Let there be light!

  Long before inventions like the smartphone or the radio, The lightbulb was electrifying the world and energizing innovations for years to come. The Lightbulb certainly cannot be credited to just one inventor, although many people typically think of Thomas Edison as the leading engineer. The process to reach the lightbulb that we know today came from a small improvements over time that have led it's perfection. 

During this presentation I feared that I would become bored when learning about an invention we often take for granted. However I chose to report on this invention because it was the invention that I knew least about. To my pleasant surprise, there was so much that I was completely unaware about. The lightbulb is something that, in the 21st century, is not really talked about or even really appreciated. Inventions like the Ipod or apps like instagram and facebook hold much more value in today's society because of the "newness" of the idea. We have all grown up with our moms or dad saying something like "Turn off the lights when you leave the room, I don't see you paying the electric bill." But we neglect to realize as a society how far the lightbulb has come, and how much we take it for granted. 

Before color-changing light bulbs, LEDs or even a fluorescent light bulb, the incandescent light bulb was the first bulb to hit the scene. Though early productions of the incandescent light bulb had short life spans, were too expensive to produce and used to much electricity, the incandescent light bulb was perfected by Thomas Edison when he and his team tweaked the filament that allowed the light to burn for 14.5 hours. Furthermore, the incandescent light bulb died in the 1950's after years of scientists trying to understand how to convert more than 10% of the energy being produced into light. 

Over the next 70 years, the lightbulb was developed, redesigned and improved for the modern day needs. But we never should forget the long process that led to shining light on a dark world.