Edison tried 1, 600 materials before settling on carbonized cotton fiber as the filament for his electric light bulb.

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The electric light bulb has made darkness optional, eliminating the enforced idleness that used to begin at sunset.

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Both Edison and Swan invented the electric light bulb (or rather, a workable one) at about the same time, Swan beating Edison to a patent by a year.

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General Electric gets light bulb regulations crafted that favor their particular technologies.

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Similarly, Thomas Edison and his Muckers changed our world with the phonograph when he was just thirty years old, and the incandescent electric light-bulb at thirty-two.

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And last spring, the company redesigned the oven, replacing the traditional light bulb used for baking with an electric heating element, then switching the oven's door from the side to the front.

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When in 1883 Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt, arrayed for a fancy-dress ball as Electric Light, topped off her satin and diamonds with a large incandescent bulb, it subtracted nothing from the elegance of the scheme.

ECONOMIST: Going out all over Europe, and beyond