将走向何方？
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : Edison understood that there was no halting this incredibly broad, incredibly powerful kind of wave of change that was sweeping over America.
南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn），历史学家：爱迪生明白，这种席卷美国的极其广泛、极其强大的变革浪潮是无法阻止的。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : People are saying, "we can trust this guy about a world that we don't know how to trust exactly.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔（John Staudenmaier）：人们说，“我们可以相信这个人关于一个我们不知道如何准确信任的世界。
We can trust this guy.
我们可以信任这个人。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : He was so admired, and a lot of that was just the incredible interest he compelled by virtue of what he did at a moment when the modern world was being done.
南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn），历史学家：：他如此受人钦佩，其中很大一部分原因是他在现代世界即将结束之际所做的事情所引起的令人难以置信的兴趣。
Edison is the machine in the garden, right.
爱迪生是花园里的机器，对吧。
Chooo, let's go.
呼，我们走吧。
And there are a lot of Americans, grabbed onto that held on tight and surged forward.
还有很多美国人，紧紧抓住这一点，向前冲去。
Narrator: : In February, 1881, Edison left his workbench at Menlo Park behind and began spending his days in New York, in an elegant brownstone at 65 Fifth Avenue, wired with some 200 lamps to serve as both showplace and headquarters for the Edison Electric Light Company.
旁白：1881 年 2 月，爱迪生离开门洛帕克的工作台，开始在纽约第五大道 65 号的一栋优雅的赤褐色砂石建筑中度过他的日子，这里装有大约 200 盏灯，既是爱迪生电灯公司的展示场所，又是总部。
By then, the inventor's pledge to electrify Lower Manhattan had been stalled for more than two years, while his team grappled with the challenges of designing the world's first electrical power grid.
那时，这位发明家实现曼哈顿下城电气化的承诺已被搁置了两年多，而他的团队则在努力应对设计世界上第一个电网的挑战。
"My light is perfected," Edison said.
“我的灯已经完美了，”爱迪生说。
"I'm going into the practical production of it." With his family ensconced in a suite of rooms in a nearby hotel, the inventor plunged in.
“我正在投入实际生产。”当他的家人住在附近一家酒店的一套房间里时，发明家一头扎进去。
Ernest Freeberg, Historian: : This was not a science experiment.
历史学家欧内斯特·弗里伯格：：这不是一个科学实验。
This was a business.
这是一桩生意。
Trying to get a significant return on a significant amount of capital investment.
试图通过大量的资本投资获得丰厚的回报。
So Edison had to follow the light bulb all the way to its full realization.
所以爱迪生必须一路追随灯泡的脚步，直到它的完全实现。
Narrator: : On Pearl Street, in the heart of Manhattan's financial district, two adjoining warehouses now would be transformed into Edison's central power station -- equipped with six steam engine-dynamo sets weighing some 30 tons each, as well as switchboards and control instruments and a bank of 1,000 lamps for testing the system.
旁白：在曼哈顿金融区中心的珍珠街上，两个相邻的仓库现在将改造成爱迪生的中央发电站，配备六台每台重约 30 吨的蒸汽机发电机组，以及配电盘和控制仪器以及用于测试系统的 1,000 盏灯。
Meanwhile, nearly 80,000 feet of copper conductors would be laid below the surrounding streets.
与此同时，周围街道下方将铺设近 80,000 英尺的铜导体。
Ultimately, Edison planned to supply electricity to a swath of city blocks a mile square, and provide light to every subscribing home and business in the district with the simple flip of a switch.
最终，爱迪生计划为一英里见方的大片城市街区供电，并通过简单地按动开关为该地区的每个订阅家庭和企业提供照明。
Jill Jonnes, Writer: : It was massive, all of the different problems that he had to solve, but being Edison, he just very steadily pushed through.
吉尔·琼斯，作家：这是一个巨大的问题，他必须解决所有不同的问题，但作为爱迪生，他只是非常稳定地解决了这个问题。
Narrator: : First, New York City officials had to be convinced of the wisdom of running electric current underground before they awarded Edison the permit to tear up the streets.
旁白：首先，纽约市官员必须确信在地下运行电流是明智的，然后才授予爱迪生拆除街道的许可。
Lamps, meters, and the other system components had to be mass-produced, and it fell to Edison to oversee the factories.
灯、仪表和其他系统组件必须大规模生产，爱迪生负责监督工厂。
It was, as his secretary noted, "a gigantic undertaking" -- one that required the inventor to be administrator, manufacturer, and salesman all at once.
正如他的秘书所说，这是“一项艰巨的任务”——一项要求发明者同时担任管理者、制造商和销售员的任务。
And on top of it everything, there were the "money men," as Edison called them, who never failed to provide distraction.
最重要的是，还有爱迪生所说的“有钱人”，他们总是能分散注意力。
Jill Jonnes, Writer: : J.P.
吉尔·琼斯，编剧：J.P.
Morgan not only puts his money into Edison's company, he decides that he personally is going to showcase this new amazing technology in his own mansion.
摩根不仅将资金投入爱迪生的公司，他还决定亲自在自己的豪宅中展示这项令人惊叹的新技术。
So he lets Edison, who's up to his eyeballs with all these other problems, know that he would like someone to come and set up what was known as an isolated unit at Morgan's house.
因此，他让爱迪生知道，他希望有人来并在摩根的家里建立一个所谓的隔离单元。
Jill Jonnes, Writer: : Morgan's house is lit up, and Morgan had these various soirees to show it off, and many other rich people contracted Edison to come in and do these isolated units.
吉尔·琼斯（Jill Jonnes），编剧：摩根的房子灯火通明，摩根举办了各种各样的晚会来炫耀它，许多其他富人与爱迪生签订了合同，让他进来做这些孤立的单元。
Narrator: : The isolated units proved profitable, but a pain.
旁白：：事实证明，孤立的单位是有利可图的，但也很痛苦。
Neighbors complained about the roar of the machinery, which usually was placed in the customer's cellar or stable or else in a pit under the back garden.
邻居抱怨机器的轰鸣声，这些机器通常放置在顾客的地窖或马厩或后花园下的坑中。
Wires crossed or short-circuited, and fires broke out.
电线交叉或短路，引发火灾。
At least one hysterical housewife demanded the entire installation be removed.
至少一位歇斯底里的家庭主妇要求拆除整个装置。
Still, the orders came pouring in.
尽管如此，订单还是源源不断地涌来。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : These isolated plants boomed.
保罗·以色列、托马斯·爱迪生论文：这些孤立的植物蓬勃发展。
There are thousands of them.
有数千个。
That was the way in which the company was making its money, but Edison's vision was a central station.
这就是公司赚钱的方式，但爱迪生的愿景是建立一个中央车站。
And Edison wanted to make that happen.
爱迪生希望实现这一目标。
Narrator: : Although the demands on Edison's time were relentless, whenever he could, he slipped out of his suit and away from the office, and headed farther downtown, to Pearl Street.
旁白：尽管对爱迪生时间的要求是无情的，但只要有可能，他就会脱下西装，离开办公室，前往市中心更远的珍珠街。
There, in the shadow of the rising Brooklyn Bridge, his crews were at work, frantically digging trenches, laying mains, and troubleshooting equipment.
在那里，在不断崛起的布鲁克林大桥的阴影下，他的工作人员正在工作，疯狂地挖掘战壕，铺设主电源，并对设备进行故障排除。
By the summer of 1882, the project was finally nearing completion.
到 1882 年夏天，该项目终于接近完成。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : You had to be able to not just marshal the science, but then put the people and the money, the capital and the organizations together and the politics.
历史学家南希·科恩 (Nancy Koehn)：您不仅要能够整合科学，还要能够将人员和资金、资本和组织以及政治结合在一起。
I can't think of another figure who could operate on all those different levels.
我想不出还有哪个人物能够在所有这些不同的层面上发挥作用。
Narrator: : On the afternoon of September 4th, the switch at Pearl Street was thrown -- and hundreds of lamps throughout the so-called First District simultaneously began to glow.
旁白： 9月4日下午，珍珠街的开关被拉动——整个所谓第一区的数百盏灯同时开始发光。
Edison's power grid had successfully lighted one square mile of lower Manhattan; it seemed only a matter of time before it would light the world.
爱迪生的电网成功照亮了曼哈顿下城一平方英里的地区；它照亮世界似乎只是时间问题。
Nearly four years had passed since Edison had promised to bring electricity into people's homes -- four years full of obstacles and pressure and the persistent, pioneering work of hundreds.
自从爱迪生承诺将电力带入千家万户以来，已经过去近四年了——这四年充满了障碍和压力，以及数百人坚持不懈的开拓性工作。
Now that he had achieved what many thought impossible, the garrulous inventor was almost too worn out for comment.
既然他已经实现了许多人认为不可能的目标，这位喋喋不休的发明家几乎已经疲惫不堪，无法发表任何评论。
"I have accomplished all that I promised," Edison said to a reporter.
“我已经完成了我所承诺的一切，”爱迪生对记者说。
And for once, he left it at that.
这一次，他就这样离开了。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : He hated anything that took him away from the tinkering and the thinking and the inventing, but he kept doing it.
历史学家南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn）：他讨厌任何让他远离修修补补、思考和发明的事情，但他一直在这样做。
He says, "I know how to do this, and with God as my witness, I'm going to do this." And so that stubbornness gets us to this extraordinary accomplishment.
他说：“我知道该怎么做，有上帝作证，我会这么做。”正是这种固执让我们取得了非凡的成就。
That really, really, really changed the world.
这真的、真的、真的改变了世界。
Narrator: : It was the middle of July, 1884, and for Edison, just another long day of work in New York, when word from Menlo Park arrived.
旁白： 1884 年 7 月中旬，对于爱迪生来说，在纽约又度过了漫长的一天，门洛帕克传来了消息。
Mrs. Edison had taken to her bed in the house they still owned there; she was desperately ill.
爱迪生夫人躺在他们仍然拥有的房子里的床上。她病得很重。
Mary's puzzling ailments had long been a source of stress in the Edison household.
玛丽的令人费解的疾病长期以来一直是爱迪生家庭的压力来源。
But in her grief over the recent death of her father, she had seemed more fragile than ever.
但在她父亲最近去世的悲痛中，她似乎比以往任何时候都更加脆弱。
A doctor had been called, but there was little he could do.
医生被叫来了，但他无能为力。
At two o'clock in the morning on August 9th, Mary Edison died.
8月9日凌晨两点，玛丽·爱迪生去世。
She was 29.
