The Electric Light Essay Research Paper On — страница 2

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willing to contribute not only their work but also creative ideas to Edison for little or no credit. (Grolier multimedia encyclopedia 1998) For a brief period the material of choice for the filament was carbon. But because the quality of the vacuums that could be created was so poor carbon filaments disintegrated quickly. Edison switched to the more durable material platinum. In 1879 he obtained an improved vacuum pump called the Sprengel vacuum, and it proved to be the catalyst for a breakthrough. Edison switched back to experiments with carbon filaments because he thought it would be more successful and because platinum was expensive. He tested carbon source after carbon source and on October 21 and 22 he carbonized a piece of Clark’s sewing thread to form a filament. It

burnt for an amazing 13.5 hours – a huge breakthrough. Soon by changing the shape of the filament to a horseshoe it burned for over 100 hours. Edison and his colleagues had invented a practical light bulb and by doing so they opened up the way for the establishment of the electrical power system. This was a brilliant breakthrough in the field of technology and soon every one in the world would have this electric light in there home to light up their house when the sun went down. (http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~markd/thefatheroflight.html) It was this power system that became Edison’s real achievement. This is soon to become a huge new industry that would drastically affect everyone. This was because once a house or business had electricity installed for lighting an almost endless

amount of other items could be developed and sold: electric irons, fans, electric motors, refrigerators and eventually items like air conditioners and computers. There were dozens of new items that had to be invented or improved in order to produce and distribute electricity. Edison ended up inventing dozens of new devices used to produce and distribute electricity. Items like screw top sockets, meters, insulation, fuses, switches, junction boxes, indicator panels and better dynamos. The improvement of the dynamo in itself was a significant achievement. The dynamo was the device the turned mechanical energy into electrical energy. When Edison started working on the light bulb the best dynamo around produced electricity at only 40% efficiency. He developed one that was 82%

efficient. All these technological development made it possible for Edison to start providing electricity commercially to New York City. By September of 1882 he had opened a central station on Pearl Street in Manhattan and was eventually supplying electricity to a one-mile square section of New York. Edison did make a lot of money off of his inventions but he was never as brilliant a businessman as inventor. In 1878, even before he had a decent light bulb, he had found backers and started a company called the Edison Electric Light Company. As he went along he created a half a dozen other companies in the electric field. They merged in 1889 to form the Edison General Electric Company. In 1892 it merged with a company called Thomson-Houston to form General Electric. The dropping of

Edison’s name was a symbol of the dropping of Edison. He had sold out his shares and power to gain time and money for his other interests. He made a good deal of money, but he sold out too soon. Today General Electric is one of the largest corporations in the world. It has revenues of $70 billion a year, 222,000 employees and operates in 100 countries. http://www.ge.com/ One concludes that although the light bulb was a turning point for American technology, and it allowed us freedom to do anything with out the suns light, it did in some way cause one of the major problems in our world today. The appliances we take for granted today – fans, refrigerators, electric irons and computers – could not be powered by gas. I am sure glad that the electric light was invented it really

has made a huge impact on our world. Grolier multimedia encyclopedia 1998 Internet http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Timeline/Housing19/historyl.htm http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~markd/thefatheroflight.html http://www.ge.com/