During his lifetime, Thomas Edison patented more than 1,000 inventions--a number that no one else has ever approached. Among these were crucial innovations such as the phonograph, the motion picture, and the incandescent light bulb. Yet despite Edison's reputation as a prodigy, his success resulted as much from hard work as from natural intelligence. Edison's self-confidence and determination helped him to overcome poverty, physical handicap, and disastrous financial setbacks. Like many strong-willed people, Edison therefore stepped on some toes along the way, especially by aggressively patenting improvements to other people's work. One longstanding conflict cost him the Nobel Prize. Edison, who was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio, but grew up in Port Huron, Michigan, went to school for a total of only three months. His teacher, failing to relate to the way Edison's mind worked, dismissed him as being "addled," or retarded. Luckily, Edison's mother was a teacher...