她29岁。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : There's a good possibility that she may have died from morphine overdose.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），《托马斯·爱迪生论文》（Thomas Edison Papers）：：她很可能死于吗啡过量。
She appears to have had some serious complications from her third pregnancy, which created a lot of pain.
她似乎在第三次怀孕时出现了一些严重的并发症，这给她带来了很多痛苦。
In that era, opium and morphine were used in almost every drug, and accidental overdoses were not uncommon, but you know her death was pretty sudden.
在那个时代，鸦片和吗啡几乎被用于所有毒品中，意外服用过量的情况并不少见，但要知道她的死却相当突然。
Narrator: : Edison had hurried home barely in time to say goodbye.
旁白：：爱迪生匆匆赶回家，来不及道别。
His daughter Marion later would recall waking to find him at his wife's bedside, "shaking with grief."
他的女儿玛丽昂后来回忆起床时发现他躺在妻子的床边，“悲痛得浑身发抖”。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : We can speculate that Edison felt guilt for having spent all these years, the entirety of their married life, removed from the household, immersed in the world of the lab.
传记作者兰德尔·斯特罗斯：我们可以推测，爱迪生对这些年来，整个婚姻生活都远离家庭，沉浸在实验室的世界里感到内疚。
And now it was all over.
现在一切都结束了。
Narrator: : Under other circumstances, Edison might have immersed himself in work -- but he had no inventive project to consume him.
旁白：：在其他情况下，爱迪生可能会全身心投入工作——但他没有什么创造性的项目可以消耗他的精力。
Electric power had unraveled the creative fraternity of Menlo Park, as his trusted lieutenants had scattered to manage his various lighting concerns.
电力瓦解了门洛帕克的创意团队，因为他信任的副手们分散开来来管理他的各种照明问题。
Edison himself had spent the two years since the launch of Pearl Street working tirelessly to extend his system -- and though the effort had made him a millionaire, money for its own sake did not much interest him.
自从珍珠街推出以来，爱迪生本人花了两年的时间不知疲倦地工作以扩展他的系统 - 尽管这种努力使他成为百万富翁，但金钱本身并没有引起他多大的兴趣。
Edison was 37 years old now -- and suddenly a widower with three children to raise.
爱迪生现在已经 37 岁了——突然之间，他成了鳏夫，还要抚养三个孩子。
Just weeks after Mary's death, he left the boys in her mother's care, and with 12-year-old daughter Marion in tow headed for the International Electrical Exhibition in Philadelphia and a rendezvous with an old friend, Ezra Gilliland.
玛丽去世几周后，他把孩子们交给了她母亲照顾，并带着 12 岁的女儿玛丽昂前往费城参加国际电气展览会，并与老朋友埃兹拉·吉利兰 (Ezra Gilliland) 会面。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : They had known each other as telegraphers.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel）、托马斯·爱迪生论文（Thomas Edison Papers）：：他们彼此都是电报员。
They actually practiced their telegraph skills by transmitting Shakespeare's plays, so Ezra Gilliland is his best friend for many years.
他们实际上是通过传送莎士比亚的戏剧来练习电报技能的，所以埃兹拉·吉利兰是他多年来最好的朋友。
And in 1884 they meet in Philadelphia and decide that they're going to go off and become kind of an inventive partnership.
1884 年，他们在费城会面，决定分手并成为一种富有创意的合作伙伴。
Narrator: : Collaboration brought a renewed companionship -- and, in the winter of 1885, a meandering leisure trip together south.
旁白： ：合作带来了新的友谊，并在 1885 年冬天一起南下进行了一次蜿蜒的休闲旅行。
In Florida, on a whim, Edison bought 13 riverside acres in Fort Myers and gave half the plot to his old friend.
在佛罗里达州，爱迪生一时兴起，在迈尔斯堡河畔买下了 13 英亩土地，并将其中一半送给了他的老朋友。
The two would build vacation homes there, side by side.
两人将在那里并排建造度假屋。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : Briefly Edison makes himself emotionally more open than he had ever been before.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：简而言之，爱迪生让自己在情感上比以前更加开放。
It's as if he had resolved to leave the world of work and try a different style in approaching life.
就好像他决心离开工作世界，尝试不同的生活方式。
Narrator: : It was through Gilliland that Edison was introduced to Mina Miller, the 19-year-old daughter of a prominent Ohio industrialist.
旁白：：通过吉利兰，爱迪生认识了米娜·米勒，她是俄亥俄州一位著名实业家 19 岁的女儿。
Edison, then 38, was instantly smitten.
当时 38 岁的爱迪生立即被迷住了。
Before long, the young Miss Miller had become an obsession.
不久之后，年轻的米勒小姐就成了一种痴迷。
"Got thinking about Mina and came near to being run over by a street car," he wrote in a diary.
“我想起了米娜，差点被有轨电车碾死，”他在日记中写道。
"If Mina interferes much more will have to take out an accident policy."
“如果米娜干涉得更多，她就必须购买事故保险。”
Reunited finally while on holiday at Gillilands' summer home, Edison taught Mina Morse code, tapping out messages on her hand so they might communicate privately even when in company.
在吉利兰兹的避暑别墅度假时，爱迪生终于重聚，他教米娜莫尔斯电码，在她手上敲击信息，这样即使在公司里，他们也可以私下交流。
He proposed in the same manner.
他以同样的方式提议。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Unlike his first wife, Mina grew up in a very sophisticated world.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：与他的第一任妻子不同，米娜在一个非常复杂的世界中长大。
She was the daughter of someone who was himself an inventor.
她是一位发明家的女儿。
She'd moved in society circles.
她已经进入了社交圈。
She knew what it meant to be around famous people, and had a better sense than a lot of women would have of what it would be like to marry one.
她知道与名人在一起意味着什么，并且比许多女性更清楚嫁给名人会是什么样子。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : She realized he was Mr. Edison, she realized he was a big shot, but she had her own interests, and she had much more of a sense of herself.
尼尔·鲍德温，传记作者：：她意识到他是爱迪生先生，她意识到他是个大人物，但她有自己的兴趣，而且她更有自我意识。
Narrator: : With marriage came a new house, a grand 23-room mansion in West Orange, New Jersey.
旁白：：随着婚姻的到来，我们有了一套新房子，一座位于新泽西州西奥兰治的拥有 23 个房间的豪华豪宅。
Three more children -- a daughter and two sons -- would eventually join the Edison family.
另外三个孩子——一个女儿和两个儿子——最终加入了爱迪生家族。
Now that his domestic life was settled, the inventor was anxious to get back to his first love.
现在家庭生活已经安顿下来，发明家急于回到他的初恋情人身边。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : The way in which Edison thought about himself as a family man is best captured by a letter to his second wife.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），《托马斯·爱迪生论文》（Thomas Edison Papers）：：爱迪生对自己作为一个家庭男人的看法可以从写给他第二任妻子的信中得到最好的体现。
He writes, "You and the children and the laboratory are the most important things in my life." And I think the inclusion of laboratory tells you a lot.
他写道：“你、孩子们和实验室是我生命中最重要的事情。”我认为实验室的加入可以告诉你很多信息。
I would argue that the laboratory probably ought to be at the top of that list.
我认为实验室可能应该位于该列表的首位。
Narrator: : "I want none of the rich man's usual toys," Edison had once told a reporter.
旁白：“我不想要富人常用的玩具，”爱迪生曾经对记者说。
"I have no time for them.
“我没有时间理他们。
What I want is a perfect workshop."
我想要的是一个完美的工作坊。”
Narrator: : When it opened in December, 1887, Edison's "perfect workshop" was, in his own words, "the best equipped and largest laboratory extant." Occupying a corner lot on Main Street, just down the hill from his new home, the complex included a sprawling central structure that, at 60,000 square feet, was 10 times larger than Menlo Park.
旁白：：1887 年 12 月投入使用时，爱迪生的“完美车间”用他自己的话说，是“现存设备最好、规模最大的实验室”。该建筑群位于主街的一处拐角处，就在他的新家的山下，其中包括一个庞大的中央建筑，面积达 60,000 平方英尺，比门洛帕克大 10 倍。
In addition to machine shops and chemical and experimental rooms, there was a vast technical library and a stockroom -- furnished, as the proud inventor quipped, with "everything from an elephant's hide to the eyeballs of a United States Senator."
除了机械车间、化学实验室和实验室外，还有一个巨大的技术图书馆和一个储藏室——正如这位自豪的发明家所说，配备了“从大象皮到美国参议员眼球的一切物品”。
"My plan," he told a prospective backer, "contemplates to working on only that class of inventions which require but small investments for each...
“我的计划，”他告诉一位潜在的支持者，“考虑只致力于那些只需要少量投资的发明......
No cumbersome inventions like the electric light." Edison was fairly bursting with ideas: his catalogue of "Things doing and to be done" in the new laboratory ran to five full pages -- and included everything from artificial silk, to a snow compressor, to ink for the blind.
没有像电灯这样麻烦的发明。”爱迪生的想法相当丰富：他在新实验室中的“正在做的事情和将要做的事情”的目录长达五页，包括从人造丝到雪压缩机，到百叶窗墨水的所有东西。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : You can't work as much as he did, in as many different spheres with as much zeal as he did, if you don't have some real fire burning inside there.
南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn），历史学家：：如果你内心没有真正的火焰在燃烧，你就不可能像他那样在许多不同的领域以同样的热情工作。
And that fire has to be a passion for what he was doing and literally the act of doing it.
这种火焰必须是对他正在做的事情的热情，以及真正做这件事的行为。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : He loves his mind.
南希·科恩，历史学家：：他热爱自己的思想。
He loves slipping into it.
他喜欢陷入其中。
For him it was exactly what made him come alive, what gave him his mission.
对他来说，这正是让他充满活力、赋予他使命的原因。
And I can only imagine you know him lying on his cot, right at the back of the lab, having one of his catnaps.
我只能想象你知道他躺在实验室后面的小床上，正在打瞌睡。
And then waking up and going, "oh what a…
然后醒来，走着，“噢，多么......
this is what I was thinking about and here's how I'm thinking about it differently now." And you know, and being in his element by being in the kind of very, very interesting, very, very active black hole of his thinking.
这就是我当时的想法，现在我的想法有所不同。”你知道，通过进入他的思维中非常非常有趣、非常非常活跃的黑洞来融入他的元素。
Narrator: : Edison had hoped to make a fresh start in his new laboratory.
旁白：：爱迪生希望在他的新实验室里有一个新的开始。
Instead, he would find his pursuit of new inventions eclipsed by old ones -- and his perpetual reach for the top rung this time would carry him straight to the bottom.
