March 12, 1985

INSIGHTS into the creative genius of Thomas Alva Edison, one of the most prolific inventors of all time, are emerging from a 20-year, $6 million study of his vast collection of personal papers. The new portrait of Edison is marked by his powerful ability - never fully recognized until now - to reason through analogy. It was perhaps this trait more than any flashes of brilliance or cries of ''Eureka!'' that accounted for his great inventiveness. It is now thought that this hidden ability is what transformed one successful invention into another, eventually producing the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, systems of electric power generation and motion pictures. Born on Feb. 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio, Edison devoted himself to the quest for invention while still in his 20's. At his death in 1931 he left behind more than 3.5 million pages of notebooks and letters, much of it documenting his 1,093 patents. No one has ever produced more.

Robert Holmes a Court, an Australian entrepreneur, turned up the heat yesterday on Asarco Inc., the big mining company that he may be interested in acquiring. Asarco responded by suing Mr. Holmes a Court in Federal court in New Jersey. Mr. Holmes a Court's Bell Resources Ltd. said in Perth, Australia, that it had sought clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act to increase its holding in Asarco to 50 percent. This law requires companies considering an acquisition involving $15 million or more to notify the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission. Then there is a waiting period of 30 days, or 15 for a tender offer, before further action can be taken.

Companies Robert Holmes a Court may try to raise his Asarco stake to 50 percent, he told the U.S. Government. The big mining company, wishing to avoid a takeover, responded to the news by suing the Australian businessman, alleging securities violations. Mr. Holmes a Court currently owns 9 percent of Asarco. (Page D1.) American Natural Resources accused John B. Connally, former Treasury Secretary, of buying stock in the company at a time a ''good friend,'' Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. of the Coastal Corporation, was trying to take it over. Mr. Connally said charges that he had traded on the basis of insider information were ''absolutely untrue.'' (D1.)

New York State, in a Federal antitrust suit, charged yesterday that since 1978 a group of contractors had rigged bids for concrete work on all major public and private construction projects in New York City, including the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. ''It is a stranglehold by a limited number of contractors who have the public by the neck,'' said the State Attorney General, Robert Abrams, after the suit was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Eight companies and six executives were identified in the suit as having formed an ''illegal conspiracy'' to fix prices and allocate contracts. The executives, the suit asserted, prevented outside contractors from competing by threats that they would be subjected to harassment by labor unions and would be unable to obtain supplies of concrete.

The shift to a new generation of Soviet leadership has raised cautious hopes in the Reagan Administration that over the long run this will bring new vigor and decisiveness in the Kremlin and could lead to improvements in Soviet-American relations. But President Reagan and his top advisers expect no significant changes in Soviet foreign policy to emerge over the next several months from the new leadership of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, a 54-year-old party official with a reputation for interest in modest internal economic changes. The Soviet decision to pursue arms talks in Geneva, with only a token ceremonial interruption, is seen by Government specialists as a deliberate Kremlin move to project both strength of leadership and continuity of policy despite the death of the third Soviet leader in 28 months. 'The Image of Continuity' ''Preserving the image of continuity at this point is at least as important as the fact of continuity,'' a State Department official said. ''They are embarrassed at the succession of infirm leaders they've had,'' another Government specialist said, ''and they don't want Chernenko's death to look as though it's hampering them.''