On February 11, 1847 Thomas Alva Edison was born to Samuel and Nancy Edison in the tiny back room of their quaint brick house. The family lived in the canal village of Milan, Ohio, where Samuel was a successful wooden shingle manufacturer and Nancy was a retired school teacher. Known as "Al" in his youth, Edison was the youngest of four children. His mother had given birth to six before Al, three of which were sickly and …showed first 75 words of 1084 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1084 total…bones, to ensure that no one would tamper with them. Although he was not very good at math, science remained his favorite subject. Al would sit for hours in his makeshift lab, reenacting experiments that were performed in Richard Green Parker's School Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. He was skeptical as to the validity of the results until he tested each one for himself. This creative skepticism remained an outstanding characteristic throughout his life.