相反，他会发现自己对新发明的追求让旧发明黯然失色——而这一次，他对新发明的不断追求将直接导致他跌入谷底。
Narrator: : For the better part of a decade, Edison's phonograph had lain dormant -- "comatose for the time being," he'd told reporters when queried about it.
旁白：在十年的大部分时间里，爱迪生的留声机一直处于休眠状态——“暂时处于昏迷状态，”当被问及此事时，他告诉记者。
But by the late 1880s, his old rival, Alexander Graham Bell, and his cousin, Chichester, a chemist, had picked up where Edison left off.
但到了 1880 年代末，他的老对手亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔 (Alexander Graham Bell) 和他的化学家表弟奇切斯特 (Chichester) 接续了爱迪生的事业。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Alexander Graham Bell's cousin comes to him and says, "Tom, isn't this cool, look what I did.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔的表弟走过来对他说：“汤姆，这不是很酷吗，看看我做了什么。
I've, I've done a mod to your phonograph." And he had taken the phonograph and put a sort of wax surface on it, instead of tin foil and Edison's basic response was, "Aha, not while I'm around, fella."
我、我已经对你的留声机进行了改装。”他拿起留声机，在上面放了一层蜡，而不是锡箔，爱迪生的基本反应是，“啊哈，伙计，当我在场的时候就不行了。”
Randall Stross, Biographer: : Edison did not have a generous nature and he was most unwilling to say to a rival, "Well done."
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：爱迪生生性并不慷慨，他最不愿意对对手说“干得好”。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : I think he, you know, got kind of anxious.
丽莎·吉特曼（Lisa Gitelman），历史学家：：我认为他，你知道，有点焦虑。
I have this little bit of intellectual property here, I'm known for this, and now other people are sort of inventing around my invention, I better get back to it.
我在这里拥有一点知识产权，我因此而闻名，现在其他人都在围绕我的发明进行发明，我最好回到它。
Narrator: : Denouncing the Bell associates as "pirates," Edison had vowed to best their machine -- and immediately set to work on what he called "the perfected phonograph." To assist in the effort, he'd made his friend Ezra Gilliland an official partner -- giving him charge of the marketing and manufacturing of the improved device.
旁白：爱迪生谴责贝尔公司的同事是“海盗”，他发誓要改进他们的机器，并立即开始研究他所说的“完美的留声机”。为了协助这项工作，他让他的朋友埃兹拉·吉利兰 (Ezra Gilliland) 成为官方合作伙伴，让他负责改进设备的营销和制造。
But when Gilliland expressed concerns over design flaws in one prototype -- and offered Edison his own ideas for potential improvements -- he was coldly rebuffed.
但当吉利兰对一款原型机的设计缺陷表示担忧，并向爱迪生提出他自己的潜在改进想法时，他遭到了冷落的拒绝。
It was impossible, Edison told him, for a man to do business and invent simultaneously.
爱迪生告诉他，一个人不可能同时做生意和发明。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : I think Gilliland did feel that he was more of an equal partner in this operation than Edison perceived him as being.
保罗·以色列，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：我认为吉利兰确实觉得他在这次行动中比爱迪生认为的更平等。
The problem is that for Edison, nobody is quite his equal.
问题是，对于爱迪生来说，没有人能与他匹敌。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : If you had your own ideas and you really wanted to go off, you were kind of in the wrong place because it was really Edison's party.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：如果你有自己的想法并且你真的想离开，那么你就来错地方了，因为这实际上是爱迪生的聚会。
Narrator: : Then, in the spring of 1888, Gilliland was approached by an entrepreneur, who offered to buy the marketing rights to Edison's new phonograph.
旁白： ：然后，1888 年春天，一位企业家找到吉利兰，提出购买爱迪生新留声机的营销权。
Edison stood to make $500,000 dollars from the sale; Gilliland, in a secret side deal, negotiated a payout for himself of $250,000.
爱迪生将从这次拍卖中赚到 50 万美元；吉利兰在一项秘密私下交易中为自己争取了 25 万美元的报酬。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : Basically Gilliland put a lot of pressure on him that this was probably the best deal he was gonna get.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），托马斯·爱迪生论文：：基本上，吉利兰给他施加了很大的压力，因为这可能是他能得到的最好的交易。
So, Edison gave into the pressure.
于是，爱迪生屈服于压力。
Narrator: : It was several months before Edison became aware of the sum paid to Gilliland, and then he was enraged.
旁白：：几个月后，爱迪生才知道支付给吉利兰的金额，然后他很生气。
"I just learn you have made a certain trade…
“我刚刚得知你做了一笔交易……
of a nature unknown to me," he cabled Gilliland, then in Europe.
其性质对我来说是未知的，”他给当时身在欧洲的吉利兰发了电报。
"I have this day abrogated your contract."
“我今天就解除了你的契约。”
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Edison felt it was an utter betrayal, and I think that stung him deeply in a way that he hadn't been hurt before.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：爱迪生觉得这是一种彻底的背叛，我认为这深深地刺痛了他，这是他以前从未受过的伤害。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : Edison from the moment he became famous, felt that people wanted things from him, and Gilliland was someone he knew from way back, so he trusted him.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：爱迪生从成名的那一刻起，就觉得人们想要从他那里得到东西，而吉利兰是他很久以前就认识的人，所以他信任他。
Edison would not allow himself to be in a vulnerable position again.
爱迪生不会让自己再次处于弱势地位。
Narrator: : In Fort Myers, on the land the longtime friends had planned to share, two newly constructed houses stood side by side.
旁白： 在迈尔斯堡，在老朋友们计划分享的土地上，两栋新建的房屋并排矗立着。
Edison now instructed the caretaker to "cut the pipes" that supplied Gilliland's house with water.
爱迪生现在指示管理员“切断”为吉利兰的房子供水的管道。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : Thomas Edison had a highly cultivated sense of betrayal and either you were with him or you weren't.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：托马斯·爱迪生有一种高度培养的背叛感，你要么和他在一起，要么不在一起。
It was quite black and white in that regard.
在这方面，这是非常黑白分明的。
Narrator: : By 1888, the electrification of the United States was well underway.
旁白： ： 到了 1888 年，美国的电气化进程正在顺利进行。
In the six years since Edison had thrown the switch on the first electrical power grid at Pearl Street, his empire had grown to include 121 central stations in cities and towns across the country -- from Birmingham, Alabama to Grand Rapids, Michigan -- as well as numerous others in Europe and Latin America.
自从爱迪生在珍珠街打开第一个电网以来的六年里，他的帝国已经发展到包括全国城镇的 121 个中央车站——从阿拉巴马州的伯明翰到密歇根州的大急流城——以及欧洲和拉丁美洲的许多其他国家。
But already, the industry he'd founded was bristling with competition.
但他创立的这个行业已经充满了竞争。
In 1884, Pittsburgh entrepreneur George Westinghouse had gotten into the game, buying up patents from electrical inventors in America and abroad, and quickly developing his own rival system.
1884 年，匹兹堡企业家乔治·威斯汀豪斯 (George Westinghouse) 加入了这个游戏，从美国和国外的电气发明家那里购买了专利，并迅速开发了自己的竞争对手系统。
More recently, the Thomson-Houston Company, a longtime supplier of arc light, had begun installing its own central stations, using technology licensed from Westinghouse.
最近，长期的弧光灯供应商汤姆森-休斯顿公司开始使用西屋电气授权的技术安装自己的中央站。
Now, the race was on to light the dark corners of the world.
现在，照亮世界黑暗角落的竞赛已经开始。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : If you are the town council in a town of 5,000 people in Ohio someplace and you're debating, "do we want to electrify?" You know that there's Westinghouse, there's Thomson-Houston and there's Edison.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔 (John Staudenmaier)：如果您是俄亥俄州某地一个拥有 5,000 人的小镇的镇议会，并且您正在辩论“我们要电气化吗？”你知道有西屋公司、汤姆森休斯顿公司和爱迪生公司。
All of them claim to be able to deliver a whole package to you.
他们都声称能够向您交付整个包裹。
Narrator: : Both Westinghouse and Thomson-Houston were peddling a new delivery system, developed in Europe and known as "alternating current," or AC, which employed high-voltage wires to transmit electricity over long distances -- as much as several hundred miles from the generating station.
旁白：西屋公司和汤姆森-休斯顿公司都在兜售一种在欧洲开发的新型输送系统，称为“交流电”或AC，它使用高压线来长距离传输电力——距离发电站长达数百英里。
By contrast, Edison's low-voltage, direct current system -- or DC -- with its maximum delivery range of only a mile or two -- seemed downright antiquated.
相比之下，爱迪生的低压直流系统（或 DC）其最大传输范围仅为一两英里，似乎完全过时了。
Jill Jonnes, Writer: : You can imagine how much more attractive it was to a city if you came as a Westinghouse salesman and said, "we don't have to build power houses every one mile, we'll put something on the outskirts of town, and as your town grows," and remember this is 19th century America it's growing very, very rapidly, "we can just expand and provide more and more electricity from this one power station."
吉尔·琼斯（Jill Jonnes），作家：你可以想象，如果你作为西屋电气推销员来到一座城市，并说：“我们不必每隔一英里就建造一座发电厂，我们会在城镇的郊区建造一些东西，随着你的城镇的发展，”并记住这是 19 世纪的美国，它的发展非常非常迅速，“我们可以扩展并从这个发电站提供越来越多的电力。”
Narrator: : With his competitors undercutting him on cost, Edison was feeling the squeeze.
旁白：：由于竞争对手在成本上低于他，爱迪生感到了压力。
To his 121 domestic stations, Westinghouse already had 68 -- after just one year in business.
就其 121 个国内电台而言，西屋电气在开业仅一年后就已经拥有 68 个。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : As AC begins to become a real serious competitor, and as the Westinghouse system begins to spread, increasingly Edison's closest associates are begging him to turn to AC.
保罗·伊斯雷尔 (Paul Israel)，托马斯·爱迪生论文：随着 AC 开始成为真正的有力竞争对手，并且随着西屋电气系统开始传播，越来越多的爱迪生最亲密的同事恳求他转向 AC。
There are lots of advantages to AC, and Edison refuses to go along with them.
交流电有很多优点，但爱迪生拒绝接受这些优点。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Alternating current is very complicated compared to direct current.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：与直流电相比，交流电非常复杂。
To understand it, to make it work requires a level of mathematics he just didn't have.
要理解它并使其发挥作用，需要达到他所不具备的数学水平。
He just didn't have the background.
