When I was first introduced to Thomas Edison in grade school in Winchester, Virginia, he was presented as the quintessential American inventor. But that description does his wide-ranging mind a disservice. In fact, he didn’t actually invent the lightbulb—British inventors had demonstrated electric light forty-five years before. Rather, he invented a way to communicate about it, and commercialize it (his carbon filament dramatically extended durability and reliability). And finally make it scale. In other words, he made the invention real.
