INVENTOR

Thomas Edison

1847 - 1931

Photo of Thomas Edison

Icon of person Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Thomas Edison has received more than 24,640,906 page views. His biography is available in 181 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 176 in 2019). Thomas Edison is the 3rd most popular inventor (down from 2nd in 2019), the 3rd most popular biography from United States (down from 1st in 2019) and the most popular American Inventor.

Thomas Edison is most famous for inventing the electric light bulb.

Memorability Metrics

  • 25M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 89.06

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 181

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 17.18

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.00

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Thomas Edisons by language

Over the past year Thomas Edison has had the most page views in the with 2,513,747 views, followed by Spanish (680,070), and Arabic (389,181). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are (1,948.21%), Assamese (1,075.95%), and Hausa (231.90%)

Among INVENTORS

Among inventors, Thomas Edison ranks 3 out of 426Before him are Leonardo da Vinci, and Nikola Tesla. After him are Johannes Gutenberg, James Watt, Elon Musk, Alexander Graham Bell, Karl Benz, Henry Ford, Guglielmo Marconi, Charles Babbage, and Louis Braille.

Most Popular Inventors in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1847, Thomas Edison ranks 1After him are Alexander Graham Bell, Paul von Hindenburg, Bram Stoker, Otto Wallach, Maria Feodorovna, Jesse James, Auguste Escoffier, Joseph Pulitzer, Duchess Sophie Charlotte in Bavaria, Georges Sorel, and Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. Among people deceased in 1931, Thomas Edison ranks 1After him are Gustave Le Bon, Khalil Gibran, Anna Pavlova, Otto Wallach, Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, Omar Mukhtar, Albert A. Michelson, Arthur Schnitzler, Geli Raubal, Lili Elbe, and Joseph Joffre.

Others Born in 1847

Go to all Rankings

Others Deceased in 1931

Go to all Rankings

In United States

Among people born in United States, Thomas Edison ranks 3 out of 20,380Before him are Donald Trump (1946), and Thomas Jefferson (1743). After him are Muhammad Ali (1942), Jimmy Carter (1924), Michael Jackson (1958), Richard Nixon (1913), Edgar Allan Poe (1809), Sylvester Stallone (1946), Steve Jobs (1955), Andrew Jackson (1767), and Marilyn Monroe (1926).

Among INVENTORS In United States

Among inventors born in United States, Thomas Edison ranks 1After him are Henry Ford (1863), Samuel Morse (1791), Samuel Colt (1814), Steve Wozniak (1950), Eli Whitney (1765), George Westinghouse (1846), Robert Fulton (1765), Ruth Handler (1916), Jimmy Wales (1966), Willis Carrier (1876), and Herman Hollerith (1860).