他只是没有背景。
Narrator: : With his own dominance in the industry at stake, Edison's competitive streak short-circuited.
旁白：：由于爱迪生自己在行业中的主导地位受到威胁，他的竞争优势被打破了。
This time, instead of out-inventing his rivals, he would conduct a ruthless campaign to discredit them.
这一次，他不会在发明上超越他的对手，而是会发起一场无情的运动来抹黑他们。
Capitalizing on a recent spate of grisly accidents involving high-voltage wires, Edison now sought to convince the public that AC was unsafe.
利用最近发生的一系列涉及高压电线的可怕事故，爱迪生现在试图让公众相信交流电是不安全的。
"It is a matter of fact," he warned in a widely-circulated pamphlet, "that any system employing high voltage jeopardizes life."
他在一本广为流传的小册子中警告说：“事实上，任何使用高压的系统都会危及生命。”
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : The safety issue was an important one.
保罗·伊斯雷尔 (Paul Israel)、托马斯·爱迪生论文 (Thomas Edison Papers)：：安全问题是一个重要问题。
But it's also the case that there were ways to solve that and they were solved.
但事实也是如此，有办法解决这个问题并且它们已经解决了。
And so, I think he had real concerns about danger, but this was his system.
所以，我认为他确实担心危险，但这是他的系统。
Narrator: : From West Orange now came accounts of gruesome experiments designed to prove AC's deadly power: the electrocutions of dogs, calves, horses -- all by means of alternating current.
旁白：现在，从西奥兰治传来了旨在证明交流电致命力量的可怕实验的报道：狗、小牛、马的电死——所有这些都是通过交流电进行的。
Edison also offered his expertise to New York State in its effort to introduce a "humane" method of execution -- testifying that electricity would indeed be more humane than the gallows.
爱迪生还向纽约州提供了他的专业知识，以努力引入一种“人道”的死刑方法——证明电力确实比绞刑架更人道。
Jill Jonnes, Writer: : All of a sudden Edison who had always been against capital punishment suddenly is completely behind the electric chair, and he feels that the best way to do this is to use, guess what, Westinghouse alternating current generators, and it is fully his intention to associate everything to do with Westinghouse and his electricity with death.
吉尔·琼斯，作家：突然间，一直反对死刑的爱迪生突然完全支持电椅，他觉得最好的办法就是使用，猜猜看，西屋交流发电机，他完全想把与西屋和他的电力有关的一切与死亡联系起来。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : He had a very adversarial view toward other people's technology, and he fought to preserve his own technology, and that might've been his downfall.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：他对其他人的技术持非常敌视的态度，并且他为保护自己的技术而奋斗，这可能是他的垮台。
Narrator: : In the end, Edison's grisly campaign made not a dent in his competitor's sales.
旁白：：最终，爱迪生可怕的营销活动并没有影响他竞争对手的销量。
And by 1890, it was clear to J.P.
到 1890 年，J.P. 很清楚。
Morgan and the other partners in Edison General Electric that the future lay with alternating current -- and their future profits in a merger with Westinghouse's principal rival, Thomson-Houston.
摩根和爱迪生通用电气公司的其他合伙人认为，未来取决于交流电，而他们的未来利润则取决于与西屋公司的主要竞争对手汤姆森休斯顿公司的合并。
"If you make the coalition my usefulness as an inventor is gone," Edison warned.
爱迪生警告说：“如果你让联盟成为我作为发明家的用处就消失了。”
"I can only invent under powerful incentive.
“我只有在强大的激励下才能发明。
No competition means no invention." It was a price the money men were willing to pay.
没有竞争就意味着没有发明。”这是人们愿意付出的代价。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : Basically the Edison people said, "we're going AC." So he was forced out of that game, is really what happened.
约翰·施陶登迈尔（John Staudenmaier），历史学家：：基本上，爱迪生人说，“我们要采用交流电。”所以他被迫退出那场比赛，确实是这样发生的。
There's no question about that.
毫无疑问。
Narrator: : Edison had little to do with the merger, and in the course of the negotiations, his name was dropped.
旁白：：爱迪生与这次合并没有多大关系，在谈判过程中，他的名字被删除了。
From then on, the company would be known simply as General Electric.
从那时起，该公司将简称为通用电气。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : He had backed the wrong technology, and the end was, he lost control.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：他支持了错误的技术，结果是他失去了控制。
Narrator: : Edison departed with stock in the newly-consolidated venture, and a seat on its Board of Directors.
旁白：：爱迪生带着新合并企业的股票和董事会席位离开。
But he was eager to move on.
但他渴望继续前进。
"I'm going to do something now so different and so much bigger than anything I've ever done before," he told his secretary, "that people will forget that my name was ever connected with anything electrical."
他告诉他的秘书：“我现在要做的事情与我以前做过的任何事情都不同，而且规模更大，人们会忘记我的名字曾经与任何电气有关。”
Jill Jonnes, Writer: : Edison, who always wanted to look like the champion, said "oh, you know electricity is an old thing I'm really done with that.
吉尔·琼斯（Jill Jonnes），编剧：：爱迪生一直想看起来像冠军，他说：“哦，你知道电是一个古老的东西，我真的已经受够了。
So you know I've created this world sort of lesser beings will move it forward." But the truth is, he was heartbroken.
所以你知道我创造了这个世界，一些较小的生物将推动它前进。”但事实是，他心碎了。
Narrator: : Ogdensburg, New Jersey: a desolate region 30 miles from West Orange, strewn with quarries and scarred by mines, perpetually covered in dust.
旁白：新泽西州奥格登斯堡：距离西奥兰治 30 英里的荒凉地区，到处都是采石场和地雷，永远被灰尘覆盖。
It was to this place that Edison retreated in the early 1890s, convinced that its stony landscape would yield to him the Next Big Thing.
爱迪生在 1890 年代初撤退到了这个地方，他坚信这里的石头景观将为他带来下一个伟大的事物。
The United States was then in the throes of a building frenzy -- two decades and counting of railroads and bridges being banged together, cities stretching outward and up.
当时的美国正处于建筑狂潮的阵痛之中——二十年来，铁路和桥梁被撞在一起，城市向外和向上延伸。
All of it hinged on steel, and thus on iron ore, and the rich veins in the East were by now running dry.
所有这一切都取决于钢铁，因此也取决于铁矿石，而东方丰富的矿脉现在已经枯竭。
Edison intended to keep the nation's steel mills humming -- with an ingenious new process for extracting iron from low-grade ore.
爱迪生打算通过一种巧妙的新工艺从低品位矿石中提取铁来保持国家钢铁厂的运转。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : He invented the process that began with dynamiting these mountains, breaking them into giant boulders, pulverizing the boulders in these giant, interlocking drums that break them further down, then break those down in to pebble size, pulverize that down through a screening system so you ended with this like very fine sediment, and that's when the iron was pulled out.
尼尔·鲍德温，传记作者：：他发明了一个过程，首先炸毁这些山脉，将它们打碎成巨大的巨石，然后在这些巨大的连锁滚筒中粉碎巨石，进一步将它们分解，然后将它们分解成卵石大小，通过筛选系统将其粉碎，这样你就得到了非常细小的沉积物，这就是铁被拉出的时候。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : Fantastic idea!
丽莎·吉特曼（Lisa Gitelman），历史学家：：好主意！
To get iron ore to grind it up right?
是为了把铁矿石磨碎吗？
And then drop it, and have it drop past just let it drop past some magnets, right?
然后放下它，让它掉落过去，让它掉落经过一些磁铁，对吗？
And so the actual iron would be pulled out by the magnets and the worthless ore would fall to the ground.
因此，实际的铁会被磁铁吸出，而毫无价值的矿石就会掉到地上。
Genius idea.
天才的想法。
Narrator: : It was not enough that the effort required Edison to design and build a whole series of gargantuan new machines; he also intended to automate the entire plant, so that the ore processed there would never once be touched by human hands.
旁白：：爱迪生设计和建造一系列巨大的新机器的努力还不够；他还打算实现整个工厂的自动化，以便在那里加工的矿石永远不会被人手接触。
For the first time in many years, the inventor could once again immerse himself in inventing.
多年来，发明家第一次能够再次全身心投入到发明中。
Leonard DeGraaf, National Park Service: : Fundamentally Edison is a technical problem-solver.
伦纳德·德格拉夫 (Leonard DeGraaf)，国家公园管理局：从根本上来说，爱迪生是一位技术问题解决者。
It's basically what he wants to do.
这基本上就是他想做的事。
And that is, he wants to bring a bunch of his mates together and solve fun technical problems.
也就是说，他想召集一群伙伴一起解决有趣的技术问题。
And at Ogdensburg he's doing it on a massive scale.
在奥格登斯堡，他正在大规模地这样做。
That is fun.
那很有趣。
That's like a big sandbox.
这就像一个大沙箱。
Narrator: : From 1890 on, as the plant took shape and the technical staff grew to more than 200, the Ogden works consumed more and more of Edison's time.
旁白： ：从1890年开始，随着工厂初具规模，技术人员发展到200多人，奥格登工厂消耗了爱迪生越来越多的时间。
Finally, in 1894, he moved up to the mine entirely -- promising Mina to return home to West Orange on Sundays.
最后，1894 年，他完全搬到了矿井，并承诺米娜每周日返回西奥兰治的家。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : But he ended up building himself a little cabin up there.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：但他最终在那里为自己建造了一间小木屋。
It was called the white house, but it was really kind of grimy and dusty and horrible, and he wrote some letters to his wife.
它被称为白宫，但它确实有点肮脏、布满灰尘和可怕，他给他的妻子写了一些信。
It's like he's high off of how grimy it was, and disgusting it was.
就好像他对这里的肮脏和恶心感到兴奋。
And in terms of his hands on approach you know describing crawling underneath these machines and fixing them himself because "there's nobody else who can do it." You know it's like a CEO that can't let go.
就他的实际操作方法而言，你知道他爬到这些机器下面并亲自修理它们，因为“没有其他人可以做到这一点”。你知道这就像一个不能放手的首席执行官。
You still have to get down to the nitty gritty, you can't help yourself.
你还是得脚踏实地，你无法控制自己。
Narrator: : At times, even to Edison, the enterprise seemed cursed.
旁白：有时，即使对爱迪生来说，企业也似乎受到了诅咒。
Machinery malfunctioned.
机器发生故障。
Buildings collapsed.
建筑物倒塌。
More than once, the plant had to be shut down for lack of cash.
该工厂不止一次因缺乏现金而被迫关闭。
Having steered clear of partners, Edison had to shore up the venture with his personal fortune again and again, eventually selling even his shares in General Electric to keep it afloat.
在避开合作伙伴后，爱迪生不得不一次又一次地用自己的个人财富来支撑这家企业，最终甚至卖掉了他在通用电气的股份以维持其运营。
None of it seemed to faze him.
这些似乎都没有让他感到困扰。
As he put it in one letter to Mina: "your lover [is] as bright and cheerful as a bumble bee in flower time."
正如他在给米娜的一封信中所说：“你的爱人就像花期里的大黄蜂一样聪明、开朗。”
Randall Stross, Biographer: : He liked the idea of not being too old to handle rough conditions.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：他喜欢这样的想法：年龄不要太大，无法应对恶劣的条件。
Throwing out all of the comforts of modern life and living as a roughneck.
抛弃现代生活的所有舒适，像一个钻工一样生活。
Maybe it was a reaction to his having to keep Wall Street happy.
也许这是他必须让华尔街高兴的反应。
There were no investors anywhere near that mine.
该矿附近没有投资者。
Leonard DeGraaf, National Park Service: : He's away from the pressures of being Thomas Edison, the "Wizard of Menlo Park." And so in Ogdensburg, he can be himself.
伦纳德·德格拉夫（Leonard DeGraaf），国家公园管理局：他远离了托马斯·爱迪生（“门洛帕克的巫师”）的压力。因此，在奥格登斯堡，他可以做自己。
Narrator: : No matter the difficulty, Edison kept at it year after year -- so seemingly unconcerned with the bottom line that many took to calling the Ogden "Edison's Folly." Even before the plant was fully operational, the price for its product plummeted -- its value diminished by the discovery of a vast new source of high-grade ore in the Midwest.
旁白：无论困难如何，爱迪生年复一年地坚持下去——似乎对底线毫不关心，以至于许多人将奥格登称为“爱迪生的愚蠢行为”。甚至在该工厂全面投入运营之前，其产品的价格就暴跌——由于在中西部发现了巨大的新高品位矿石来源，其价值下降了。
Edison finally admitted defeat in 1898.
1898年，爱迪生最终承认失败。
By then, he'd sunk nearly 10 years and some $2 million of his own money into the venture.
到那时，他已经投入了近 10 年的时间和大约 200 万美元的自有资金投入到这家企业中。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : Why did Edison stick with that for so long?
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），《托马斯·爱迪生论文》（Thomas Edison Papers）：：为什么爱迪生坚持这么久？
It was a technical challenge that Edison really enjoyed taking on.
爱迪生非常喜欢接受这项技术挑战。
In fact, he later says, you know, he he's talking to his assistant in the ore milling venture, at the end of it, and they're looking at where they've dug out all this ore, and big hole in the ground and this guy says, "Well you, you sure wasted a lot of money on that," and Edison says, "yeah but we sure had fun doing it." He had such a great time, right that it didn't matter that he spent that much money on this hole in the ground, so to speak.
事实上，他后来说，你知道，他正在和他在矿石加工企业的助手交谈，在最后，他们正在看他们在哪里挖出了所有这些矿石，以及地上的大洞，这个家伙说，“好吧，你确实在这上面浪费了很多钱，”爱迪生说，“是的，但我们确实很高兴这样做。”他玩得很开心，对吧，他在这个地洞上花那么多钱也没关系。
Narrator: : In the quest for commercial iron ore, the inventor had instead found fresh inspiration.
旁白：：在寻找商业铁矿石的过程中，发明家反而找到了新的灵感。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : There's something very interesting about how he literally lets go of what most of the people around him would call failure.
南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn），历史学家：：关于他如何真正放弃周围大多数人所说的失败，有一些非常有趣的事情。
And then moves forward without a huge amount of reflection, soul searching.
然后就继续前进，无需进行大量的反思和反省。
He's thinking, he's seeing, he's observing, he's filing, but he's moving.
他在思考，他在观察，他在观察，他在归档，但他在行动。
This was a man who really didn't spend a lot of time looking backward.
这真是一个不花太多时间回头看的人。
Narrator: : They called it the "Black Maria," for its resemblance to a police wagon.
旁白：：他们称其为“黑玛丽亚”，因为它类似于警车。
Built in the winter of 1893, just outside the main laboratory at West Orange, the tar-papered structure had been positioned atop an enormous Lazy Susan so that it could be rotated to follow the sun, and outfitted with a retractable roof to maximize available light.
这座柏油纸结构建于 1893 年冬天，就在西奥兰治的主实验室外，被放置在一个巨大的 Lazy Susan 顶部，这样它就可以跟随太阳旋转，并配备了一个可伸缩的屋顶，以最大限度地利用可用的光线。
It was from this curious building, on November 1st, 1894, that the shots suddenly rang out.
1894 年 11 月 1 日，正是从这座奇特的建筑中突然响起了枪声。
Inside, America's beloved sharpshooter Annie Oakley -- Little Sure Shot -- was performing her act, firing away at tiny glass balls as Edison's latest invention captured the action in real time.
在里面，美国深受喜爱的神枪手安妮·奥克利（Little Sure Shot）正在表演她的表演，她向微小的玻璃球射击，而爱迪生的最新发明则实时捕捉到了这一动作。
The device -- an electrically-powered camera capable of recording motion – was the first of its kind in the United States, and a mechanical monument to Edison's unparalleled gift for synthesis.
该设备是美国第一台能够记录运动的电动相机，也是爱迪生无与伦比的合成天赋的机械纪念碑。
The idea had come to him nearly six years before -- sparked by a conversation he'd had with British photographer Eadward Muybridge.
这个想法是他在大约六年前萌生的——是由他与英国摄影师埃德沃德·迈布里奇的一次谈话引发的。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : Eadward Muybridge, who was very well known for these animal motion studies had developed this device, it was a, revolving disk with these images on it and as it revolved with a light shining through it, it looked like motion pictures.
保罗·伊斯雷尔 (Paul Israel)，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：爱德华·迈布里奇 (Eadward Muybridge) 因动物运动研究而闻名，他开发了这种装置，它是一个旋转圆盘，上面有这些图像，当它旋转时，有光照射进来，它看起来就像电影。
And he gave a lecture in West Orange, which Edison attended, and afterwards they were talking.
他在西奥兰治做了一次演讲，爱迪生参加了演讲，随后他们进行了交谈。
And Edison said, you know we ought to combine my phonograph with your machine and we can produce you know talking pictures.
爱迪生说，你知道我们应该将我的留声机与你的机器结合起来，我们可以制作出有声图像。
And then Edison got to thinking a little bit more about that, and he said "you know what, I can do that myself."
然后爱迪生开始更多地思考这个问题，他说：“你知道吗，我自己就能做到。”
Narrator: : Within months, Edison had drawn up a patent application for an optical recording device called a "kinetograph" -- from the ancient Greek, meaning "writer of motion." The kinetograph, he promised, would "do for the Eye, what the phonograph does for the Ear."
旁白：：几个月之内，爱迪生就起草了一份名为“电影放映机”的光学记录设备的专利申请——源自古希腊语，意思是“运动记录器”。他承诺，活动电影机将“为眼睛做事，就像留声机为耳朵做事一样”。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : It makes the transition sound so effortless and truly brilliant.
传记作者尼尔·鲍德温 (Neil Baldwin)：：这让过渡听起来如此轻松且真正精彩。
There's something God-like about it.
它有一种像上帝一样的东西。
I have solved the problem of the ear and that sensory, and now I will move to the other way that we perceive the world.
我已经解决了耳朵和感官的问题，现在我将转向我们感知世界的另一种方式。
Narrator: : Further inspiration had been found during a visit to Paris in 1889, where Edison had met French scientist Etienne-Jules Marey, whose "chronophotography" captured 12 consecutive images per second on a long, continuous piece of film.
旁白：：进一步的灵感是在 1889 年访问巴黎期间找到的，爱迪生在那里遇到了法国科学家艾蒂安-儒勒·马雷，他的“计时摄影术”在一部长而连续的胶片上每秒捕捉 12 个连续图像。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : Marey, who had been filming birds by converting a gun into a camera, so that as you pulled the trigger, he was actually taking rapid pictures of them, with strip film.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），托马斯·爱迪生论文：：马雷（Marey）一直在通过将枪改装成相机来拍摄鸟类，因此当您扣动扳机时，他实际上是在用胶片快速拍摄鸟类照片。
This influenced Edison to go back and experiment with roll film.
这影响了爱迪生回去尝试胶卷。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Motion picture technology is difficult.
罗伯特·罗森伯格、托马斯·爱迪生论文：：电影技术很困难。
You have to have film that stops, gets the image, advances, stops, gets the next image.
你必须拥有能够停止、获取图像、前进、停止、获取下一个图像的胶片。
And it has to do that 20-30 times a second.
它必须每秒执行 20-30 次。
So you need film that can take the beating.
因此，您需要能够经受住考验的胶片。
You need film that's sensitive enough to do it.
您需要足够敏感的胶片才能做到这一点。
And Edison worked with George Eastman to develop the film with the sprocket holes, figuring out how the machinery's going to advance the film, stop it, advance the film, stop it.
爱迪生与乔治·伊士曼合作开发带有链轮孔的胶片，弄清楚机器如何推进胶片、停止胶片、推进胶片、停止胶片。
And he developed a really terrific camera, and that was his contribution.
他开发了一款非常棒的相机，这就是他的贡献。
Narrator: : Throughout, Edison had worked closely with his assistant in the mining operation, a sometime-photographer named William Dickson, who was largely responsible for the optics of the device.
旁白：自始至终，爱迪生都与他在采矿作业中的助手密切合作，威廉·迪克森曾是一名摄影师，主要负责设备的光学部分。
Now, Dickson had begun to produce the first films in what eventually would be the Edison Company's extensive catalogue -- a collection of short features meant to be shown, one at a time, on a coin-operated, peephole viewing cabinet called a kinetoscope.
现在，迪克森开始制作第一部影片，这些影片最终将成为爱迪生公司的广泛目录——一系列短片，旨在在称为电影放映机的投币式窥视镜柜上一次放映一部。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : The first motion picture entertainment device was an ingenious contraption that allowed you to see a loop of film, a very short loop.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：第一台电影娱乐设备是一个巧妙的装置，可以让你观看电影循环，一个非常短的循环。
Narrator: : The inaugural batch of kinetoscopes were shipped from West Orange in April 1894 -- five to Atlantic City, 10 to Chicago, and 10 to a small storefront in Manhattan, a former shoe shop near Herald Square soon to become the world's first commercial "kinetoscope parlor."
旁白：第一批活动电影放映机于 1894 年 4 月从西奥兰治运来，其中 5 台运往大西洋城，10 台运往芝加哥，10 台运往曼哈顿的一家小店面，该店面以前是先驱广场附近的一家鞋店，很快成为世界上第一家商业“电影放映厅”。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : They were setting up the machines getting ready to open and curiosity seekers had gathered, and they decided to let them in, to give the machines a try and it turned out to overwhelm them.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：他们正在设置机器，准备开放，好奇心的探索者聚集在一起，他们决定让他们进来，尝试一下机器，结果让他们不知所措。
The public poured in.
公众涌入。
The novelty of the thing was incredibly attractive.
这东西的新颖性非常有吸引力。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : The kinetoscope, it's a lot like the original tin foil phonograph.
保罗·以色列 (Paul Israel)，托马斯·爱迪生论文 (Thomas Edison Papers)： ：电影放映机，它很像最初的锡箔留声机。
It's an astounding invention.
这是一项令人震惊的发明。
People are enthralled by it, they want to see it, they want to experience it, but pretty soon it doesn't go anywhere, right.
人们被它迷住了，他们想看到它，他们想体验它，但很快它就哪儿也去不了，对吧。
These short films, you pay a nickel, you see something, and all of a sudden, there's nothing magic about it.
这些短片，你付五分钱，你就会看到一些东西，突然间，它就没有什么神奇之处了。
Narrator: : Convinced that the constant interruption of having to move from one machine to another detracted from the viewing experience, Dickson and others on Edison's team urged him to develop a projection device.
旁白：：迪克森和爱迪生团队的其他人确信，从一台机器移动到另一台机器的不断中断会降低观看体验，因此敦促他开发一种投影设备。
But the inventor was reluctant.
但发明者却不愿意。
"If projectors replace kinetoscopes," he argued, "there will be a use for maybe 10 of them in the whole United States.
“如果投影仪取代电影放映机，”他说，“整个美国可能会用到 10 台投影仪。
Let's not kill the goose that lays the golden egg." In the end, others would beat him to the punch.
我们不要杀鸡取卵。”最后，其他人会抢先一步。
In early 1895, French inventors Auguste and Louis Lumiere introduced their projection system to wild acclaim in Paris.
1895 年初，法国发明家奥古斯特·卢米埃 (Auguste Lumiere) 和路易斯·卢米埃 (Louis Lumiere) 推出了他们的投影系统，在巴黎广受好评。
Later that year, yet another system, called the phantascope, was unveiled at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.
同年晚些时候，另一个名为 phantascope 的系统在佐治亚州亚特兰大举行的棉花州博览会上亮相。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : All of a sudden, larger than life figures appeared on a screen.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），托马斯·爱迪生论文（Thomas Edison Papers）：：突然，屏幕上出现了比真人还要大的人物。
And that was the future of motion pictures.
这就是电影的未来。
Very rapidly, projection becomes something that people expect.
很快，投影就成为人们所期待的东西。
Narrator: : With no projector of their own to market, Edison's sales agents approached the phantoscope's inventor, Thomas Armat, and convinced him to sell the patent rights in his device to Edison.
旁白： 由于没有自己的投影仪上市，爱迪生的销售代理联系了幻影镜的发明者托马斯·阿马特，并说服他将其设备的专利权出售给爱迪生。
"The great majority of the parties...
“绝大多数政党...
who desire to invest in such a machine have been waiting for the Edison machine," Armat was told, "and they would never be satisfied with anything else."
“那些想要投资这种机器的人一直在等待爱迪生机器，”阿马特被告知，“他们永远不会对其他任何东西感到满意。”
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : They essentially say: you know that everybody's waiting for Edison, so why don't you just sell out to him, you'll do much better than trying to compete with him.
保罗·以色列，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：他们本质上是说：你知道每个人都在等待爱迪生，所以你为什么不直接卖给他，你会比试图与他竞争做得更好。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : I think in Edison's own mind, he could just slap his name on what became known as the Edison Vitascope, because by that time Edison is both the individual and he's the corporate Edison.
保罗·伊斯雷尔（Paul Israel），托马斯·爱迪生论文：：我认为在爱迪生自己看来，他可以将自己的名字印在后来被称为爱迪生维塔望远镜的东西上，因为到那时爱迪生既是个人又是企业爱迪生。
He could be one or the other, depending on the circumstance.
他可能是其中之一，视情况而定。
And in this case it was the corporate Edison that was the Vitascope.
在这种情况下，Vitascope 就是爱迪生公司。
Narrator: : Billed by the press as "the ingenious inventor's latest toy," the Vitascope made its public debut on April 23rd, 1896, at New York City's Koster and Bials' Music Hall -- throwing hand-tinted images across a 20-by 13-foot screen, and effectively launching the American motion picture industry in Edison's name.
旁白：被媒体称为“天才发明家的最新玩具”的 Vitascope 于 1896 年 4 月 23 日在纽约市的 Koster 和 Bials 音乐厅首次公开亮相，将手工着色的图像投射到 20 x 13 英尺的屏幕上，有效地以爱迪生的名义启动了美国电影业。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : The more you peel back the layers of Edison's work, the more you realize that part of his genius was about seeing how other people's achievements, thoughts, failures, small successes could be connected to push forward what he was working on in a big way.
南希·科恩（Nancy Koehn），历史学家：：你越深入地了解爱迪生的工作，你就越会意识到他的天才之处就在于如何将其他人的成就、想法、失败、小成功联系起来，以大的方式推动他正在从事的工作。
For Edison it was about taking all these ideas, all those different river streams, which were initiated or fed by all kinds of other people.
对于爱迪生来说，这就是吸收所有这些想法，所有这些不同的河流，这些想法是由各种各样的其他人发起或滋养的。
And then building the aqueduct to channel the river.
然后修建渡槽以疏导河流。
Narrator: : On a Saturday afternoon in January, 1903, 55-year-old Thomas Edison welcomed a new man to the chemical research department at West Orange with a few choice words of advice: "...nothing that's any good works by itself," he said, "you've got to make the damn thing work." It was more or less the Edison creed.
旁白：1903 年 1 月的一个星期六下午，55 岁的托马斯·爱迪生在西奥兰治化学研究部门欢迎了一位新人，并提出了几句精挑细选的建议：“……任何好的东西都不会单独起作用，”他说，“你必须让这该死的东西发挥作用。”这或多或少是爱迪生的信条。
As one acquaintance put it, "Edison pronounces the words 'work' and 'working' as some do 'prayer' or 'religion.'
正如一位熟人所说，“爱迪生对‘工作’和‘工作’这两个词的发音就像有些人对‘祈祷’或‘宗教’的发音一样。
Already, fewer than five years after he'd abandoned the Ogden mine, the inventor had a half-dozen new projects on the wire, and was routinely putting in 80-hour weeks at the lab.
在放弃奥格登矿不到五年后，这位发明家已经有 6 个新项目正在酝酿之中，并且每周都会在实验室工作 80 个小时。
From the wreckage of Ogden, using much of the same machinery and techniques, he'd spun a manufactory for cement which one day would be used in the building of Yankee Stadium and give rise to a grand plan to build low-cost housing with poured concrete.
他利用奥格登的废墟，利用大部分相同的机械和技术，建造了一家水泥厂，有一天将用于建造洋基体育场，并制定了一项用浇筑混凝土建造低成本住房的宏伟计划。
He'd immersed himself in the development of a storage battery, believing that the future of transportation lay in automobiles powered by electricity, and had once again revived the phonograph, this time for home entertainment.
他全身心投入到蓄电池的开发中，相信交通的未来在于电力驱动的汽车，并再次复兴了留声机，这次是为了家庭娱乐。
Gradually, the West Orange complex expanded to include a city block's worth of new buildings, where a thousand men and women were put to work making recordings and manufacturing cylinder records.
渐渐地，西奥兰治综合体扩大到包括一个街区的新建筑，一千名男女在那里从事录音和制造圆筒唱片的工作。
Also vying for the inventor's attention was motion picture production -- now expanding into longer, narrative films; the manufacture of bulbs, fan motors, medical equipment, and other assorted devices; and the myriad details of overseeing the business empire that by 1911 operated under the umbrella of "Thomas A.
同样争夺发明家注意力的是电影制作——现在扩展到更长的叙事电影；灯泡、风扇电机、医疗设备和其他各种设备的制造；以及监督 1911 年在“Thomas A.
Edison, Incorporated" -- now a worldwide brand.
爱迪生公司”——现在是一个全球品牌。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : In their advertising, the Edison Companies would make much of the Edison name, as if the inventor stood literally over the loading dock and gave his blessing to every box that went out of the factory.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：在广告中，爱迪生公司会大量宣传爱迪生的名字，就好像发明家真的站在装货码头上，向工厂出厂的每一个盒子致以祝福。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : His face was all over these products, his name was all over it, his signature was all over them.
历史学家 Lisa Gitelman：：这些产品上到处都是他的脸，他的名字，他的签名。
This is really the beginning of American trademark consciousness.
这确实是美国商标意识的开始。
Narrator: : So valuable did the Edison name become that the inventor increasingly would find himself fending off its unauthorized use.
旁白：：爱迪生的名字变得如此有价值，以至于发明者越来越多地发现自己要抵制未经授权的使用。
And when his son, Tom, sold his famous surname to a fraudulent homeopathic medicine company, Edison offered to pay him a regular allowance if he would change it.
当他的儿子汤姆把他著名的姓氏卖给一家欺诈性的顺势疗法医药公司时，爱迪生提出如果他愿意改变的话，他会定期向他支付津贴。
For $25 a week, the inventor's namesake, "Thomas Edison, Jr." thus became known professionally as "Burton Willard."
每周 25 美元，发明家的同名者“小托马斯·爱迪生”因此在专业上被称为“伯顿威拉德”。
Lisa Gitelman, Historian: : The weird thing is that he went after his son whose name was Edison because he was Edison.
丽莎·吉特曼（Lisa Gitelman），历史学家：：奇怪的是，他追随他的儿子，他的儿子叫爱迪生，因为他就是爱迪生。
So I'm certain he was very aware of himself as a brand in really almost a modern sense.
所以我确信他非常清楚自己是一个几乎现代意义上的品牌。
Narrator: : It proved a savvy strategy.
旁白：：事实证明这是一个精明的策略。
As technology wove itself ever more tightly into the fabric of American life -- with more and more households boasting a telephone in the hallway, and all manner of gadgets in the kitchen, and an automobile parked outside in the drive -- Edison continued to loom large in the public mind as the nation's foremost inventor.
随着科技越来越紧密地融入美国人的生活——越来越多的家庭在走廊里拥有电话，厨房里有各种各样的小玩意，外面的车道上停着一辆汽车——爱迪生作为美国最重要的发明家，继续在公众心目中占据着重要地位。
Leonard DeGraaf, National Park Service: : Technology was spectacle.
伦纳德·德格拉夫 (Leonard DeGraaf)，国家公园管理局：技术是奇观。
All these things were being developed that were just literally transforming people's lives.
所有这些正在开发的东西实际上正在改变人们的生活。
And the public really identified Edison with this new modern electrical age, so it translates also over into Edison sometimes getting credit for things that he didn't invent.
公众确实将爱迪生视为这个新的现代电气时代，因此这也意味着爱迪生有时会因为他没有发明的东西而获得荣誉。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : If I'm at a cocktail party, and I tell someone that I'm an inventor, there's exactly two people they think of.
Nathan Myhrvold，发明家和企业家： ：如果我在鸡尾酒会上，我告诉某人我是发明家，他们会想到两个人。
They think of Thomas Edison, and the crazy guy in the Back to the Future movies, which is kind of an Edison lampoon.
他们想到托马斯·爱迪生，以及《回到未来》电影中的疯狂家伙，这有点讽刺爱迪生。
Edison single-handedly created the image of an inventor.
爱迪生一手创造了发明家的形象。
Narrator: : "Please accept the thanks, Mr. Edison, of one truly appreciative woman," a Kansas housewife wrote him, after extolling the virtues of her pressure cooker and her washing machine and her Victrola.
旁白：“爱迪生先生，请接受一位真正懂得感恩的女人的谢意，”堪萨斯州的一位家庭主妇在称赞她的高压锅、洗衣机和留声机的优点后写信给他。
"We women of the small town are indebted to you for our pleasures as well as our utmost needs."
“我们小镇上的妇女感谢你们给了我们快乐，也满足了我们最大的需求。”
Narrator: : It began in the early evening of December 9th, 1914.
旁白：：事情开始于1914年12月9日傍晚。
Sparked by an explosion in the film-finishing building, the massive fire leapt from structure to structure at West Orange, gathering force and momentum from the chemicals used in the manufacture of phonograph recordings, as well the records themselves.
西奥兰治电影拍摄大楼发生爆炸，引发大火，大火从一座建筑物蔓延到另一座建筑物，从用于制造留声机唱片的化学品以及唱片本身中积聚了力量和动力。
The flames could be seen from Newark, seven miles away.
从七英里外的纽瓦克就可以看到火焰。
Throughout the evening Edison stood watching, as a constellation of local fire companies struggled to douse the blaze, which soon engulfed four city blocks.
整个晚上，爱迪生都站在一旁观看，当地消防队正在努力扑灭大火，大火很快就吞噬了四个街区。
By 10 p.m., he'd already begun making a list of what would need to be done to recover.
到晚上 10 点时，他已经开始列出需要采取哪些措施才能恢复。
"Am pretty well burned out," he told a reporter on the scene, "but tomorrow there will be some rapid mobilizing when I find out where I am at."
“我已经筋疲力尽了，”他在现场告诉记者，“但明天当我知道自己的处境时，我会迅速动员起来。”
Although the main laboratory was untouched, by morning, most of the rest of the West Orange complex was molten rubble.
尽管主实验室没有受到影响，但到了早上，西奥兰治综合体的其余部分大部分都变成了熔化的瓦砾。
Edison was undaunted.
爱迪生毫不畏惧。
When informed that the damages were estimated at between $3 and $5 million, he just laughed.
当得知损失估计在 3 至 500 万美元之间时，他只是笑了。
"Although I am over 67 years old," he said, "I'll start all over again tomorrow."
“虽然我已经67岁了，”他说，“明天我会重新开始。”
Narrator: : The years to come would see Edison winding down: spending less and less of his time at his West Orange complex -- which eventually was rebuilt -- and more occupying a new role as a full-fledged celebrity.
旁白：在接下来的几年里，爱迪生将逐渐走向衰落：在他的西奥兰治综合大楼（最终被重建）上度过的时间越来越少，而更多地担任一个成熟的名人的新角色。
Thomas Edison (archival audio): : Mary Had a Little Lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.
托马斯·爱迪生（档案音频）：：玛丽有一只小羊羔，它的羊毛像雪一样洁白，无论玛丽走到哪里，小羊羔都一定会去。
Narrator: : He was often seen now gallivanting about the country with fellow American hero Henry Ford, who, as a young man, had worked briefly for the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit -- and had idolized the great inventor ever since.
旁白：现在人们经常看到他与美国英雄亨利·福特一起在乡村游荡，亨利·福特年轻时曾在底特律的爱迪生照明公司短暂工作过，从那时起，他就崇拜这位伟大的发明家。
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : As Ford tells it, he talked to Edison about his ideas for the automobile and after Edison took a look at-at his plans, he said "go for it -- I think you've got the answer here." Ford clearly saw Edison as somebody to model himself after.
保罗·以色列，托马斯·爱迪生论文：正如福特所说，他与爱迪生谈论了他对汽车的想法，在爱迪生看了他的计划后，他说“放手去做吧——我想你已经在这里找到答案了。”福特显然将爱迪生视为值得效仿的人。
And they began to become friends.
他们开始成为朋友。
Narrator: : Calling themselves "the vagabonds," the two men hit the road each summer, together with naturalist John Burroughs and tire magnate Harvey Firestone -- Edison, usually in the lead of a caravan that included a field kitchen, dining tent, laundry service, and a contingent of cameramen from Ford's publicity department.
旁白：这两个人自称为“流浪汉”，每年夏天都会与博物学家约翰·巴勒斯和轮胎大亨哈维·费尔斯通-爱迪生一起上路，通常带领着一支大篷车，其中包括野战厨房、餐厅帐篷、洗衣服务以及福特宣传部门的摄影师队伍。
By the second annual sortie, which also included wives, the press was bringing up the rear.
到了第二次年度出击（其中也包括妻子）时，媒体在后面。
John Staudenmaier, Historian: : They were media extravaganzas of the first order.
历史学家约翰·施陶登迈尔：：它们是一流的媒体盛宴。
But it was nostalgia for them four guys out there in the woods, cooking and making their coffee, and it was a nostalgia for the people that loved to see those stories.
但这是对他们四个在树林里做饭和煮咖啡的人的怀旧，也是对那些喜欢看这些故事的人们的怀旧。
The old guys still got it, look at that.
老家伙们还是明白的，看看吧。
Narrator: : Fueled by extensive publicity, the details of the Vagabonds' adventures circulated through the national conversation: the rib-eye steaks that were served for dinner; the campfire debates about Mozart and Shakespeare; the fact that one year, the Firestones even brought along their butler.
旁白： 在广泛宣传的推动下，流浪者冒险的细节在全国范围内流传：晚餐的肋眼牛排；篝火上关于莫扎特和莎士比亚的辩论；事实上，有一年，火石家族甚至带来了他们的管家。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : There is a story, they were out and the car was having trouble.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：有一个故事，他们出去了，汽车出了问题。
They pull in to a small town and the guy says, "Oh, well it looks like the electrical system." And Edison says, "Naw." He says, "I'm Thomas Edison, I looked at the electrical system, the electrical system's fine." The guy looks at him.
他们把车停到一个小镇，那家伙说：“哦，好吧，看起来像是电力系统。”爱迪生说：“不。”他说：“我是托马斯·爱迪生，我检查了电气系统，电气系统很好。”那家伙看着他。
And looks at the car a little more and says, "Oh I see, it's in the fuel here." And Ford says, "No." He says, "I'm Henry Ford, I went through the fuel system, there's nothing wrong with the fuel system." And the fellow looks at John Burroughs who had a beard this long and says, "And you." He says, "You're Santa Claus, right?"
然后又看了一眼汽车，说道：“哦，我明白了，它就在这儿的燃料里。”福特说：“不。”他说：“我是亨利·福特，我检查了燃油系统，燃油系统没有任何问题。”那家伙看着留着这么长胡子的约翰·巴勒斯，说道：“还有你。”他说：“你是圣诞老人，对吗？”
Narrator: : Almost mythic in stature now, Edison could barely turn around without being honored.
旁白：：爱迪生现在的地位几乎是神话般的，几乎一转身就不会受到尊敬。
One poll named him "the Greatest Living American;" in another, he beat out Theodore Roosevelt and William Shakespeare as the "greatest man in history." There was a Congressional Medal, a commemorative stamp -- even a song, entitled "Thomas Edison: the Miracle Man."
一项民意调查将他评为“最伟大的在世美国人”；在另一场比赛中，他击败了西奥多·罗斯福和威廉·莎士比亚，成为“历史上最伟大的人”。有国会奖章、纪念邮票，甚至还有一首名为“托马斯·爱迪生：奇迹之人”的歌曲。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : Journalists, politicians, individuals, other inventors, pour their ideas about what constitutes invention into a file folder called Thomas Alva Edison.
历史学家南希·科恩 (Nancy Koehn)：记者、政治家、个人和其他发明家将他们关于发明构成的想法倾注到名为托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生 (Thomas Alva Edison) 的文件夹中。
And that's not his doing.
而那不是他做的。
A lot of it is just where he was at the time and the kind of impact he had that doesn't ever right in some sense get balanced against the failures or the people that fed the river of those inventions.
很大程度上是因为他当时所处的位置以及他所产生的影响在某种意义上永远无法与失败或那些为这些发明提供源泉的人们相平衡。
He gets to end up holding it, right, and stands atop the mountaintop as this great, great inventor.
他最终拿着它，对，并作为这位伟大的发明家站在山顶。
Robert Rosenberg, Thomas Edison Papers: : Now he is the sage.
罗伯特·罗森伯格，托马斯·爱迪生论文：：现在他是圣人。
When you want a great quote, you ask him, even if there's absolutely no reason why he should know anything about it.
当你想要一个很棒的报价时，你可以问他，即使他完全没有理由知道任何事情。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : In his last years he actually looks halfway relaxed, if you can imagine Edison being relaxed.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：如果你能想象爱迪生放松的样子，在他生命的最后几年里，他实际上看上去有些放松。
And so people would come to his house and they would have these interviews where they would ask him his views on everything and anything you could think of.
所以人们会来到他家，接受采访，询问他对一切你能想到的事情的看法。
Interviewer (archival): : What you think of the Einstein theory?
采访者（档案）：：您如何看待爱因斯坦理论？
Thomas Edison (archival): : I don't think anything of Einstein's theory because I can't understand it.
托马斯·爱迪生（档案）：：我对爱因斯坦的理论没有什么看法，因为我无法理解它。
Narrator: : In 1926, at the age of 79, Edison officially retired from Thomas A.
旁白： 1926年，79岁的爱迪生正式从托马斯·A·爱迪生退休。
Edison, Incorporated -- passing the reigns on to his and Mina's eldest son, Charles, and taking up more or less permanent residence at his home in Fort Myers.
爱迪生公司——将统治权传给了他和米娜的长子查尔斯，并在他位于迈尔斯堡的家中或多或少地永久居住。
Not content to rest on the laurels of the more than 1,000 patents registered in his name, he busied himself with yet another inventive campaign -- to discover and cultivate a domestic source of rubber.
他并不满足于以自己的名义注册了 1,000 多项专利，而是忙于另一项发明活动——发现和种植国内橡胶资源。
Almost completely deaf, suffering from kidney disease and a persistent digestive ailment, Edison had, in a sort of medical experiment, eliminated food entirely, limiting his diet to several daily cigars and a pint of milk every three hours.
爱迪生几乎完全失聪，患有肾病和持续的消化系统疾病，在一项医学实验中，他完全不吃食物，将他的饮食限制为每天抽几支雪茄，每三个小时喝一品脱牛奶。
"I came in with milk," he said, "and I guess I'll go out with it."
“我带着牛奶进来，”他说，“我想我也会带着牛奶出去。”
Returning to West Orange in 1931, after a winter in Florida, he was in such a debilitated state that he was virtually unable to work.
1931 年，在佛罗里达州度过一个冬天后，他回到西奥兰治，身体虚弱，几乎无法工作。
Early in September, his kidneys began to fail; by the end of the month, he was confined to his bed.
9月初，他的肾脏开始衰竭；到了月底，他就只能躺在床上了。
Randall Stross, Biographer: : As Edison's health failed, reporters gathered in West Orange.
兰德尔·斯特罗斯（Randall Stross），传记作者：：由于爱迪生的健康状况不佳，记者们聚集在西奥兰治。
They took over the garage and made it a press office.
他们接管了车库并将其改造成新闻办公室。
This went on for weeks.
这种情况持续了几个星期。
The attention that it received with the most minute change or word from a doctor being sent out around the world as news shows a kind of fame that it's hard to imagine today.
它以最微小的变化或医生的一句话作为新闻传播到世界各地而受到关注，显示出一种今天很难想象的名气。
Narrator: : The news of Edison's passing, on October 18th, 1931, brought forth an outpouring rarely afforded mere mortals.
旁白： 1931 年 10 月 18 日，爱迪生去世的消息引起了凡人罕见的倾诉。
Condolences arrived from all over the world -- from heads of state, civic organizations, schoolchildren.
来自世界各地的国家元首、民间组织、学童纷纷表示哀悼。
Newspapers from coast to coast ran special features, recounting not only the inventor's death -- but also the by-now-familiar story of his life.
从东海岸到西海岸的报纸都刊登了专题报道，不仅讲述了这位发明家的死亡，还讲述了他的人生故事。
Newsreel (archival audio): : Workers at his Orange, New Jersey plant paid respects to the genius that freed the world from darkness.
新闻片（档案音频）：：新泽西州奥兰治工厂的工人们向这位将世界从黑暗中解放出来的天才致敬。
Narrator: : For two days and nights, Edison's body lay in state in the library of his West Orange laboratory, as more than 50,000 people passed to pay their respects.
旁白： 两天两夜，爱迪生的遗体一直安放在他位于西奥兰治实验室的图书馆里，有超过 50,000 人前来瞻仰。
And on the third night, in response to a request from President Herbert Hoover, radio listeners across the country switched off their lights in unison, the darkness meant as "a reminder of what life would have been like" had Edison never lived.
第三天晚上，根据赫伯特·胡佛总统的要求，全国各地的广播听众一致关掉了灯，黑暗意味着“提醒人们，如果爱迪生从未活过，生活将会是什么样子”。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : It was almost like a biblical catastrophic thing.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：这几乎就像圣经中的灾难性事件。
Like, the inventor of the light -- his light has gone out, kind of thing.
就像电灯的发明者一样，他的灯已经熄灭了，之类的事情。
Cause he created this technology that was now part of everybody's daily life.
因为他创造了这项技术，现在已经成为每个人日常生活的一部分。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : They didn't have to have directly owned a phonograph to have heard it and be influenced by it.
Nathan Myhrvold，发明家和企业家：：他们不必直接拥有留声机就能听到它并受到它的影响。
They didn't all have to have electric light, but they soon would.
他们并不都必须有电灯，但他们很快就会有。
Thomas Edison was born into a world that wasn't industrialized.
托马斯·爱迪生出生在一个尚未工业化的世界。
Indoor lighting was candles or kerosene lamp.
室内照明是蜡烛或煤油灯。
We couldn't record voices or sounds or motions.
我们无法录制声音、声音或动作。
What Edison left by the end of his life, was a world that was well on its way to becoming the world that we know today.
爱迪生在他生命的尽头留下的是一个正在成为我们今天所知的世界的世界。
Narrator: : "It is impossible to measure the importance of Edison by adding up the specific inventions with which his name is associated," the journalist Walter Lippmann wrote in the days after the inventor's death.
旁白：“不可能通过将与爱迪生的名字相关的具体发明相加来衡量爱迪生的重要性，”记者沃尔特·李普曼在爱迪生去世后的几天里写道。
"Edison showed that anything could be changed and everything could be controlled."
“爱迪生表明，一切都可以改变，一切都可以控制。”
Paul Israel, Thomas Edison Papers: : We think of the act of invention as this eureka moment: Aha!
保罗·伊斯雷尔 (Paul Israel)，托马斯·爱迪生论文 (Thomas Edison Papers)：：我们将发明行为视为灵光一现的时刻：啊哈！
The light bulb goes off, we have this great idea.
灯泡熄灭了，我们有了这个好主意。
That's invention.
这就是发明。
But for Edison that was the starting point.
但对于爱迪生来说，这是起点。
Cause he didn't just have ideas and build devices that worked in the laboratory, he actually took them into the marketplace.
因为他不仅有想法并制造出可以在实验室工作的设备，他实际上还把它们推向了市场。
And he did it over and over again.
他一遍又一遍地这样做。
He came up with a modern process of innovation.
他提出了现代创新流程。
Nathan Myhrvold, Inventor and Entrepreneur: : There was a dynamism and an acceptance of new ideas that made America the world's inventor.
内森·梅尔沃德 (Nathan Myhrvold)，发明家和企业家： ：美国充满活力并接受新思想，成为世界发明家。
And within America the guy who really practiced invention as a business, as an end unto itself the most was Thomas Edison.
在美国，托马斯·爱迪生是真正将发明作为一项事业、将发明本身作为最终目的来实践的人。
Neil Baldwin, Biographer: : His imagination was insatiable -- had insatiable need to think of things that were interesting.
尼尔·鲍德温（Neil Baldwin），传记作者：：他的想象力是永无止境的——对思考有趣的事物有永无止境的需求。
You know I think we're still all about that being the first to do things and being innovative.
你知道，我认为我们仍然注重率先做事和创新。
It's ingrained in our way of life.
它已根深蒂固于我们的生活方式中。
Thomas Edison embodies the entrepreneurial spirit of this culture.
托马斯·爱迪生体现了这种文化的创业精神。
Nancy Koehn, Historian: : We love inventiveness.
历史学家 Nancy Koehn：我们热爱创造力。
I think part of it is that you know America in many ways has invented itself.
我认为部分原因是你知道美国在很多方面已经发明了自己。
And so I think we love people who can take something out of the ether, which is a dream or you know a kind of you know glint in your eye.
所以我认为我们喜欢那些能够从以太中取出一些东西的人，这是一个梦想，或者你知道一种你知道的在你眼中闪烁的东西。
You bring it out of the ether into something concrete.
你把它从以太中带入具体的东西中。
That changes all of our lives.
这改变了我们所有人的生活。
Thomas Edison achieved glory as the genius behind such revolutionary inventions as sound recording, motion pictures, and electric light.
托马斯·爱迪生作为录音、电影和电灯等革命性发明背后的天才而获得荣耀。
With over a thousand U.S. patents to his name, Edison's famous breakthroughs are just the beginning.
爱迪生拥有一千多项美国专利，他著名的突破仅仅是一个开始。
In the fall of 1922, a film crew came to West Orange, New Jersey to document Thomas Edison going about his day.
1922 年秋天，一个电影摄制组来到新泽西州西奥兰治，记录托马斯·爱迪生的一天。
Edison's short, silent film of famous gunslinger Annie Oakley, “Little Sureshot,” proved his kinetograph was a success.
爱迪生拍摄的关于著名枪手安妮·奥克利的无声短片《小确定射击》证明了他的电影放映机取得了成功。
Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his new invention, the telephone, at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park.
亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔 (Alexander Graham Bell) 在 1876 年费城费尔蒙特公园举办的百年纪念博览会上展示了他的新发明——电话。
On New Year's Eve, 1879, Thomas Edison unveiled his newest invention: the electric light.
1879 年除夕夜，托马斯·爱迪生推出了他的最新发明：电灯。
In 1894, Thomas Edison filmed sharpshooter Annie Oakley in his Black Maria studio.
1894 年，托马斯·爱迪生在他的 Black Maria 工作室拍摄了神枪手安妮·奥克利 (Annie Oakley)。
On December 7, 1877, Edison demonstrated his phonograph at the New York City offices of the nation's leading technical weekly publication, Scientific American .
1877 年 12 月 7 日，爱迪生在美国领先的技术周刊《科学美国人》位于纽约的办公室展示了他的留声机。
In February 1881, Thomas Edison established the headquarters of the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City.
1881 年 2 月，托马斯·爱迪生在纽约市建立了爱迪生电灯公司的总部。
In the 1890s, Thomas Edison worked with his assistant and part-time photographer, William Dickson to create a motion picture camera.
1890 年代，托马斯·爱迪生 (Thomas Edison) 与他的助手兼兼职摄影师威廉·迪克森 (William Dickson) 合作发明了电影摄影机。
Throughout his life, Thomas Edison kept "idea books" filled with to-do lists, sketches and other notes on current and future projects.
在托马斯·爱迪生的一生中，他一直保留着“创意书”，里面装满了待办事项清单、草图和有关当前和未来项目的其他注释。